by J. S. Morin
“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” Cadmus said by way of greeting.
“I try not to seem surprised by anything,” Harwick replied. “It’s bad for my image. Close the door and have a seat. Care for anything to drink?” He fussed over a side table cluttered with bottles before deciding on one and pouring himself a glass.
“Water?” Cadmus asked as he slid into a chair across from the Chief Magistrate. The man was everything he remembered, albeit older and less rotund. The office was decorated to convey gravitas, lined with walls of bookshelves filled with legal treatises and histories, with velvet upholstered chairs and old polished wood.
“Nasty stuff. Don’t touch the swill myself,” Harwick said, giving no indication he would provide any. “So what brings a dead tinker to my office in the dark of twilight?”
“Dead?”
“We got reports from crews that had been to Tinker’s Island, found the place in ruins, empty, abandoned. You’re presumed dead, my good man,” said Harwick. He held up his glass. “Congratulations on defying your reputed death.”
“We have business to discuss.”
“Business?” Harwick asked with a smile. “Are you operating out of the back of a wagon? You have no business. Your business went belly up, tossed in the fire, scattered like dandelion fluff on the wind. What kind of business are you in any position to conduct?”
“I have need of a Veydran sorcerer,” Cadmus said. Harwick’s brow knit.
“A what, now?” Harwick asked, his eyes darting toward the door.
Cadmus leaned across the desk that separated them. “You are a one-worlded Kadrin sorcerer, and you’re just the man for a job I have.”
“I think you have mistaken me for someone,” Harwick said, shaking his head.
Cadmus nodded. “I understand. Ears all over.” He raised a finger in the air and waggled it. “Let’s take this someplace private.”
Behind his chair, a world-hole opened. Beyond lay the lunar headquarters of the Human Rebellion of Korr. The effect on Harwick was astonishing. A childlike grin broke out on his face. The old magistrate stood and put his hands on his desk, leaning to look past Cadmus as if he had ceased to exist. “Remarkable.”
“Come on,” said Cadmus. “We’ll have you back soon enough. For now, come see what our business is going to be about.”
Harwick followed Cadmus through the world-hole like a kid riding the thunderail for his first time. Years melted away from the old man’s gait as he wandered along the banks of a river that started in one end of a room and ended in the other. The control console fascinated him. He looked back through the world-hole to his own office.
Cadmus put a finger to his lips lest Jamile say anything to spoil the moment. He was willing to let the one-worlder enjoy himself, if that meant he would be easier to deal with.
“Fine,” Harwick said. “You have it out of me: I’ve worked a bit of magic in my day. But if you can manage this, what do you need me for?”
Cadmus nodded to Jamile, who returned the hole to just being an image. “If you’ll join me in the kitchen, I can explain.”
“I have so many questions,” Harwick said. “I … I’m a man rarely at a loss for words, but I don’t know where to begin.”
“For a wordless man, you use a lot of them,” Cadmus observed. “If you’ve got the time, I can answer a great heaping pile of questions, but I’ll start with one you haven’t asked. You’ve already figured out that I’m probably twinborn, but this isn’t Veydrus or Tellurak.”
Harwick’s head snapped around; the statement was enough to drag his attention from his surroundings. “Then where are we?”
“Korr,” said Cadmus. “It’s a world with a rotted core, where humans are fighting for their lives and freedom.”
Harwick’s eyes narrowed. “Wait just a minute … you’re raising an army. You’re the one taking farmers from their fields, aren’t you!”
Cadmus was taken aback. “What are you talking about?”
“For a week, I’ve been getting reports of farms ransacked. There are bodies left behind, but far more just vanish. You’re conscripting!”
Cadmus held up a warning hand. Old as he was, Harwick was a large man, and a sorcerer as well. He didn’t want to be the target of his ire. “I hadn’t heard, but I can assure you, it wasn’t our side.”
“Your side?”
“The Human Rebellion. I’m fighting to save our people.”
“Gut me, and choke me with my own entrails,” said Harwick. “Your bloody war is spilling into my world, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Cadmus. “It would appear so.”
“I still don’t know where I fit into all this.”
“You’re going to help us win our war,” Cadmus said. “Because from the sound of things, it’s become your war now, too.”
Harwick waved his arm around the cavern. “You can do all this, and you need my help? What can one dried up sorcerer do?”
“He can read the instruction manual.”
Chapter 7
“Do not despair at finding yourself in an unfamiliar world. These simple steps will help you survive until help arrives.” – Traveler’s Companion: Basic Survival, Introduction
The countryside spread out before Bvatrain, a blanket of green to warm the slumbering earth. The air had a different smell to it than he remembered, more fragrant, less wild. But it had been so long, it would have been stranger had things stayed as they were. He carried neither weapon nor pack. No beast carried him nor followed behind with his belongings. He simply strolled the land barefoot, following no road, enjoying the feel of sod and wild grasses between his toes.
Overhead, a pair of birds frolicked in the air, descendants of the avian creatures he once knew, striving for yet a new generation. Stretching out his arms, the birds took note and alighted, distracted from the mating chase. “Hello, old friends. I have returned.”
The birds were simple creatures with no capacity to understand the demon’s words. The magnetic draw that had summoned them petered away, and they resumed their courtship. Bvatrain stood and watched them for a time, smiling, before he took up his journey again. He had no destination. This place, all of it, was where he wanted to be. The natives called it Takalia, and the residents had taken good care of his old homeland.
Ancient feet, supple and strong as those of any infantryman or wandering minstrel, set their own path across the land. As night approached they carried Bvatrain to a settlement. Neither wall nor fortress protected it, which struck him as fanciful. What manner of people had his lost kinfolk become, that they did not fear armies or bandits any longer?
He paused in sight of a road, his keen eyes stronger than those that might spy him wading amid the wild grasses. The clothes he wore would never go unnoticed. His sash and pantaloons belonged in another age, and no other traveler bared his chest to the sun. After watching a dozen small groups entering the city, he clothed himself in similar style—colorful shirt, drab jacket and trousers. Bvatrain chose lavender for his shirt, a charcoal grey for his other attire. He conjured boots that lacked the telltale shine of a new purchase, letting them look worn from years on the road.
The city blended with the countryside, and Bvatrain could not quite tell at what point he entered its border. The farmhouses grew more frequent, the farms smaller. Roads converged, grew wider; the ruts of wagon wheels were replaced with packed dirt, then cobblestones. Stores and workplaces interspersed … that was probably the point at which it became a city, when the workplaces mixed with homes. The babble all around him was a language he had never heard, though a note here or there recalled dead tongues he spoke fluently. He could hear the emotion in the words, the brusque conduct of business, the casual greeting of acquaintances, the laughing calls of one child to another.
Smoke rose to the sky in a plume like a feather in the city’s hat. It was summertime, and there was little need for fires besides cooking. Bvatrain followed the smoke, as many of the inhabitants seemed to be
doing. People flowed likes streams into a river, the tributaries joining, seeking the sea together.
Music. There was music ahead. It was a festival, one whose origins no doubt held ancient roots that Bvatrain predated by ten thousand years. He grinned.
The smoke came from a bonfire in the central plaza of the town. Musicians filled the air with a jaunty melody, all fiddles and drums. Smaller fires scattered around the plaza cooked spitted meats, and barrels of spirituous drinks provided merriment to those who did not come by it naturally. Bvatrain wended his way through the crowd, greeting smile with smile, and answering words with a nod. A man with a crippled leg leaned against a table, and pressed an ashwood cup into Bvatrain’s hand. The demon took it gladly in both hands, accepted it as a gift, and gave a shallow bow.
While mostly alcohol, Bvatrain smelled strawberry and vanilla, with a hint of potato lying beneath. He sipped it, savoring the gentle tingle on his lips and tongue, the scratching burn as he swallowed. Though as a demon he had reshaped his body over the countless centuries of his life, he could still allow the drink to take a semblance of hold over him.
A stout man clapped him on the back, leaving the hand there as he spoke. Bvatrain heard the words as gibberish, but chose instead to listen to the man’s thoughts so that he might converse. “Don’t recall seeing you around here before, friend. And I know people. It’s my business.”
“And what business might that be?” Bvatrain asked. Though his words were in a great-grandfather tongue to the one the modern Takalishman spoke, he lent the ideas to the man’s mind directly.
The man took his hand from Bvatrain’s back and offered it for shaking. “Ganshii dar Sullin, Mayor of Faijun, at your service.”
Bvatrain knew the custom, which had once been a test of grips between warriors who met upon the road. He could have crushed every bone in the man’s hand without effort, but gave a firm squeeze instead—enough to show respect, and earn it. “I am Bvatrain.”
“What brings you to our midsummer festival, Bvatrain? Where you from? You don’t mind me saying, I expect I wouldn’t have missed a man like you living in the villages.”
“The smoke summoned me,” he said. “And I am from very close to here. I have spent my time abroad, gone places and seen things I would never have dreamed as a boy. But I thought it was time to come home and see some old friends.”
“You have family around here?”
You are probably a descendant of mine. A drop of blood in the ocean, but you must bear some trace, living here. I came to see the mountains, the only ones who would remember me, but you would not understand that.
“Not any longer,” Bvatrain said. “They have passed on. I had been gone so long, in fact, that I feared to come back.”
“What’s there to fear? You run from some sort of trouble?”
“No, nothing like that,” Bvatrain replied. “My grandfather once told me that if you leave a place for long enough, it will have changed by the time you return. You will have changed while you were gone. Two pieces removed from one another, reshaped, cannot be fit together once again.” He gestured with two hands to show ill-fitting pieces.
“And was your grandfather right?”
Bvatrain smiled. “Yes. And no. You see, the pieces can be shaped to fit again. They remember. Turn the piece on its side, and you may find that the old shape is still there, but you did not see it.”
The mayor smiled and shook his head. “You’re a philosopher then.”
“I am a demon,” Bvatrain said, but he let the mayor think that he had simply agreed.
Viyax had changed his form to match the surroundings. Instead of bronzed skin, he turned it a pasty grey, with just enough color to keep him from looking deathly ill. All around him he saw beards braided and plaited in fanciful styles. He did them all one better by weaving a beard of his own in the style of an ancient Garnevian tapestry. Curious eyes followed him wherever he went, and the gossip amused him to no end. The creatures spoke daruu, a language incapable of change, and Viyax spoke it like a native son. Languages were a hobby of his. When you needed to cross-reference two dead calendar systems with a modern one to determine your age, you tended to acquire a great many hobbies.
Another of his hobbies was instigation. Demons, as a general rule, were static creatures. Most of them hated change that moved faster than continental drift, but not Viyax. Living among them, he often found ways to prod them into action, to force them to be interesting, to trick them into providing him entertainment. He knew the questions to ask, the pranks to play, the topics to mention in passing to rile any of his fellow immortals. Torvarin would argue for days that mortals were a great experiment by the gods, left to run amok. Zi Yik Lai would be out of sorts for days if the wrong bee pollinated a flower in her garden. Illiardra kept a secret lust for mortal love to replace the life she never lived. When he grew bored—which happened all too often—he simply chose a demon and teased forth some amusement.
The transport gates offered a whole new solution to his yearnings. No longer was he stranded in a single, stale old world. Korr had changed since his last visit, and he had never paid it much mind when it had been easily accessible. It had been there; that was the best he could have said for it. Now? Now it was a playground.
He fell in with a pack of kuduks—creatures whose existence was new to him—and followed along to see where they were going. They wore colorful shirts, more likely to be festival garb than any sort of uniform, but they were dressed similarly to one another, and far differently from the conservative clothes most of their kind wore. It held the promise that they were planning something fun.
Their destination was an underground amphitheater, surrounding a rectangle of flat ground, painted with lines and numbers. Someone at the door collected tickets from each of the kuduks in line, but let Viyax pass with a befuddled look. Hordes of kuduks funneled through the doors and filtered into seats, preferring the lowest sections, closest to the stage. The walls were hung with banners and signs of all manner, mostly touting the merits of commercial products. A different sort offered bold encouragement to a group known as the Cuminol Rockslide, with colors that matched those of his tagalong companions. He took a seat among them and hoped to blend in.
“So, excellent night for a performance of the Cuminol Rockslide, wouldn’t you fellows say?” Viyax asked, smiling as he squeezed himself between two of them and put arms around their shoulders.
“Who’s the leaking pipe?” one of his newfound companions asked the other, talking past him as if Viyax wasn’t there.
“Dunno,” said the other. “Pound screws, fella. These are our seats.”
“Pardon me, but this is my first time attending such an event,” Viyax replied, nonplussed. There was a certain bravery that came with the knowledge that he was speaking with the equivalent of precocious children. “Would you mind giving me the looks-around?” He had heard the term in passing from other kuduks in the tunnels and used it to sound native.
“Listen, pal,” the first companion said. “I punched nine hours today grinding trolley wheels, and paid half a day’s wage for my ticket. I don’t see me flushing my night to explain crashball to a country yokel.”
“Hey, where you from, anyway?” the second companion asked. “Ain’t heard an accent like that before.”
“That’s because I speak properly, and don’t torture the language until it howls in pain, as seems to be the local custom.”
“Hey buddy,” the second companion said, taking Viyax by the collar. “You spoilin’ for a fight?”
“Spoiling,” Viyax corrected him. “You’re clipping the end. Takes practice, but it’ll make you sound more intelligent.”
Viyax ducked the punch that followed with a grace that belied the stocky form he wore. The lack of a solid destination for the blow left the kuduk who threw it even angrier, and within moments, Viyax parlayed that reckless abandon for satisfaction into a full-fledged brawl. Kuduks who had no quarrel a moment ago took umbrage to be
ing jostled and shoved, having their drinks spilled, and generally being collateral damage in a conflict that didn’t involve them. Viyax made sure that it came to involve them.
Strolling out of the amphitheater against a flow of peace officers with clubs in hand, Viyax whistled a tune meant to be played by a daruu bassoon. It was the first melody that sprang to mind. War Among Brothers was its title, and though it lacked lyrics, Viyax had always imagined that it described such a scene.
“Pardon me,” Viyax said, catching a passing woman by the arm. “But where might I find the humans? I heard that there were humans around here.”
“What do you want humans for?” the woman asked, aghast as she yanked her arm free. When Viyax just shrugged, she replied. “Get down two layers, and learn some manners.”
Viyax frowned, regarding the woman as she backed away from him. Killing them would be interfering. Of course, who’s really paying attention? It’s not like I’d be starting a war. He decided that he did not much care for kuduks.
The royal palace of the Kheshi Empire looked much like Illiardra remembered. The whole empire was new as a fresh snowfall to her, but she had been off world far more recently than most of her fellow demons. The structure had worn with age, but in the graceful manner that hinted at great care and maintenance. Understandable, for the building was home to the rulers of a sizable chunk of Tellurak.
A courtyard dusted white with fresh-fallen flakes separated the palace from the road that encircled it like a moat. Despite the wintery weather in the southern hemisphere, she wore only a light dress, and let her barefoot feet feel the nip of cold with each step. Like the others who looked inhuman, she wore a guise more comforting to the eyes of local mortals. Her now-golden hair fell in ringlets, but her horns were gone and her ears shrunken until they hid beneath her curls. The skin of her face was pale as alabaster, a mark of purity to the insular Kheshis of the southernmost reaches of the empire. That much had not changed at all in her absence.