by Garon Whited
“Because I’ve had a fantastic idea. I think. You can rate it when we get home.”
“You know, if you’re going to be clever, I’d feel more comfortable if you did it with something magical or technological.”
“Like a solar fusion gateway reactor?” I asked. She shuddered.
“I stand corrected. Let’s do this. Maybe it’ll keep you out of trouble.”
I shouldered my backpack and we picked our way through the streets. I already had a translation spell and a cooling spell going; I knew what I was getting into. After some asking around and a few copper coins—blank ones; I didn’t have any of the local money, but the metal was the important thing—we found ourselves a hotel.
I call it a hotel. Loosely translated, it was “Bajah’s House of Ten Thousand Pleasures.” I spoke with the doorman, handed him a piece of silver, and got to speak with the proprietor. We spoke for a while, then I clanked gold into his hand and we spoke more privately. Kneeling among piles of cushions, around his business table, I explained what I wanted and added more gold as well as a small pouch of gemstones.
The rest of the day involved delicacies, incense, massage oils, swirling pools of water, beautiful people with feathered fans, musicians, dancers, singers, jugglers, acrobats, silks, cushions, iced treats, hot towels, cool cloths, and everything else the establishment could manage. I may not be up to speed on party planning, but I know enough to hire professionals. The people in the House know how to make a person feel warmly, even intimately welcome.
I noticed Mary smiled a lot. Good start.
“What’s your name?” Mary asked, in English. “What do I call you around here?”
“I’m used to ‘Halar.’ It saves confusion.”
“Check. How did you find this place?”
“A few years ago, Diogenes opened a probe gate and detected transient magical flux—the magical field kept varying up and down. I told him to send through some surveillance drones and he did a more extensive analysis of the region.”
“I mean, this place. The establishment.”
“Oh. I walked along and asked about the absolute best spa or resort in the city. You were there.”
“You mean you didn’t know about this until we arrived?”
“Nope. I was only hoping they had something fairly nice. I wasn’t expecting anything this lavish. Diogenes’ report and the video records led me to believe we would find something workable, though.”
“I’ll say!”
As the day waned, we moved to cool, underground soaking pools, then to warmer baths with scented soaps and assistants. By the time they were done with us, it was nighttime, much cooler, and we were as well-groomed as it is possible to be without surgery.
I wore my black cloak, of course, as well as my armored underwear. In between, I had a loose shirt, a wide sash, billowy trousers, and knee-high boots. Mary had her semi-armored ninja coverall and a fluffy set of robes over it. We both had our usual weapons.
“All right,” she began. “I’m happy, hygienic, and dressed to kill. You’re not dressed like that to go back, so you’ve got something else in mind. Am I going to like it?”
“I sure hope so. According to local legend, there’s a mountain with an enormous cave in it. Inside the cave, protected by seventy-seven traps of unparalleled lethality and vicious cunning, there’s a statue of Brahmantia, a queen known for her ability predict the fate of men. Their fate was always to die—being queen might have had something to do with it, but don’t go saying it near any of the locals. The statue is also her tomb. It is said the statue has a jeweled eye in the center of her forehead, a symbol of Brahmantia’s ability to see into the future.”
“I love you.”
“Oh?”
“And I think I see where this is going.”
“Well, the designers of her tomb included guardians. They sealed in a thousand soldiers to serve as her personal guard in the afterlife—living soldiers, at the time. I presume they’re dead by now, but we’ll soon find out.”
“You found her tomb!” she shouted, clapping her hands.
“Diogenes did. Want to steal the Eye of Brahmantia? We’ll defeat the traps together, then I’ll distract the guards—assuming they’re in any shape to do any guarding—while you climb the statue, pry out the gem, and get back down again.”
“I like this plan!”
“So, let’s get outside the city and open a gate.”
“What for?”
“Transport.”
“How far is it?”
“I picked the closest city, but it’s still at least a hundred miles. I’m not running the whole way.”
“Transport,” she repeated. “Is this a gate for transporting us, or are you calling a cab from Apocalyptica?”
“I’d rather surprise you.”
“You’ve done all right so far. Okay. One more won’t kill me. Will it?”
“I hope not.”
Outside the city, we selected a stretch of road and I called Diogenes. I unwound an enchanted memory-metal wire and we did our usual wormhole-transfer thing.
What came through the gate was a big, fancy chariot, hauled by a pair of matched horses. The gate closed immediately behind it, of course.
The chariot was anachronistic in many ways, mainly because I didn’t care. Ball bearings, leaf springs, shock absorbers, pneumatic tires, alloy rims, carbon-fiber bodywork—all the things one would expect from a thoroughly modern chariot.
The horses were of the Black series of cyborg horses: Big, black, heavy-chested, and unusually lacking in the typical horse mannerisms. Their hooves were split hooves instead of solid, but concealed under the thick feathering around the fetlocks. This hair also concealed a curved, slashing claw, folded up and back into the gap of the split hoof.
I don’t know where Mary and Diogenes found that particular bit of genome. Possibly some sort of cat. Possibly a velociraptor. But the claws are cybernetically enhanced with more durable materials. When these things kick something, it’s gruesome, messy, and reminds me of Jackson Pollock paintings. Or Hieronymous Bosch.
I still detected a whiff of ozone, but at night I can smell a rose even after a pig eats it. It was probably good enough.
Mary and I mounted the chariot. I was pleased to note the horses shifted a bit, rather than standing perfectly still. The fidget subroutine worked. A quick flick of the reins and we were off, accelerating steadily down the bricked road. I didn’t need light to see by and the Blacks have an eye modification for low-light conditions.
I miss Bronze. I always will. But out on an adventure, sixty miles an hour in a chariot is a worthwhile thing in and of itself.
I’m not a thrill-seeker by nature, but I do enjoy the occasional adventure. At least, when I’m in good company.
We broke through the various seals on the tomb entrance. We ignored minor things like impaling spikes. More troublesome traps, like locking stone doors and pits filling with sand, usually involved bashing something to pieces. Mary thought they were interesting, from the point of view of learning to defeat them. I thought they were interesting from an engineering perspective.
No poison traps, though. Maybe because poisons don’t usually last long? Probably.
The legend was also incorrect about the number. There were seven traps, not seventy-seven. Darn minstrels, always making the stories bigger to wow the crowd.
The final door was a slab of stone. I had to kick it twice before it fell inward, reminding me of the time in Zirafel when I chased Tobias to the Plaza at the End of the World. The slab felt flat with a deep, gritty thud, but didn’t break. We regarded the chamber.
The door entered at ground level. Before us was a flat, stone floor in a huge, domed cavern. An enormous pedestal stood in the center, itself perhaps a hundred feet across, bearing a giant statue of the queen, seated—or, rather, enthroned. The statue was beautifully carved and adorned with inlaid gold and sparkly bits. The pedestal was ringed about by a twenty-foot gap of some undet
ermined depth.
The thousand soldiers? Yeah, zombies. Armed and armored and all shuffling toward the sound of the broken-down door. I wondered if zombies hunted by sound or smell or sight. Can they see in total darkness? Or is it some other kind of sensory mechanism?
Mary went up the wall in the hope armored zombies don’t climb well. Plus, she could cling like a spider and work her way around, sideways, to find a practical way across to the statue. It’s a neat trick, climbing like that. It involves her psychic tendril, vampire claws, innate talent, and training in free-climbing. I can do it, at least to a degree. My problems are I weigh significantly more and lack her skill, so I generally cheat—I use spells.
The higher levels of the cavern were too far off vertical for even Mary to cling to barehanded, so going up and over and dropping down wasn’t going to work. Still, if I could distract the zombie army, she could do her job. Maybe going down one side of the pedestal’s moat and up the other would be feasible.
I drew my Sword of Cut Everything and amped myself up to the speed of dark.
Mary’s the subtle one. It goes with being a professional thief. I’m as subtle as a kick in the teeth. What I do have going for me in a fight is blinding speed, overwhelming strength, magical weaponry, and one hell of a lot of training.
Zombie parts went everywhere.
The real trick was to keep moving. There were tons of them and they had no qualms about getting in each other’s way. They were a mob, which is typical for zombies. Staying in motion meant they couldn’t wash over me like the tide. There were some difficult moments, of course, but I developed a technique. They eventually started crowding me, forming a thick mass I sliced into zombie bits. I stayed near the wall, though, so when the press grew too dense, I could leap up from the pile of body parts, kick off the wall to sail over them, and start running through the thinner areas, killing more of them in passing as I headed for a new spot next to a wall. By and large, it was a game of lethal tackle-tag where the enemy obeyed pretty much the reverse of Charles’ Law of gases.
I didn’t get to watch Mary climb the statue or remove the forehead gem. I didn’t get to watch her duel with the undead queen. I didn’t realize Brahmantia would be so upset about the theft. I’m sorry I missed the fight. All I heard was Mary swearing, angry sibilants in a language I don’t speak, and the shriek of the dead queen’s defeat.
Not long after, Mary whistled piercingly, a high-pitched, almost ultrasonic thing that bounced around the cavern surprisingly well. I played hopscotch along armored zombie heads on my way to the door. We didn’t have a way to close the door—oops. My fault, there—but Mary had already gathered a pile of zombie parts to partly block the door. I leaped over the pile in the doorway, killed another dozen or so of the pursuing corpses to add to it, and stepped back.
“What are you doing?” Mary demanded. “We’ve got the Eye! Let’s go!”
“It would be irresponsible to let the zombies out,” I replied. She rolled her eyes.
“Oh, if you insist. I suppose you’re right,” she added, drawing knives. “We can’t let the undead horde go rampaging over the world, looking for us.”
“Exactly,” I agreed, slicing the first of the zombies soldiers as it finished climbing over the pile of predecessors. A thousand zombies is a lot. Mary and I backed up another step, allowing the undead minions to squeeze through the choke point before dismembering them. Several hundred were still animate and coming after us. Now, though, with a choke point and an ally, we tore them apart as fast as they could come at us.
Mindless zombies are easily manageable. It’s the smarter ones you have to watch out for.
Once we finished off the last one, Mary and I held still, not even breathing, to listen for any sounds of movement. The place was silent as a tomb. A good night’s work, I thought.
Outside, I handed Mary into the chariot and I unwound the wire gateway. Mary stopped me long enough to grab me by the ears and kiss me soundly. She then drew the Eye of Brahmantia from her hip pouch and presented it to me.
It was a disk-shaped, colorless gem, faceted all around the edge, framing a central, many-sided center. The center was almost perfectly flat and clear. I didn’t see any enchantment in the material, whatever it was. I held it up to the moonlight and regarded it. It shed a few flakes of pale rainbow, much like glass or diamond.
“Keep it,” Mary told me. “You earned it.”
Nothing like robbing a tomb for a romantic night out, I guess. I set up the gateway and we drove through into Apocalyptica.
Apocalyptica, Friday, September 11th, Year 11
Mary was still smiling when she skipped off to work today. I wondered what she had to do, so I asked Diogenes for a rundown of anything he knew about.
The woman isn’t an international jewel thief. She’s a power-suited CEO disguised as an international jewel thief. Or maybe I have it backward. Either way, she’s utterly crushing the role of business executive. I don’t pay much attention to her trade deals between worlds, much less the financial details inside any of them. Diogenes and Mary tell me when I need to be the male figurehead at a meeting or sign something in person.
In most cases, they manage pretty well without me. Diogenes handles most of the stuff already set up—phone calls, emails, letters, all the things not requiring a face. Mary is the face. She talks to buyers and to suppliers. She negotiates deals. She reviews contracts before handing them to lawyers. She hires lawyers and law firms and accountants and whatever. The whole structure of supply from other worlds, flowing in to assist Diogenes in his restructuring and recycling of this one, would come apart without her.
Oh, some of the arrangements would hold. Some of the more technological worlds don’t need a face. Diogenes can handle everything through the cyber-inter-compu-info-whatevernet, now that she’s set it all up. Some of the other operations will run without supervision, like the drop box for the Castiglione family—barring interference, of course. Still, the majority of it works only because she keeps it working.
The things you learn by asking. I would never have guessed the fun-loving, adventure-seeking woman I know also possesses a keen business sense. I wonder if she gets bored being an international jewel thief. I wonder if she gets bored being a high-powered business tycoon. Maybe she enjoys both. She seems to. Could be the business side of things is just another form of theft, to her. More properly, it’s another sort of outmaneuvering people. She does enjoy a challenge.
Diogenes interrupted my musings with an update.
“By the way, Professor. The Moon is no longer calling.”
“Oh? They’ve stopped transmitting entirely?”
“Signals have not been directed at Earth in a statistically-significant length of time. They continue to talk between various points in orbit.”
“Fair enough. Maybe we can get away with continuing to ignore each other.”
“We have for eleven years,” Diogenes pointed out.
“Okay. Let me know if anything changes.”
“Of course, Professor. Shall we experiment with the effects of force field generators and magical wormholes? The silo nine setup is waiting.”
“Refresh my memory on the force fields we have available.”
“They are what you call ‘lab units,’ Professor. A typical field generator masses two tons and produces a field nearly a meter in diameter before it attenuates. The smaller the field, the more powerful it is, however.”
“Still no force-field belts?”
“Still no force-field belts.”
“Too bad. We’ll hold off on experimenting with field effects and wormholes for a while longer, I think.”
“As you wish, Professor. Do you wish to enchant a new solar power gate and your figurines?”
“Those are a priority. Yes. I’ll head over to the enchanting room.”
The gateway was simple enough. Diogenes milled the ring out of a special magnetic compound instead of iridium. It would need more power to maintain the gate, bu
t if this worked, power wouldn’t be a problem. He also gave me the mounting bracket for the gate. I enchanted it with the best heat-exchange spell I knew how to make. There’s a practical limit on how much energy a given surface area inside the Sun can absorb. My hope was to keep sucking thermal energy out of the structure of the gate fast enough to keep it from melting. The magnetic structure of the gate was key to that. By placing specialized magnetic fields around the gate at this end, it should re-radiate the magnetic fields there, since it would exist in both locations. In theory, this would prevent nuclear plasma from touching it, limiting the heat absorption to radiated energy, rather that direct conduction.
As a side effect, drawing heat out of the gate would increase the efficiency of the system. By pumping all the heat away from the gate… well, it had to go somewhere, and the whole point of a fusion reactor is to supply massive amounts of heat.
On the down side, it also required an electromagical transformer of its own, as well as some pretty heavy power crystals for the initial firing of the test reactor. I’m not sure it’s as practical as we hoped, compared to simply building the darn fusion ignition and fuel systems. On the other hand, we didn’t need to maintain a fusion reaction. We only needed to contain the plasma stream from the gate. You win some, you lose some.
I’m also cheating a little. Diogenes’ original coordinates were for the interior of the Sun, where it’s several million degrees. However, if we aim for the edge of the Sun—the equivalent of the crust of Earth—the plasma is only a few thousand degrees. This is an important change because, once we got the idea the gate would physically be there, other considerations reared their ugly heads. The radiation, for one thing. Bombarding the materials of the gate with even a fraction of the radiation present—to say nothing of the pressure—is bad for the gate structure.