“I didn’t expect to die in bed,” said the General, looking into her eyes. “I didn’t expect to die here either, but if it comes to that.”
“Death is just the beginning when it comes to that evil creature,” said the Priestess, shuddering.
“What do you mean?” asked Taylor.
“He will try to take your very soul,” she said in a hushed voice. “That he can use its power to fuel his existence through eternity.”
Now it was the General’s turn to shudder as he thought about what the Elf Priestess had said.
* * *
Doctor Gunter Schneider wasn’t sure if he was going insane or not. It wasn’t every day that the real world seemed to fade away and a fantasy world took its place. Unless this is what the mentally ill experience, thought the psychiatrist from the Charite Campus Benjamin Franklin Klinic fur Psychiatrie. But his own thinking seemed so clear, even if he was sitting in the middle of a forest surrounded by some of the staff and patients of the institute. With no idea how he or they got here.
“Are the patients OK, Rudolph?” asked the psychiatrist of a staff member that was approaching him.
“As well as can be expected, Herr Doctor,” said the man, squatting down to bring his eyes level with the sitting physician. “We don’t have any medications to give them. Those ran out last night. But they still seem to be stable. Actually, they seem to be in better shape than they were on Earth, if that makes any sense.”
“It is what it is,” said the psychiatrist. “I just hope we don’t end up with a bunch of raving lunatics on our hands.”
“I don’t think we will be raving,” said a voice behind the psychiatrist.
Schneider turned his head quickly and rotated his body. That was not a voice he wanted behind him. But the voice sounded as calm and serene as could be.
“How do you feel, Stephen?” asked the doctor of the patient while trying to keep a cool facade on his face.
“Wonderful, doctor,” said Stephen Neigal, looking down on the physician with clear blue eyes that seemed to flash fire for a moment. “My head is clearing up. And I don’t hear the voices anymore. Or should I say that the voices are now diminished, and seem to be the words of something wise moving through my head.”
Schneider pushed himself up to his feet as he kept the paranoid schizophrenic man in sight. Neigal had been a brilliant automotive engineer before his psychotic break. And a dangerous bastard after, unlike most schizophrenics, who as a group were mostly harmless. He had burned his wife to death in an apartment fire that had killed six other people. And had been committed for life to the German mental health system.
“And what do these words tell you to do?” asked the psychiatrist, making sure he was facing the dangerous man.
“They tell me that the Gods of this world have great power,” said the man, his voice strong. “They tell me that I can tap into this power to do great things.”
“I think that you need to sit down and rest, Herr Neigal,” said the orderly, Rudolph, moving slowly toward the man. “You are becoming agitated.”
“Away from me, Rudolph,” said Neigal, waving a hand and muttering under his breath. A ball of flame formed in the man’s hand. “I am no longer yours to control.” The schizophrenic moved his hand around, menacing the doctor and the orderly, and the ball of fire moved with the hand and seemed to cause no discomfort to the man. The doctor wondered for a moment if it were some illusion that was affecting his overstressed mind, but the feel of heat from the ball dissuaded him from finding out the hard way.
“Stop it, Stephen,” called out Katherine Heidle, another of the patients, walking toward the man with her hands held up to the heavens. “You know better than to use the powers of the Gods against our own.”
“You can go to the devil,” shouted the man, flinging his hand forward and sending a stream of flame out toward the mentally ill woman. The flame curved around her like a lasso and spun around her head, threatening her with its heat.
Katherine raised her hands within the loop of flame and mumbled some words under her breath. A gust of wind came up and blew the flame away from her. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked, just before a blast of water fell from the heavens, extinguishing the flames.
Neigal shouted his anger and called up another ball of fire, this one much brighter than the last, almost white hot. Water hissed and steamed as it hit the ball and evaporated. The man yelled and brought his hand back.
The branch of a nearby tree reached over and wrapped around the wrist of Stephen Neigal, lifting him from the ground while the fire dissipated.
“That’s enough of that,” said patient Marcus Strom as he walked from under the trees, the odor of turned earth and fresh grass clinging to him like a raiment.
What the hell is going on? thought Doctor Schneider, shaking his head. This can’t be happening on any world, can it? He looked at the patients with fear in his heart, and wondered what would be the next manifestation of his new psychosis.
* * *
“How’s the analysis coming, James?” asked Professor Margaret Deitricht, coming into the small tent where her prize graduate student was working. The student in question was sitting on a camp stool in front of a table, his fingers flying over a laptop.
It’s a wonder that anything came with us to this place, thought the Noble Laureate physicist. Wherever this place is. All she knew was that it wasn’t Earth. The instruments that came with them showed them that the gravity was about nine tenths that of Earth, the sunlight was shifted higher into the blue spectrum, and the atmosphere was almost the same as their home’s, with a slightly higher oxygen content. Besides that they weren’t sure if the physical laws were even the same. The horizon was farther away than at home, and their best estimate was that the circumference of the planet was about a third greater than Earth’s. With the lesser gravity did that mean the planet was of a lesser density? Or did it mean that gravity did not work on the same formula in this universe, if a different universe it was?
At least some of the physical laws are similar, she thought as the graduate student continued to work, ignoring her question for the moment. After all, they were still alive, which meant that the laws regarding the working of their physical bodies were similar enough for said forms to continue functioning. Of course there was no telling yet if that was true in the long term. Would they start dropping dead at any moment, as their physical structures failed under the unfamiliar circumstances of this space?
“Were you talking to me, Professor?” asked James Drake in perfect German when he looked up from the computer. “I’m sorry, but I wasn’t sure you were real.”
Poor boy, thought the professor. He was a brilliant physicist in his own right, with a promising career ahead of him. But he was also mentally ill, and the medicines he needed to control his illness were back in another universe. Would he fall into a psychosis that he wouldn’t come out of?
“I’m real, my boy,” said Margaret, placing a hand gently on the young man’s shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
“Very clear headed in some ways,” said the doctoral student who the major professor thought as the most brilliant she had ever worked with. “I’m surprised I’m not having more internal stimulation, since I don’t have any medication to take right now. And I seem to know things about this place.”
“Know things?”
“I’m not really sure why,” said Drake, frowning. “It’s like when I was growing up in London, and I seemed to be aware of things going on around me, but wasn’t sure what they were or why they really mattered. I seem to have an insight into things around here, but don’t really know why. Or are they my imagination?”
“And what is that you are working on there?” asked the physicist, nodding at the computer.
“Something to do with the ambient energy levels of this space,” said the student, turning the screen where she could get a better look at the graphs projected there. “There should be more energy coming down from the s
tar, based on its distance from the planet and its spectral readings. It should be much hotter here than it is.”
“Any reason that you can speculate?”
“I think it’s magic,” said the grad student with a smile. The smile left his face when Deitricht frowned. “I really mean it, professor. There is magic in this place. You’ve heard the rumors coming from the soldiers and some of the refugees. And magic, or whatever it is, must still have a source of power. That is where I believe the unaccounted for energy from the star is going, as well as that of other energy sources.”
“If this magic really exists,” said the senior professor from the Technical University of Munich. “I still find that hard to believe.”
The professor stopped speaking after those words left her mouth, a mouth that was held open in shock. Because the graduate student was no longer sitting at his desk. He was gone as if he had never been.
“I’m here, professor,” said Drake from her back.
She turned in shock to stare at the young man standing behind her.
“How?”
“Something I seem to know,” said the young man. “I seem to have a natural connection to the energy somehow. That’s how I knew where to look and came up with my hypothesis. The rest just seemed natural.”
“Could you do that again if you had to? Or any other tricks?”
“I’m pretty sure I could do the teleport thing whenever I want,” said Drake with a smile. “I haven’t tried much else, but I could probably do quite a few things.”
“We need to let the powers that be know about this,” said the professor. “Meanwhile, you need to get back on the computer and use it while we have battery power. Even with the new batteries they will still run out of power in a couple of days, and then we’re down to using our organic computers.”
“I have an idea about that,” said the grad student, rubbing his thumb and forefinger. Sparks flew on the tips of the fingers.
The professor smiled. This might be a new world, with new laws. And she and her people were trained to gather information and come up with ways to use the natural laws. She didn’t see why it would be any different here.
“You keep at it, James,” she said to her brilliant student, patting him carefully on the arm, a little afraid she might get shocked. She shook her head as she walked from the tent. She might be a little too old to wrap her mind around this new world. She didn’t think that would be true for James and some of the other students. I almost feel sorry for these poor dumb creatures who would oppose us, she thought, looking up at the sunlit sky. Almost.
Chapter Eleven
“I want those souls,” yelled Emperor Ellandra Mashara, glaring into the crystal at the Archduke Millosa Jakara. Though almost fifteen hundred kilometers separated the two nobles, the image of the Archduke was clear, and the Emperor could feel the delicious fear on the man.
“The strangers are formidable,” said the Archduke in a quavering voice, trying to hide his discomfort.
“They have not proved so formidable here in A’atapona,” said the Emperor. “These French have mostly fallen to our soldiers, with the exception of some of their military forces that have holed up near the mountains. Why can you not clean up these peoples in your realm? It’s not as if they have magic.”
“They have formidable war machines,” said Jakara, his eyes pleading. “And these Germans and Americans are great warriors. From what I have gathered from the prisoners I have taken they don’t feel the same about the French.”
“Destroy their resistance,” growled the Emperor, slamming a fist on the table and making the ball jump slightly. “And capture their people. Gather everything you have and do the job. If I have to send the Imperial Army there to do what your levies cannot I might consider making the General my new Archduke of Krashnagorda.”
“I will do what I can, my liege,” said the Archduke, bowing his head. “It is in your power to do what you will. I will do what it is in my power to do.”
“I hope for your sake that it will be enough,” said the Emperor, scowling. He made a gesture and the crystal went black.
“The seer is here to see you, your Imperial Majesty,” said a quiet voice from behind.
The Emperor turned quickly, like a startled cat. His teeth were bared, but he forced his mouth into a smile when he saw the major domo with the Grogatha seer in tow. No need to frighten the one who sees the future for me, thought the Emperor. As long as the creature’s visions were accurate, there was need for him. Let him slip too much from the truth and it would be time to make the ugly creature know fear.
“Ah, Mangratha,” said the Emperor, pasting the illusion of a smile over his face, knowing that the seer could see the true visage but still through habit playing the part. “You have news for me?”
“I wish I had something solid to tell you, my Lord,” said the Grogatha male. “The lines to the future are in flux. There are more factors and powers entering into the equation than I can handle with my limited mind.”
“Maybe if I had been there with you they might have clarified,” said Mashara, allowing a little of the viper to slip into the grin, reveling in the fear he could feel and smell in the seer.
“I think only time will allow them to clarify, my Lord,” said the seer, holding himself up to look the Emperor in the eyes despite his fear. “In the near future, as some of the threads resolve themselves, the others may become more clear.”
That is why he is such a valuable tool, thought the Emperor, leaning his head in ascent. Despite his terror he is still compelled by his honor to tell the truth. Would that more of my servants were like him. Instead they tell me what they think I want to hear, out of fear for themselves, or naked ambition.
“There was one disturbing image that came to the fore, your majesty,” said the seer after a nervous swallow. “One that I am sure is of utmost importance.”
“Tell me, seer,” said the Emperor, after glancing around his office to make sure he felt no intrusion of a distant casting. The ornate room was clear of magic, except for the blocking spells the half lich had placed on many of the statues, paintings and knick knacks around the room. A black candle also burned on the desk, giving off the sickly sweet scent of the fat of virgins, warding the room against any kind of distant attack.
“I see some unusual members of this contingent of humans,” continued the seer, his eyes widening as he entered the half trance that allowed him to recall all of his vision. “They are very strong and very intelligent. And they grow stronger with age.”
“Bah,” said the Emperor, with a sweep of his hand dismissing that pronouncement. “They live the flickering lives of bugs, these humans. How strong could they get with such limited life spans?”
“These do not have limited life spans,” said the Grogatha male in a hushed voice. “Their natural life spans are endless as far as I can scry. They seem to go into an unimaginably distant time.”
“How is that possible?” said the half lich. “How could this be? Are they undead?”
“I do not know how, my Lord,” said the seer. “But they are natural creatures in their own right. Not undead.”
The Emperor sent the seer a stare that almost froze the creature’s marrow.
“I meant nothing of it, my Lord,” stammered the seer, looking panicked.
“I must know their secret,” said the Emperor. “I must have one of them as my subject, so I can pull this secret from his body and soul.”
The Emperor paced back and forth a couple of times in his office. Seeming to remember the seer he looked up at the man with an evil stare.
“You may go, seer,” said the Emperor with the wave of a hand. “Be back here at the end of the week that you may give another reading.”
* * *
The Grogatha male bowed low and hurried from the room, hearing the Emperor behind him calling for his councilors that he might give the orders he wanted to give. The Grogatha sighed in relief that the Emperor had not asked him any more q
uestions about his most recent vision. He had thrown the bone that had taken all of the undead monster’s attention, and did not have to disclose how the prophecy appeared about to come to pass.
Now I must get this information to those it will do the most good, he thought. There were cells of the resistance here in this very city. And the lich emperor would be shocked to know that some of those with power in his government were cell members. He did not know all of them, as they themselves did not know everyone that conspired with them. But if he gave the message to those he knew, they would make sure that it was passed to all of those in the city, and beyond, all the way to the lands that had been invaded by the Germans. And to the lands of the other Ellala as well, those who had waged war with the evil one for a millennia.
Mangratha smiled at that thought, even as the heavy weight of knowledge that many of his own people would die to defend this accursed Empire pushed down upon him. Someday his people would be free as well, and they could join the civilized races of this land, and not remain fodder for the wars of the longer lived races.
* * *
“I want all the troops under my command to gather here at my seat,” yelled the Archduke Millosa Jakara to his councilors as he stormed into the chambers. He was a seething mixture of emotions at the moment. He felt anger, both at the intruders who had upset his world and the Emperor who had dressed him down for his failure. He felt fear that the Emperor would have his title and his head if he failed him. And the only way to handle both emotions was to act. And act decisively.
“That will take some time, my Lord,” said the senior councilor, Kellara Jinasara, looking up from the ledger to his front. “Your levies are scattered all over the archduchy. And it will uncover many of your fortresses to be taken by rebels, who are using this disturbance as an excuse to rise.”
“Then send at least for the heavy cavalry and most of the horse archers,” roared the Archduke, slamming his fist on the table. “And any mercenaries we can hire. And I want all of the Grogatha levies we can raise, as well as the Conyastaya archers.”
Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1 Page 15