by Garon Whited
If it’s possible to stop myself from nuking the world—and still grab the Orb—all this may be wasted effort. If I un-change the past and make a smaller change of my own, I should be able to undo the waking of the dragons and the Heru. If so, there will be no need for me to enclose the city of Vios in a magical Firmament. There’s the only reason to time travel, no matter how half-baked the method: If you don’t, the world ends. Any other reason is irresponsible and foolhardy. But if I was going to go fix the problem and save the world, I’d never need to put a Firmament spell on the city, would I?
So, why bother?
Simple. If I try and fail, at least the city and everyone in it will have some sort of chance.
Later, I’ll work on some spells to extract water vapor from the air, direct carbon dioxide to the farm tunnels, turn some of the reactor power into vitality for those farm tunnels, produce more light, and so many other things a free-floating city in the void needs to have. I’m thinking of it in terms of a ship in deep space, since it won’t have a world to cling to.
Once I had my Firmament sorted out and growing, I took a break. The reactor room isn’t somewhere I want to be when I’m alive. I don’t know the room is deadly to be in, but the miniscule percentage of the energy still getting through the conversion layers of the reaction points is still enough to heat the whole cavern to uncomfortable levels. I assume it’s full of nasty radiation because that’s what you do assume when you’re dealing with anything labeled “reactor.” If you don’t, you gain a healthy respect for radiation sickness. Briefly.
I stepped into the exit area, behind the thick wall of stone. At some point, I asked the mountain to include lead in the shield-wall. I’m sure it did, but it must be internal. It still looks like a plain wall of rock.
The only exit is back up the entrance tunnel. To get in the reactor room, there’s a long, steep slide. For anyone up above, it looks like a one-way trip into the depths. It’s dark and discouraging. It’s meant to be. But, once I’m down here, the mountain starts changing the glass-smooth slide of the tunnel into ridges. It’s not a ladder, per se, but it can be climbed. Technically, I can do it even without the ridges. Tendrils grasp where fingers can’t. During the day, I’d be as stuck as anyone else. The ridges were helpful, as well as a safety measure. I didn’t want to be halfway up when the sunrise started!
So I made the long climb up the secret slide to the secret room, sneaked out into the secret corridor, and stealthily returned to the more public areas of the Palace of Arthur.
Hmm. Doesn’t sound right. Arthurian Palace? Or Arthur Palace? Palace of Mount Arthur? Probably the last one…
As I returned to my scrying room, I heard voices through the open slab-door. A dusk was talking with Bronze. Well, at Bronze. She wasn’t saying anything, but she was politely attentive, even lowering her head to be on eye level with him. I’m not sure he appreciated it. Eye contact is often regarded as a challenge behavior.
“And—and—and when he’s—he’s back, the Queen wants to talk to him? And Seldar? And there—there are messages from—from everybody…”
Bronze snorted hot air, no flames. I felt her amusement as she clanked her nose on the dusk’s breastplate, nudging him toward the door. He took it as a sign to leave. Of course, as he came out of the scrying room, quick-march and definitely not running, he smacked straight into me. He bounced. Even dressed in steel, the kid couldn’t have been half my weight. It said good things about his training, though, when he didn’t fall.
“My lord!”
I caught his shoulders before he could kneel.
“Good morning. I understand there are things people think I should pay attention to?”
“Yes, my lord!”
“Fine, fine. I’ll handle the messages after sunup and breakfast.”
“That’s just it, my lord!”
“What’s it?”
“The sun has not risen!”
“I know. No one knows it better than I do.” Then the copper piece dropped. “Wait. Should it have come up by now?”
“It is two bands of the candle beyond the sunrise, or what should be the sunrise, my lord!”
“Of course it is,” I snarled. Well, why would the sun come up? The world was ending. “You know, on second thought, I think I’ll have breakfast, anyway. You go tell people I’ll get to their problems when I’m done dealing with even bigger ones.”
“My lord?” he asked, confused.
“Go away.”
“Yes, my lord.” He left, making no pretense about sprinting. Bronze chuffed pyrotechnic amusement. Firebrand snickered.
“You two can laugh,” I replied. “I’ve been working hard all night, and it’s been a long night. A longer night than most. I’m going to check the prisoners.”
As I headed for the Royal Dungeons, I reflected on the difficulties of being a full-time vampire. If the sun never rises, I’ll never eat normal food. I’ll drink blood like a sponge. No, I’ll drink blood like a thirsty sponge. No, I’ll drink blood exclusively. With a limited population to draw on, my long-term presence would be troublesome. Fortunately, I didn’t intend to stay. In the meantime, however…
I spoke with the guards and was shown to the dungeon with the three most recent prisoners—the would-be spies. They were held in separate pit-cells, which suited me. Guards unlocked and hoisted the lid of the closest, put a ladder down, and I descended to discuss matters with him.
“What do you want?” he asked, blinking in the light from above. It was pretty dim with the lid open, but this class of prisoner is kept in complete darkness. I put my feet on the bottom rung of the ladder and sat on a higher one. It was a bit awkward with Firebrand and my saber, especially in my fried armor. It’s getting better, but I really need to put it in a pile of—hmm. I don’t actually know what it’s made of. The stuff we laid out for the knights is mostly carbon composites. Diogenes keeps upgrading my personal armor as he finds and fabricates better materials. It seems to be getting better, but the repair spell is going awfully slowly.
At any rate, the prisoner.
“I’m on a tight schedule,” I told him, “so let’s skip the formalities and go straight to the point. I’m the Demon King. You are a spy. Tell me everything about the arrangement—who, why, how, what for, all the usual stuff.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I will tear the living flesh from your bones and consume everything you know by eating your soul.”
He blinked at me some more. I don’t think it had anything to do with the light. Maybe it was my casual tone. “What should we do this afternoon?” “I planned to go to the park.” Same tone. It throws people. He took a moment to process what I said and I let him.
“You can do that?”
“Demon King,” I reminded him, snicking thumbnail and fingernail across each other to emphasize the talons. “I am not in a good mood, son. It takes deliberate effort not to simply kill you. So, I tell you what. I’m going to make the same offer to the other two spies. Then I’ll come back to you. If you like, you can remain silent for the rest of your life.”
I climbed the ladder. He didn’t have anything to say. I repeated the process with the other two, with minor variations on the theme. None of them seemed particularly plussed by the ultimatum. Finishing with the third one, I went down the hole of the first one again.
“Talk,” I instructed. He refused, so I cut his head off, sucked up all his blood, and consumed his spirit before it went anywhere. I needed it. It wasn’t the best weekend I’ve ever had, I’ve been working hard, and I was hungry.
This particular spy worked for the Church of Light. His job was to spy on me, report to his masters through the special paper with the multiple-location writing, and try to find out where I went when I wasn’t in the Palace of Vios. He wasn’t an addict, as such, but he was a member of the faithful. From what gathered, he was sufficiently dedicated to doubt my legitimacy as a god, demon, or other extraplanar entity. Reasonable, I suppose. If you’
re going to send a man out into the field, you want him loyal, but not so over-the-top loyal he spends all his off hours hating everyone around him. My threat wasn’t sufficient to challenge his convictions, so he died for the cause. I can respect that.
I brought the head with me to the second cell, descended with it, and used invisible tendrils to open the eyes, aim them at the next prisoner, and to work the jaw as though the head were trying to talk. It was as pale as it is possible to get, of course, being completely drained of blood, but he still dripped a little clear fluid from the broken end of his spine.
“Sorry about this one,” I apologized. “He’s still speaking as a spiritual entity, but he lacks a certain focus. It’ll take some time before he’s done. Would you care to get right to the point, or are you going to make me listen to your ghost’s screams and babbling as I slowly shred the fabric of your being, as well?”
Strangely, the second spy decided to get right to the point. He worked for Haran, the head of the Wizards’ Guild in Vios. His job was to keep tabs on me whenever I was in residence and to gather any information he could. An unstated priority in his duties was to analyze any spells I used. I have a reputation for doing the impossible, and Haran would like to know how. As the Master of the Guild, it annoyed him considerably to have wizards with private spells they refused to share—at least, refused to share with him. The spy was being paid and threatened at the same time. Carrot and stick. As for what else Haran wanted, the spy wasn’t sure.
“I’m not even totally sure it’s Haran,” he admitted, still talking rapidly. “He never showed his face, so I can’t say I know for certain.”
“It gives him the benefit of the doubt, which I suppose is all he can hope for. How do you report?”
“I’m a member of the guild. I go back and forth every couple of days.”
“Do you report to him? Your ‘mysterious’ employer?”
“Uh… yes.”
“Good. You work for me, now.”
“I do?”
“I’ll be deeply annoyed if you don’t.”
“It is an honor to be in Your Majesty’s employ.”
“Yes, it is. Go back and report to your former employer. Inform him of this conversation. No threats, no consequences, no speculation. Tell him what you told me and stop talking. That’s all.”
“What would you have me do afterward?”
“Find another job. After this, you’re a former spy. If you become a spy again,” I said, leaning forward so my mouth was at eye level. I extended my fangs. “I. Will. Eat. You. Go.”
He got.
The third spy was ready to talk even without the animated head. He’d had a while to consider my words and didn’t like them at all. His patron was a smarmy little fellow with an easy smile and light hair. He didn’t know the name, but, in the course of their association, he picked up some facts, probabilities, and guesses. The faction funding the spying was backed by some nobles of the kingdom. Which ones? It could be any of them. A group of them wanted to plot rebellion and the overthrow of a monarch—not of the Bright Queen, but of the Demon King. If I took up the iron crown again and sat on the throne, they wanted to be prepared to stop me.
“You say they can live with the idea of the Bright Queen ruling?”
“They don’t seem to be so concerned about her, no, Your Majesty.”
“Good. Tell your contact you’ve been discovered and I am aware of their plot. Feel free to make up something about how I sucked the information right out of your mind, if you like. Now, get out.”
I climbed out after him and sighed. I was still hungry.
“Who else do we have in the dungeons?” I asked the nearest guard.
“The usual quota, Sire.”
“What are they in for?”
“There’s a guy who ate three kids over the course of several weeks. There’s another guy who—”
“Stop. He’ll do. The poetic justice is irresistible.”
So I ate him and decided two was enough for now.
Upstairs, in the scrying room, Seldar kept Bronze company.
“When did you get in?”
“I arrived only moments ago, O Possessor of the Eyes of Darkness. I barely had time to make my greetings to the lady Bronze.”
“Glad to have you. What news?”
“The world is ending and our forces are returning to the city of Vios, as you ordered,” he stated, with a shrug. “What more is there to know?”
“Ah. I see your point. Would it change anything if I said the world wasn’t going to entirely end? Most of it, yes, but a moderate-sized bit of it might be less doomed than the rest?”
“How do you mean?” he asked, shooting me a hard look.
“I’m working on preserving Vios—the whole city. Including the moat.”
Seldar felt around behind himself for a chair and sat down heavily. Despite the churning mix of guilt, fear, anger, self-loathing, frustration, stress, and other emotions, I found I could spare a little room for a moment of smugness. I don’t surprise him often. Well, I think he was more relieved than surprised, but I’ll take it. Earlier today, he was close enough to the chaos storm to see the world ending.
“You can do—forgive me, my lord, for the question, but—you can do this?”
“I believe I can.”
“As Kammen would say, ‘If you say it, I believe it’.”
“So, since most of the world is ending, what do you have for me?” I pressed. Seldar paused to gather his wits.
“Perhaps you could explain to me what you know has happened,” he suggested. “Such knowledge will undoubtedly add to my own, enabling me to answer more fully on things I presently know little of.”
“For you, I’ll do it.” I pulled a chair around the table and sat. Since Seldar is one of the smartest guys I know, I explained what I knew, suspected, worried about, and did. Orbs, gates, Firmaments, spies, chaos vortexes, Heru, dragons, demons, the whole load. Once he was up to speed, I added, “…and bear in mind I’m probably going to have to go over all this again with Lissette, Dantos, T’yl, Torvil, Kammen, Tianna—damn. I have to get Amber into the local Temple of Flame—maybe even Haran and Rendal and Nothar.” I rubbed my temples and sighed pointlessly.
“Shall I inform them on your behalf?”
“Whatever saves me time.”
“The apparent need for haste confuses me,” he admitted. “Did you not say you possess the power to journey to another when as easily as another where?”
“No. Due to the nature of the spell, it’s impossible to control when you wind up. I can show up several years ago, but not yesterday.”
“Forgive me, my lord, but I still am confused. You are immortal. What matter a few years or a few millennia?”
“Funny you should mention millennia,” I told him, and leaned back in the heavy, high-backed, carved chair. I knocked on wood with the back of my head for a moment. Seldar grew concerned, but I stopped and leaned forward again, resting my forehead in my hands.
“Look, Seldar. Here’s the thing. The moment—the instant—I realized the Orb had probably gone back in time, I saw a whole…” I wanted to say “horizon,” but the Rethvan language doesn’t have word for it. “…a whole panorama of potential dazhu-dung. Right now, the world is ending and I can’t stop it. I can’t even risk going into another world lest I suddenly cease to exist—and I might,” I admitted, “since I don’t know how the Orb’s actions affect my personal history vis-à-vis me re-entering the timelines it altered.
“But, because it did change everything, and because I don’t have a way to go back just far enough to stop it from leaving, the only way to stop it—the only way to undo what it did—is at the source.” I ran my fingers through my hair and gripped my head to keep it from exploding. “I see how this crap is going to go,” I continued, and I heard my own bitter tone. “I have to go through the Great Arch in Tamaril. Once I go back, I hurry to Zirafel and stop the Orb before it changes anything fundamental. And, of course,
once I do that, I’m stuck back there. No big thing for an immortal, right? But the rest of it is so damn obvious even I can see it! I’m going to go back thousands of years, live through them, and wind up being my own nightlord-grandfather!” I snarled. “I’ll forge Firebrand, find Sasha, and I don’t know what else to manipulate myself into doing exactly what I did do!”
Boss. You’re ranting. Maybe raving. Take a breath even if you don’t need one!
I got a grip on myself. I took a breath. It didn’t help.
“My fate,” I continued, disgusted, “is to force myself to do exactly what I did. I’m the proof of destiny rather than free will. I’m going to go through the Great Arch in Tamaril and do my best to sort myself and the Orb out because I’m trapped by paradox and the ending of the world and I have no choice!”
I sat in silence for a time, head still in my hands. Seldar said nothing until I sat back in my chair.
“My lord, I confess I do not fully understand. Would it not be simplest to stop the Orb from working its will? Then—if I understand correctly—nothing would change?”
“I should be so lucky!”
“Do you or do you not have proof you will be required to do all these things you fear?”
“I have a long history of being sucked into things I don’t want to do.”
“But no proof in this particular instance?”
“Technically? No, I suppose I don’t. But I know it’ll happen!”
“Then why are you still here? Should you not be in Tamaril? As you say, it has only a matter of hours before it vanishes, and the Great Arch with it, does it not?”
“Two reasons. First, I have to do what I can to preserve Vios and the Kingdom of Karvalen. We move the Royal Family into the city, along with anyone else close enough to drag in. We haul in all the food we can carry. We start more crops in the farm tunnels… skip it. There are a lot of self-sustaining things we have to do. Once I get those started, or outline what needs to be done, I can go to Tamaril. Then my destiny takes over. I will be forced to do what needs to be done—not by anything as crude as Mumbo-Jumbo God of the Congo appearing and laying down the law, but by the fact it’ll be the only course of action open to me! And that pisses me off to an unbelievable degree. The Orb may have tried to undo me, risking some sort of paradox backlash, but it’s only succeeded in forcing me—all against my will and whatever good sense I may have—to do exactly what it did in order to fix it!”