Void: Book Five of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  “Uh… yes, I guess it would. If I’d known you were that close to finishing, though, I would have called it quits sooner!”

  “But now we have one thousand probe gates. If you wish to search the catalog again for some specific quality, it will be relatively quick.”

  “There is that,” I admitted. “Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t tell me.”

  “I thought so.”

  “I’m not sure whether to be pleased or worried that you’re managing me.”

  “Evidence suggests someone has to,” Diogenes responded, “and Mary is engaged in other activities.”

  “Ouch. Okay. So, do we have any hits on the Boojum radar?”

  “Yes. Forty-six so far have registered strong interactions. Six more have weak interactions, indicating possible contact in the recent past. Of all these contacts, two are non-Earth analogues. The rest are all Earth-universes. However, there is a common element in all Earth worlds.”

  “Hold it. Before we get into that, is Dracula’s World one of the hits?”

  “No, Professor.”

  “That’s weird. The world is openly dominated by vampires. I would have bet money it was full of black-souled bloodsuckers.”

  “Apparently not. It does, however, share a common feature with other Earth-analogue worlds.”

  “Oh?”

  “The low-grade contact—the ‘hiss’ you reported here, in Apocalyptica—appears to be present in all the alternate Earth universes which do not have a current Boojum signature.”

  “Interesting. Also disturbing. What’s the intensity of the latent signal in the Earth-analogues?”

  “It has an inverse correlation with the year. Later periods all have lower levels than earlier eras.”

  “How does it compare across alternate Earths of the same year?”

  “The signal appears to be identical within the margins of error for the sensor. All 2050 Earths have the same level of signal strength for the Boojum, which is a detectably weaker signal than the 1950 Earths.”

  “And all the 1950 Earth worlds have identical signal strength?”

  “Within the limits of the sensor, yes, Professor. A brief calibration run indicates it may be a valid method of determining the approximate date in worlds without wireless communications technology.”

  “You mean you can check the signal strength and tell what year it is? It’s that pervasive?”

  “It is that pervasive. The accuracy is insufficient for the year, but the century is not unreasonable.”

  “Weird.”

  “Which is why I bring it to your attention.”

  “It almost seems,” I began, walking out of the probe room and into the corridor, “as though the Boojum was present across all the Earth universes at some point.”

  “It would account for the observed data.”

  “See, now, this bothers me.”

  “In what way?”

  I stepped into the shift-booth and emerged in the residence complex. I headed for the media room.

  “This thing showed up in Karvalen after I stabbed the Devourer’s would-be avatar with a soul-stabbing fork. It stepped right into the shoes of a defunct deity as though it was waiting for the opportunity. It’s also different from the other gods of Karvalen, or so I’m told. Now we suspect the thing used to be omnipresent in all the Earth-worlds we’ve found.”

  “Did it do so immediately after the destruction of the Devourer?”

  “I… hmm. I don’t know. I’m not certain as to how long a delay there was. It couldn’t have been too long or the real Lord of Light would have been reconstituted by the ongoing worship of his faithful.”

  “Your conclusion, Professor?”

  “I don’t have a conclusion. I have an hypothesis. I think the Boojum was present far enough back in the past to precede most of the alternate-reality branchings. I think the multiple-universe tree we’ve got going on here is the result of a single, original universe branching out into multiple alternate timelines. And the Boojum was present in the beginning before being kicked out.”

  “An hypothesis requires testing, Professor,” Diogenes pointed out.

  “No, turning an hypothesis into a theory requires testing,” I countered. “I’m happy with my hypothesis. I have no desire to go testing it.”

  “No?”

  “No. Last time I had a discussion with the Boojum, I got my ass handed to me and nearly got Firebrand shattered. He did shatter most of my armor, and me inside it! Plus, he blew a big piece of the Darkwood Forest straight to hell when he lost. If it weren’t for Bronze, Mary, and my altar ego, I’d have been ashes on the breeze. I’m not screwing around with the guy, not even to ask him if he remembers the good old days when he used to swim in the primordial instant universe soup mix of the Big Bang.”

  “Understood. How does this relate to his apparent minions in Karvalen?”

  “Those are fair game. The other entities of Karvalen are imposing their own rules on the place. He apparently has to play by them. At least, he has to play by their rules or risk their unified wrath. That’s close enough.”

  “As you wish, Professor.”

  “So, we’ve got two worlds floating in the void and forty-four Earths with Boojum badness. What do we know about them?

  Screens flared to life all around me. I settled into my chair to listen.

  Apocalyptica, Sunday, October 12th, Year 11

  Of the forty-four Earth worlds with a significant Boojum presence, they ranged in date from roughly the second century B.C. to the mid twenty-third century. Diogenes obviously didn’t have much information on the worlds with lower technology, but the eight with an Internet or close equivalent were much as we expected. What differences they had from “my” Earth were largely superficial. In one world, they never tried forming the European Union. In another, Puerto Rico became the fifty-first state. These did change some things, but mostly they were lines on a map, not fundamental alterations in the culture and economy of the planet. In the larger scheme of things, superficial.

  I’m starting to think people don’t change.

  In none of the technological worlds did Diogenes find overt signs of supernatural activity. No confirmed vampires, no captive werewolves, allegations of magical tampering with witnesses—they barely even had a decent Bigfoot story. This was par for the low-magic environment of the Earth worlds, but I don’t know what I expected. More bloodless corpses in the news, maybe.

  “Do you think he’s trying to avoid notice?” I asked.

  “It is one possible explanation, Professor. Do you understand his motives or capabilities?”

  “No. Well, I don’t know. I believe he’s invading multiple worlds with this species of vampire to draw power from them. When the vampires feed on the blood of their victims, they also feed on the power of their spirits. I’m not real up on the bioenergetic processes of simulata, angels, or demigods, so I’m not sure how it works, only that it does.”

  “Is it possible he is unable to project sufficient force to enter these worlds?”

  “Possibly. He may be hiding out in Karvalen while he sucks up power from multiple Earth worlds. He might be preparing for a full-scale invasion of an Earth world. He can’t exactly use much of that power in Karvalen, right now. Unless…”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s also possible he’s building up his reserves to take on all the gods of Karvalen.”

  “By drawing power from multiple worlds, he accesses sources unavailable to the others,” Diogenes clarified. “When he has sufficient strength, he will no longer be bound by their rules and can dominate the world of Karvalen as the sole deity.”

  “It might be possible.”

  Diogenes was silent while I thought about it. It could work. The gods of Karvalen have a few worlds they know about and manifest on, a small neighborhood of islands in the void. If the Boojum draws on power sources they cannot reach, it can—

  Human sacrifices! It’s not allowed to expend more than a trickle of e
nergy on Karvalen, yet it still demands human sacrifices! In the long run, they don’t provide as much energy as a lifetime of worship from a devout follower, but they’re immediate. They’re like cashing in a stock portfolio. You get a wad of cash, but you lose the opportunity to have a steady income from it.

  He’s after power. Immediate, need-it-now power.

  No, hold on. He can’t be telling his followers to commit human sacrifice. So why are they? Did he have a contingency plan in case he got quiet all of a sudden? Or is there a high priest with a busted moral compass and an itch to get back the powers of the priesthood?

  Either way, the Boojum was gaining power at an alarming rate. If it kept this up, it might choose to challenge the gods of Karvalen simply because it could.

  “I think I need to do some more testing,” I said. “I might even need to do some exterminating.”

  After careful consideration, I decided to check the void-worlds first. I had a couple of reasons for this. First, landing in low-magic zones to investigate vampires draws unreasonable attention—not only from the locals, but also, potentially, from the thing energizing them and using them as a food supply. Second, there were only two void-worlds on the list. I figured I might as well check them off before starting on the longer list of Earth-worlds.

  Sadly, given the distortions of scrying spells through gates, the only effective way to understand the general setup of a world is to go talk to the locals.

  Bronze wanted to come along. The Impala wasn’t exactly appropriate, I felt. She chose one of the Blacks as a body, rather than the statue. I’m not sure why, exactly, but I think she was trying to be less conspicuous. I took it as a hint.

  Rather than wearing obvious armor, I went with more of a traveling outfit. Bracers, yes, mostly because they could be easily concealed. My bulletproof underwear, for the same reason. Firebrand on one side, my saber on the other. But the rest of the outfit was as generic and downscale as I could make it. Even my cloak got into it, rippling slowly into a more threadbare, patchwork, tattered-seeming guise. Aside from the swords, I could have walked through medieval London or some areas of modern-day New York and drawn only curious glances.

  Of course, seeing swords sometimes causes comment. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Even riding a Black might cause comment if horses were rare, expensive, or nonexistent. Still, it was less exciting than an animated, giant statue of a horse. You do what you can and hope for the best.

  Diogenes was still putting the Niagara gate rooms in order—I distracted him with other projects—but the variable-aperture gate room was undamaged by the grey goo incident. We set ourselves up in there and I started wrapping us up in cloaking spells to avoid detection.

  “What’s the magical environment like in our first target?”

  “High,” Diogenes reported. “The intensity has remained stable through all probes. Atmosphere has pre-Industrial levels of pollution. No radio traffic, only background radiation levels.”

  “Sounds like Karvalen.”

  “There are similarities. The geography of the world has not yet been determined.”

  “It’s got gravity?”

  “Or something that acts like gravity,” Diogenes agreed. “Karvalen’s physical laws preclude gravity as we understand it.”

  “Point taken. Bloody damn flat world…”

  We were ready. Diogenes and I dialed up the targeting gate next to the main gate. He supplied the address for the world while I supplied the will to seek the Boojum signature. It does no good to land in Antarctica if the thing you’re looking for is in Hawaii.

  The interior of the smaller, targeting gate flushed away and snapped back. Diogenes checked the time. It was nighttime, which I appreciated. With that assurance, I surveyed the scenery. Our gateway was somewhere in the mountains. The weather smelled ready for a thunderstorm. No one was in sight and there was a path nearby. Good enough.

  I mounted up and Diogenes transferred the targeting gate to the main gate. It rippled, wavering for a moment, and settled into stillness. Bronze and I moved forward, out of a large, triangular opening formed by a piece of mountainside and a dead, tilted tree. The plane of the opening behind us shredded into nothingness, leaving us amid fitful rain and some muttering thunder.

  Bronze found the trail and followed it. I sat in the saddle and raised up a false-color sensor spell, looking at the world in various spectra—radio, microwave, infrared, all the usual. Diogenes already did a basic scan of the place, but I didn’t want to be surprised.

  Boss?

  Hmm? I thought back.

  Where are we going?

  Good question. We’re on a trail. It should go somewhere. We can ask when we get there.

  So, it doesn’t matter?

  Not really. I’m just looking for people and for a Boojum.

  I sat up straighter as I realized what I was doing. Or, rather, what I wasn’t doing.

  Boss?

  “I said, maybe I should give up exploring and just be a peeping tom. We have the spells for it!”

  Uh?

  I can cast scrying spells. Now that I’m here, the gate won’t distort them.

  Bronze halted, cocked her head, laid her ears back. She sniffed at the air, not liking what she scented. She tossed her head, flicking her mane back to get my attention. I thought it moved somewhat independently of the wind and gravity. No, it definitely did. I brushed aside my sensory spell.

  “What is it?”

  She stomped once, soundlessly. I should check if I smelled what she smelled. I did. Ozone dissipating, yes… also ashes, scorched wood, a trace of blood and burnt flesh… a sick, rotting smell, like dying earth in a diseased forest… and a cloying, oily odor, with a slight taste of sulphur.

  “I smell it,” I agreed.

  She says it smells like dragon, Firebrand supplied. You think it’s anything from Karvalen?

  “No. I doubt it’s anything related. The harmonics are all wrong. Similar, maybe, but not a relative.”

  Harmonics?

  This place doesn’t have… what’s the word? It has a different set of parameters from Karvalen. There may be dragons, but I doubt they’re descended from the ones the Heru created.

  The Heru are supposed to be chaos entities, and this is a world floating in the void, right?

  Point taken. We’ll be cautious.

  Bronze continued along the trail. I kept glancing up, just in case. You never know when a huge, leather-winged monster will descend from the roiling clouds of a thunderstorm to strafe you with unholy fire.

  For most people, it’s not that big a concern.

  The path took us upward, winding its way through rocky terrain and out along the edge of a mountainside. It started to rain in earnest and the sky blackened to a heaving sea of ink, broken occasionally by white lines of lightning.

  I smelled something, a characteristic smell on a whip of the wind. Bronze sensed it and stopped, planting hooves and waiting. She turned to look at me and I patted her shoulder before sliding to the ground. My sense of smell is quite keen, but in this sort of weather, there was only one scent that could trigger such an instant recognition. Blood.

  I peered over the edge of the trail. The rocky face of the mountain wasn’t vertical, but it was close. And, somewhere down there, not too far away, there was blood. Human blood.

  If someone was alive down there, it would be quite helpful to be a rescuer. They might tell a traveler from a distant land anything he wanted to know. And if they were already dead, going through their pockets might be revealing. It was worth a shot.

  I started down the mountainside, fingers and fingernails gripping the stone, tendrils of invisible darkness reaching out through each point of contact, grasping large chunks of the rock face. I worked my way down the rock like a spider until I came to a ledge. Below, the rock face was sheer and vertical and maybe tilted outward just a hair. A long way down, a tumbling mountain stream foamed and rushed in the rain and the darkness. I pressed back against the rock
as I stood there on the ledge, edging my way toward a rocky overhang and muttering to myself.

  “Yeah, I should learn a flying spell, someday. Always someday.”

  Don’t you know one, Boss?

  I have a recipe for one, I corrected. I can do it, if I have some eagle or hawk feathers, a brazier to burn them in, pure rainwater to generate a small cloud, and twenty minutes to work on it.

  So… not practical?

  Not right now! Besides, I added, trying to focus on my sideways shuffle, I hate flying spells. There’s something very wrong with the way they make me feel.

  How is that?

  Nauseous.

  The ledge I edged along ended under an overhang of rock, running into a cleft. The cleft was a narrow one, barely wide enough to reach into—or out of. I add the last part because a hand projected from the cleft. The man it belonged to was lying awkwardly inside a narrow passage, unable to pass the crack in the rock. He wore armor and smelled bloody. The oily, sulphurous smell was much stronger, as well, borne out of the cave on a slight breeze.

  I gauged the cleft. A man in plate armor wouldn’t fit. I, on the other hand, start out slim and my armor isn’t much thicker than clothes. I edged into the cleft, exhaling, squeezing, shifting back and forth to work my way through. I fit, barely, but it’s a good thing I don’t need to breathe.

  Once inside the cave, there was almost enough room to kneel over the guy. It didn’t help he was built like a brick—wide and thick. Even if he wasn’t in armor, he’d never fit through the crevice. He had to have come from deeper in the cave, presumably trying to find a way out.

  Given the holes in his armor, I’d say he found a dragon’s lair. Big, piercing teeth punched holes in breastplate and the thigh plates. The mouth on that thing must be over two feet wide, maybe close to three. It might swallow smaller men without chewing.

  Blood crawled out of the holes and around the edges of the armor, slithering its way to me. I worked him over quickly, sealing up his injuries to prevent further bleeding. He wasn’t in good shape. Multiple broken bones, deeply-penetrating wounds, a cracked skull, and no way out of the cave.