Mobius

by Garon Whited

  “It’s under control!”

  Is it?

  “Don’t you start second-guessing—” I began, and broke off. I have a telepathic sword and an empathic spirit animal. They both think I’m angry and not entirely on top of it. When it comes right down to it, so do I. Maybe I should listen to them.

  “Angry,” I agreed. “Yeah.”

  Take a minute, Firebrand suggested, and let us know what you want killed, okay?

  “I’m not sure I want anyone killed, but I’ll take the minute.”

  Was I still angry about the Orb and the gate and being forced back in time? Well, not forced, I guess, in the sense of being physically dragged, but forced in the sense I didn’t have a better option. Or, rather, I didn’t find a better option. Just like the damned nuclear Armageddon option with the southern continent, I should have come up with a better option and I failed.

  Yes. I’m angry about it. Why am I angry about it? Because it was a forced move? I hate being coerced into doing anything.

  No, I don’t think that’s it. It doesn’t feel right. While it’s true, it’s not the whole enchilada. Something else about it bothers me. My own failure? I’m not perfect. I know I can fail. I have ample evidence. I should be able to accept failure. There’s another part of it, but I don’t think that’s the whole of it, either.

  Violation of causality? Paradox? The potential for horrific disaster? The responsibility? I have a lot of repressed anger, sure, but at what? Why am I so angry? If nail down the why, I might discover a way to defuse it.

  Paging Doctor Freud.

  Oh, my. There might be a world out there, somewhere, with Doctor Freud in active practice. No, I’m not going looking. Bringing a therapist up to speed will only send them to a therapist.

  I slid to the ground, folded my legs, and tried to remember my training. Breathe in, breathe out, let the thoughts flow. Everything is a thought and everything moves through the mind. Don’t control the river. Ride on it. Cast the net of meditation in perfect stillness and the answers will come like fish.

  The only fish I caught was a glowing sphere of light. Three, in fact. They clustered about, floating in various orbits around me.

  Fine. I’m distracted by proto-angels while I try to meditate on why I’m angry. I can take a hint. I’ll try again inside a suitable defensive barrier.

  Inside the cave, Leisel finished ladling out stew. The prisoners all drank from the same bucket of water and they had to share the only bowl.

  “Did they cooperate?” I asked.

  “Well enough.”

  “Too bad. Which one is Londrin?”

  “I am.”

  Londrin didn’t immediately strike me as the commander type. He was of middling height, middling build, with a no-nonsense haircut and unexceptional features. He wouldn’t make a good coin. He would be a background figure in a painting. On the other hand, once he looked at me and I looked at him, there was something about his eyes. He had a focused, penetrating gaze. I had his attention, all of it, and he was evaluating me as a problem to be solved.

  “Pleased to meet you, Londrin. If I break you loose, will you come quietly and answer questions? Or will I have to lock manacles on you and threaten to do something awful?”

  “I’ve answered your yashmiri’s questions.”

  Yashmiri, according to my translation spell, is something along the lines of a consort. Like the various sorts of wife or husband, yashmiri was a genderless term. In his opinion, Leisel was both my lover and my lieutenant, or my executive officer. Sort of like a personal assistant with benefits. Imagine a stereotypical Big Boss Businessman with a female secretary he’s banging on the side. He runs the place, but when she says what to do, people jump because she works for the Big Boss and is either relaying his orders or is doing it because it’s what he would want. Now upgrade it to a military version and it’s about right.

  It says something about the culture when it has a word for this. I’m not sure I like it here, but it may be my inner anger talking.

  I crouched in front of Londrin and smiled my best predatory grin.

  “First of all, she’s my vidat, not some yashmiri. Your actions have offended me and your assumption insults her. Second,” I continued, “did I ask you if you’d answered her questions?”

  “No…”

  “Did I ask you to volunteer extraneous information? Did you answer anything I did, in fact, ask?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t know me, so you don’t understand how this works,” I told him, reasonably. “Let me give you a brief primer. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to ask you questions. You’re going to answer them truthfully and fully. If, for some strange, incomprehensible reason you choose not to do so, I will beat you until your eyeballs bleed. If you survive, I will repeat the question. If you still fail to answer, you will not survive. Have I made myself completely clear?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  I remained in my crouch, looking him in the eyes, and waited. He stared back for several seconds before speaking again.

  “You have made yourself completely clear,” he stated.

  “You are a smart one. I like that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And you have a terrible, possibly fatal habit of not directly answering the goddam question. That’s three. So here they are again: If I break you loose, will you come quietly and answer questions? Or will I have to lock manacles on you and threaten to do something awful? Have I made myself completely clear? Answer them directly and in order. Now!”

  “Yes. No. Yes.”

  “Good! Now, do you understand what ‘parole’ means?” I thought he might. Tassarian had a word for it: Solivūm.

  “Yes.”

  “Give it, and we’ll walk and talk,” I told him. He cast his gaze around the cave, catching a lot of looks from his men. He grimaced. I don’t think he liked giving parole in front of witnesses.

  “It is given.”

  I kicked the layer of stone surrounding his lower leg a few times, enough to crack it and work his leg free. This did quite a lot to impress everyone. Outside, Londrin was utterly well-behaved. Being naked as a peeled egg in the presence of an armed man might have influenced his attitude. Being looked at by a horse who snorts fire might also have been a factor.

  We went for a walk while we talked. The rough road wasn’t nice to his feet, and his manhood swinging in the breeze didn’t help. I intended these to distract him so he would have a harder time coming up with convincing lies.

  Naskarl of Sarcana hired him to hire others. The mission was to recover the concubine—specifically, the kushimir; they have names for several different sorts of concubines, apparently—and return her unharmed. Why? Londrin didn’t know, but his guess consisted of speculations about the inheritance. Naskarl was concerned about the primacy of his older brother’s offspring. If it was a boy, it could inherit everything. If it was a girl, it still might, but more of the legalities and customs would come into play. A key point, though, was the survival of the child. Simply killing the mother was regarded as a major faux pas, capable of bringing in the whole spectrum of priests and making the inheritance—and control of the family—a matter for the gods to decide. Meaning, of course, the temple would get an even bigger cut before handing out the rest of the cake.

  “And you were tapped for this job? Why?”

  “I am sworn to the House Sarcana.”

  “The others are hired?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. We’ll get you some sandals and send you home.”

  “Sandals?”

  “Londrin, you’ve pissed me off. I don’t like kidnappers. I don’t like my warriors being murdered. As it is, I have one dead and another who isn’t going to walk again for a while. What I want to do is make you and your hirelings disappear. You went to the valley to steal Renata and you never came back. Naskarl can wait forever or send more—who, hopefully, would then disappear, as well. After three or fo
ur tries, I’m sure Naskarl would get the point.

  “Instead, I’m sending a message. You are going to see he gets it. This time, it’s the men who were sent. Next time, I won’t be nice. I won’t be understanding. I’ll crush House Sarcana. Do you understand the message?”

  “I do.”

  “Let’s go back to the cave. You’ll want to bring your men.”

  “But… you’re sending us out naked?”

  “I offered sandals. You don’t have to accept.”

  “We’ll take them,” Londrin decided.

  “I knew you were smart.”

  Leisel confirmed the story Londrin told, or confirmed he told the same story to each of us. Firebrand was of the opinion Londrin wasn’t lying, which only meant Londrin believed what he’d been told.

  We rode along behind them as they trooped out through the main settlement. At least they had sandals to wear, right? I don’t think they appreciated being mocked by all the women, though.

  “You’re really letting them go?” Leisel asked.

  “I am.”

  “I’m surprised.”

  “Why?”

  “I expected you to do something more gruesomely horrible.”

  “Do you hear what I hear?” I asked, referring to the jeering. “That’s enough humiliation for a school play.”

  “I meant physically horrible.”

  “I don’t know,” I mused. “Some of those tongues are sharp enough to cut.”

  “Don’t talk to me about tongues. I’m still not happy about you keeping yours a secret.”

  “Can we get back to Renata and Naskarl and so forth?”

  “If you insist. Are you going to follow them all the way to Spogeyzer?”

  “No.”

  “Then let me off. I’ll task someone to make sure they don’t come back to steal clothes or weapons.”

  Leisel slid off and assembled a squad. I turned over the escort-and-guard duty to them and went to find my patient.

  Her name was Tessera, and she was lying on a cot in her house-cabin. Physically, she was in fair condition. Her body still didn’t move correctly, if at all, and her hands tended to curl awkwardly. She couldn’t even relax properly with random twitches and mild flailing constantly going on. I got back to work.

  With my patient face down and her muscles forcibly relaxed, I moved her hair aside and started drawing lines all along the back of her neck. The bones and discs and suchlike were almost entirely healed, but the casing wasn’t the issue. The wiring was. The healing spell already running would work… eventually. A bit of guidance, some more focus, and an additional bucket of power would do everything a world of good. The spell regulating her heartbeat and breathing would keep her alive, but there are other things regulated by the nervous system and I wasn’t comfortable leaving her to heal slowly.

  My pet light—now more than a little multicolored—wandered in through the wall somewhere along the line. It floated through Tessera’s midsection, floated up over the proceedings, and didn’t do anything. It simply hovered in the room for a while. I presume it was watching, in whatever manner a multicolored ball of light watches things, but I was busy with my own work. I wondered why it was out and resolved to check its little house. If something broke the containment circle, it might be out for a wander… or it might be looking for me to come fix it. On the other hand, it might just be out wandering around. I don’t know what motivates it beyond a divinity dynamo environment.

  Leisel came in as I was working. She stopped in the doorway for several seconds before moving in and to the side. She watched while I hummed, drew lines, and waved hands over Tessera. I don’t randomly wave my hands around. I draw lines of force and guide energies. Of course, to anyone who can’t see them, I’m randomly waving my hands around, so I still look silly.

  “Tessera,” I said.

  “Mmm?”

  “Say something.”

  “Say what?”

  “Just making sure you could control your breathing and voice.”

  “Oh, that’s comforting!”

  “I fix people. Doesn’t mean I’m any good at bedside manner. Anything hurt?”

  “I can’t feel anything.”

  “Good. It’s a side effect of calming your body down so it doesn’t move. It’ll wear off later today.”

  “Are you a physick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Am I going to walk again?”

  “Could you walk before?”

  “Of course.”

  “If you could do it before, you’ll do it again.”

  “How about fight?”

  “If you could do it before, you’ll do it again.”

  “What about—”

  “If you could do it before, you’ll do it again. Are you sensing a pattern to my answers?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I went back to humming and handwaving until I had my spells sorted out and installed. I rolled her over and arranged her on her cot, giving her the usual doctor-speak. Keep calm, try to sleep, eat something, and so forth. Leisel and I left the building. Two of the other warrior-women went inside to tend Tessera.

  “Are you really a physick?”

  “No. I’m a wizard.”

  “So, you don’t know what you’re doing?”

  “Story of my life. No, in this case I have a pretty good idea.”

  “Is she really going to…?”

  “Yes.”

  “You say that with a profound depth of definitiveness.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Before I’m done with her, she’ll do everything short of fly, okay?”

  “Okay. Is this… is this some sort of… you know. You. With the eyes and the tongue and the rest. Is it a power?”

  “If you’re asking if I’m a demonic being with the ability to heal people, the answer is a definite maybe. As it happens, though, what I’m doing with the finger-healing trick and the neck-healing spells are things anyone could learn to do, not unholy demon powers.”

  “Then I want to learn.”

  “You? A warrior?”

  “I can milk a goat, but I’m not a farmer. I can chop down a tree, but I’m not a woodsman. I can even plink out a bit of a tune on a simisiya. I’m not a professional at any of it, but I can do it, and you said anyone could learn. Even warriors?”

  “Even warriors. All right, you heretic. We’ll have lessons. Actually, do you think anyone else would want to learn?”

  “Probably, but they might not admit it. It’s one thing for a warrior to do farmer and carpenter work, but we do what we have to. Actually violating the temple’s laws by studying another profession? You’re right. I’m a heretic.”

  “Maybe we should keep this to ourselves.”

  Leisel nodded and we walked together toward the tower. My pet ball of light floated along on my other side for a bit, then swung around to float through Leisel, swooping through her midsection before returning to its position opposite her.

  “Did you feel anything just now?”

  “No. Why?”

  “It’s a wizard thing. I saw something, but I guess it isn’t perceptible to normal people.”

  “Isn’t that sort of distracting?”

  “What?”

  “If you’re fighting someone and weird things happen only you can see?”

  “Oh. I suppose it could be. Usually, if it’s that sort of fight, I’m too focused on killing the other guy to be distracted.”

  “Fair point. Do you have anything you want done today?”

  “Maybe get someone to haul rocks out to the bridge for me. I’m going to double-check the tower and spend some time thinking.”

  “No distractions?”

  “Bother me if it’s important, but handle anything you can.”

  “That’s my job.”

  My tower is a functional tower. It’s not much of a fortification, all things considered, but it’s a stone structure and it’ll shrug off thugs with clubs or peasant
s with torches. It’ll do for now while the walls continue to expand and thicken. While I anticipate battering rams, I don’t really anticipate battering rams, but if I don’t anticipate them, they’ll definitely show up, if that makes any sense.

  I’m back to the age-old question of how much effort to put into a defensive position. No doubt I’ll return to this question the next time I find a new place to live.

  I headed for the top floor, to seal it against distractions and spend some time thinking about my life. Naturally, the distractions ambushed me on the way. Renata, currently living on the second floor as my well-protected guest, buttonholed me to discuss the possibility of leaving her room.

  My pet light whiffed through her, much like it did with Leisel, but it whiffed back a second time and stayed. It disappeared into her completely and didn’t emerge.

  I held up a finger to silence Renata and examined her with some care. This wouldn’t work on most people, but Renata is both a warrior and in my employ. I can get away with a lot before I have to explain myself. She stayed quiet, lips pressed in a thin line, while I checked for… well, everything. I had no idea what was going on.

  After an extensive magical examination, I still don’t. I wish this happened at night. I’d see the energy manifestation of whatever happened as it happened, instead of trying to figure it out after the fact.

  This presented me with a dilemma. What do I do next? Chase down this mystery? Go take out my frustrations on a bunch of about-to-be-screaming naked men as they flee for their lives? Stomp up to the top floor and meditate as hard as possible?

  Ever had a day where you just want to go to the store? You have to get some stuff and it’s the only thing on your list of things to do. Then something else pops up, and you have to go—I don’t know—pick up someone. Then you realize you have too much stuff cluttering the car and need to make room. Of course, your trash cans are full, so you have to deal with that. Now you have to add trash bags to your shopping trip. And what about the pizza boxes? They’re stacking up. And you should start some laundry and let it run while you’re out, but you need to get the clean clothes out of the dryer. Which you have to do anyway, if you want to have a clean towel for the shower after you take out the trash and before you go pick up someone before you go to the store…