by Rick Shelley
Somewhere along the line, I noticed that tears were running down my face, quite freely. My nose had started to run as well. I sniffed and snorted and wiped at the tears. I was still doing that when Baron Kardeen entered.
"It's as bad as that?" he asked.
I nodded, then gave him the short version. He took a moment to run it through his mind-the closest thing to a computer I had found in the buffer zone.
"Some little hope, perhaps. Not much," he said. "What will you do?"
"Whatever I can. As long as there's any hope at all, I have to go for it."
There was a silence then. Kardeen seemed almost embarrassed, and I didn't think it was because of the way he had seen me. He had been around the royal family too long for that.
"What is it?" I asked as gently as I could.
He didn't flinch. "Two things, actually. The first I hesitate to mention just now."
"Go ahead. It can't be worse than what I've already heard."
"The, ah, Russian sailors. It will be impossible to get them home just now."
I nodded. The Russians. Of course, I assumed that the Soviet Union was behind the nuclear war that had apparently engulfed my home world. I didn't think that there was any other nation capable of mounting an attack that could wipe out cities in the middle of the United States. And I also assumed that the Russians must have started the fray, though I admit that it was a knee-jerk reaction and not any exercise of logic that led me to that assumption.
"I think I had better steer clear of the Russians for a bit," I said, uncertain how I might react if I had to face Commander Sekretov just then. "And it might be better if no one mentioned the fact-the supposition-of a war back in the other world. At least for the moment. What else is there?"
"Ah, the queen is quite distraught," Kardeen said. "About her parents and her brother's family."
"Yes, they must have been caught by the war in my world." The other world, the one I was born and grew up in, was still the one I thought of as mine, not Varay and the buffer zone. "If they went right away, in the first minutes, they may have been among the lucky ones." If Chicago and Louisville had gone, St. Louis would hardly have escaped attention. McDonnell Douglas, the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers with important bridges, locks and dams.
"The queen…" Kardeen started again.
"Where is she?"
"In your old room here."
"I'll go to her now. When Aaron and Lesh return, we'll have to talk with Parthet. You'll let me know?"
"Of course, sire."
I stood up. I had to go comfort Joy. And I wasn't sure that I had any comfort to give.
The room that had been mine as Hero of Varay was on a sort of mezzanine, a corridor about halfway up the side of the great hall, reached through stairways at either end. I wasn't precisely sure of its position in relation to the king's apartments above, but I thought that the Hero's room had to be almost directly below the king's private study. But, as far as I knew, there was no shortcut. I had to go downstairs, around the great hall, and up a shorter flight of stairs on the other side.
Jaffa and Rodi were standing outside the door.
"She's very upset," Jaffa said. His eyes were stretched wide. Rodi didn't look nearly so fearful. "She sent us out."
"It's okay," I said. As if anything was okay. I told Timon to stay out with the pages, then I took a deep breath before I went inside.
Joy was lying across the bed sobbing. She didn't hear me come in. I crossed to the bed and sat next to her.
"Are they all dead?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said, putting my hand on her back. I started to rub between her shoulder blades. That normally relaxed her, but not this time.
"I don't know either, and that's what's tearing me up," Joy said. She rolled over and looked up at me. Her eyes were red-streaked. Her face was wet from all the crying. "Are they dead, dying, or somewhere safe? They might be safe. I gave them all your warnings about being ready to leave the city. After my parents came here and saw this place, they might have believed. Maybe there was enough warning to evacuate."
"I don't see any way we can find out, dear," I said. "Not yet. Maybe not for a long time."
"We could go there, drive to St. Louis from Louisville."
"No, we can't. If the basement is so messed up, the cars probably didn't survive in the garage, and"-I made a helpless gesture with both hands-"even if the cars did survive, we wouldn't be able to get gas anywhere, and there's not much chance that any of the bridges survived across the Ohio or Mississippi. Not to mention the radioactivity. Louisville's hot. We might not be able to get clear of it fast enough to avoid a fatal dose."
"There has to be a way."
The echo of what I had told the elflord knotted my gut.
"I'll ask Aaron if he can conjure up a spell to get news about your parents and your brother Danny's family," I said. "I don't know if he can. Contacting the elflord was different. Xayber has his own powerful magic."
"I have to know, Gil. I'll go crazy if I don't."
I picked Joy up and held her against me. She seemed very fragile just then, close to the breaking point. I could see the hysteria lurking behind her eyes, looking for a chance to break loose. That meant that I couldn't even begin to tell her what the elflord had said was waiting for everybody-or what I would have to do in order to save anything at all.
"Aaron can make a spell to protect us from the radiation," Joy said. "We can ride horses if we have to. I've been taking lessons, remember? And if the bridges are out, horses can swim."
"Aaron's spell against radiation barely lasted the few seconds I had that doorway open, remember?"
"I have to find out, Gil, one way or another."
And she had a set of the rings.
"I'll talk to Aaron. Don't you go doing anything foolish. Even if there is a way to go back and get to St. Louis, you can't go. You're pregnant, remember. You can't take any risk of radiation, spell or not. You can't risk the baby." It hurt talking about the baby, but you have to go on as if there was a certain future. It's either that or curl up in a corner and suck your thumb until the end comes.
"Promise you won't do anything foolish like trying to go through one of the doors to Louisville?" I said.
"I have to know, Gil."
"Not that way, Joy. Not that way."
She turned away from me for a moment, and I wondered if I was going to have to tie her up to keep her from doing something stupid.
"You'll find out for me?" she asked.
"If there's any way possible," I promised.
"If you don't, I will try myself," Joy said. "I have to know."
Baron Kardeen knocked and came in when I called. Aaron and Lesh were back. Annick was "safely" in the hands of Sir Compil at Castle Curry. The others were in Parthet's workroom. Aaron was briefing Parthet on what the elflord had said.
"Come on, Joy," I said. When I stood up, I was still holding her. I let her down and put my arm around her. "We've got a lot of business to deal with, and not just seeing how we can find out about your family, I'm afraid."
I hesitated. She had to know how desperate the situation was, but I was still afraid that she wouldn't be able to handle it-and not just what I was going to have to try to do to rescue some part of our universe.
"There's worse trouble than World War Three back home," I said. "There's only the slimmest chance that I'll be able to do anything to help, but nobody else has even that much chance."
She didn't respond. As much trouble as I was having relating to the greater crisis, I couldn't expect her to get beyond her worry over her family, not without a little time… and maybe some news.
Parthet seemed almost cheerful.
"What are you so tickled about?" I asked. I'm sure it didn't sound very good-natured.
"The news was much better than I expected," Parthet said. "Much, much better."
"You think the End of Everything is better?" I asked.
"No, no, the beginning, the beginning. Have
n't I told you?"
"Told me what?"
"We all recreate our past, and some people do it more effectively than others." He jabbed a finger in the direction of my groin. He wasn't close enough for me to need to flinch, though. "If you can find the Great Earth Mother and, ah, get close enough, you have the balls to do the job right."
"What's he talking about?" Joy asked.
Thanks a lot, Uncle, I thought. I took a deep breath. "It means that I have a chance to save something of this universe by doing what Vara did back at the beginning of time."
"Does that mean what I think it means?" Joy asked.
"It means that I have to try to track down a mythological being who may or may not be the goddess who gave birth to our universe, and I have to use the family jewels we swiped from her shrines to get her to do it all over again. It's the only hope any of us has to survive, to keep anything alive anywhere." I had to stop to suck in air. "There are a few obstacles. First off, nobody has any idea where to find the Great Earth Mother, if she really does exist."
"She does exist. Count on it," Parthet said, interrupting.
"Next, she's already sworn to kill me, or her ghost did, just for taking the jewels. Those are a couple of rather hefty obstacles."
"When?" Joy asked, not at all what I thought her next word would be.
"I don't know. The elflord said that it would be days, more likely weeks, before he could trace the Great Earth Mother, and I can't do anything until I know where to find her-or even if she can be found."
"And remember," Parthet said, "that it will almost certainly take more of our time than it does his. A week in Fairy can be ten days or more here."
"Then you have time for the other first," Joy said.
One track.
"Aaron, do you think that either you or Parthet could come up with a spell that would protect a horse and rider from radioactivity long enough to ride from Louisville to St. Louis and back? Joy is desperate to find out what happened to her family."
"Very desperate," Joy said, intensely enough that everyone stared at her.
"I can put together a spell for that," Aaron decided after a moment, "but not by remote control. I'll have to go along to keep it up. I would have to go anyway, if you intend to go," he said, meeting my eyes. "When the elfiord calls, I can bring us back here from wherever we are in the other world."
"Will you be able to stay there long enough to do any good?" I asked. "Won't you just pop back here like you did before?"
"I think not. I've found my place here. And I am a wizard now, not a lost little kid like I was then."
"I'll get the horses and gear, sire," Lesh said. "That'll be three of us riding?"
"Four," Timon said from near the door. "I'm not a page to be left behind when things get dangerous anymore."
I looked at him and nodded. "Four it is," I said. 7 – The Four Horsemen
Running off to the other world just then certainly wasn't the most logical decision I could have made. I had a bigger load on my shoulders than going off on another crazy quest, this one to find out what had happened to my in-laws. And this looked at least as wild as the other quests I had gone on. Even if I could get from Louisville to St. Louis, it might prove almost impossible to find out anything about Joy's family. But it did serve a purpose. Just sitting around Basil, waiting for the elflord to call-possibly for weeks, while the sky picked up extra moons and brought us closer to doomsday-would really have driven me crazy, or crazier than I already was. Worrying that Joy might slip off and try to find her way from Kentucky to Missouri alone would have been even harder to bear.
It was just something that I had to do. I did question Aaron at length to make sure that the elflord would be able to contact us even in the other world and that Aaron would be able to pop us straight back to Basil when that call came.
Aaron was positive. Parthet didn't demur.
With Lesh and Kardeen hard at work making the preparations, there was really nothing I had to do but talk with Joy. I got her to tell me about the neighborhoods where her parents and her brother lived. I had been to her parents' place, but never to Danny's. I asked about places they might have headed for if they had left the city. There were two places that Joy thought were possible, a state park southwest of the metropolitan area and another spot out along the Missouri River.
Once Joy was sure that I was going to do something to find her family, she was calm. We sat in the private dining room, ate, and waited. Grabbing a couple of hours of sleep might have been smarter, especially for me, but there are times when you have to forgo things like that.
Parthet came wandering in about dawn.
"There really is a chance to save quite a lot," he said, more subdued than he had been before. "While you're gone, I'll try to get some of my memories written down. It's important that I do that as soon as possible."
"When we get through this, you can tell me all the stories over Old Baldy's beer. That'll be even better."
He shrugged. "Who can tell what time there will be, especially at times like this."
"You been skipping meals?" I asked, puzzled at his sudden melancholy.
He smiled and shook his head. "I've not come to that yet. It's just that you brought back so much that I had forgotten for so long." He stopped and shook his head more vigorously. "I'll tell you when you return and we know where to find the Great Earth Mother."
"We'll have to pop back to Cayenne for a moment before I head out," I said, more for Joy's benefit than Parthet's. "Going back to the real world, my guns will work at least." There would likely be call for all the weapons I could carry. "And I've got to tell Harkane that he's in charge awhile longer."
"He's going to want to go with you," Joy said.
"This time, he has other duties, like running Cayenne and keeping an eye out for you. Or do you want to move into the royal apartment here before I get back?"
"I'll stay at Cayenne. I was just starting to get used to living there."
And even before that, I had to give Baron Kardeen a few more instructions about our Russian visitors. That was difficult, but I went out of my way to keep emotion out of it. "Have someone explain that there is a glitch in our communications with the real world. They are our guests in the meantime, and that's the way I want it played. Watched but not too closely. Nothing hostile." I just hoped that I would be able to play it that way after I came back from seeing the destruction.
Sunrise arrived. It would be midmorning back in Kentucky. The detour to Cayenne took only ten minutes. We got everything set to go.
There were some minor inconveniences we knew we would have to work around right at the start. We were taking horses. Horses don't take to stairs easily, but none of the doorways leading from Castle Basil to the basement in Louisville were at ground level. And getting the horses up the stairs from the basement in Louisville was going to be another problem. At least there were stone stairs leading up to the outside basement door. I wasn't sure that there would be enough clearance for our chargers to get through easily, but options were rather scarce.
Four riders, two spare horses loaded with provisions. We wouldn't have to eat as heavily in the other world as we would in the buffer zone or Fairy, but we couldn't count on finding much along the way. Game would have been sparse even without World War Three through most of the area we had to cross.
Joy and I said our goodbyes in private, but she came to the doorway to watch us leave-after Aaron assured me that he would be able to keep any radiation from leaking through the doorway while we left. Parthet was there to add a spell or two of his own if necessary.
"We'll stay with this as long as we can," I said-a sort of general announcement. "When the elflord calls, we'll pop straight back here." I looked at Joy. "We may be running against a tight deadline"-a real deadline- "by then, so that will have to take priority." I shrugged, gave Joy another kiss, and told Aaron to start spreading his shields.
There was another green shimmering over the door, a deeper green t
han before. The four of us who were going through, and our six horses, were covered with a similar twinkling, something closer to aqua, that settled on us and in us. We had to be protected inside and out, covered from everything, including the food, water, and air we would consume. The shield seemed to tighten my skin, like a strong astringent. I had a moment of doubt. If the shields didn't work, we might be in deep trouble very fast.
"We're ready," Aaron said.
When I opened the doorway to Louisville, I couldn't help thinking that this ridiculous quest was a properly adolescent way for a certified Hero to go out in a blaze of glory. And the song started to echo in my mind.
I stood with my hand, my ring, on the sea-silver while Aaron, Lesh, and Timon went through with all of the horses. I stepped through to the basement in Louisville after them, then looked back through the green-turning-orange shield over the doorway… for what I hoped wouldn't be my last sight of Joy and Varay. And then I turned loose.
The basement was in pretty bad shape. The others had led the horses straight out into the main cellar room. Dad's private little retreat wasn't large enough to hold more than two horses at a time. Their stalls back in the Castle Basil mews were each as big as the "secret" room.
There were no real windows in the basement. When Dad built the place, it wasn't that many years past the time when the federal government was actively encouraging people to build home fallout shelters. There were no windows, but there were a couple of light wells walled off with glass blocks, several feet underground, that let in just enough illumination to keep the cellar from being pitch-black.
There was more light in it now. The kitchen door was gone, off its hinges, broken in pieces and blown down into the cellar. The door leading straight to the backyard was metal, though, and it was still intact.
"We'd better go up and have a look around before we start maneuvering the horses upstairs," I said.
Lesh and I couldn't raise the outside door together-one of those angled bulkhead doors-so we went up through the kitchen to see what the problem was.
The house was still standing, though a lot of the interior was scorched. Everything that wasn't bolted down had been hurled toward the northeast corners. All of the windows and doors were gone, either splintered or completely lost. But from the odds and ends that were still sitting around, I guessed that no looters had been through.