by Garon Whited
With plans for prison cells unfolding in my head, I went up to visit Bronze’s spare outfit. She was wearing it, still tailoring it to suit her. She’d already fixed the damage to the trailer and was focused mostly on the actual truck, now. I left her to it while I took apart and rebuilt the shift-booth spell on the trailer.
Logistics annoy me. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like running either a war or a kingdom. I much prefer to cope with things on a smaller scale.
Why do I keep winding up in the larger scale? Is it the universe trying to get me out of my comfort zone? Or am I too powerful to be contained in a small-scale universe? I admit things snowballed on me here in Tauta, but I’m finally aware of the problem. First it was Rethven, then Karvalen, then the mages and vampires of Nexus, and now it’s Tauta, but I think I see my own pattern. I go somewhere and I stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. I demonstrate powers. I don’t keep to myself.
Maybe I really do need to be a hermit. Is that why legendary vampires have isolated castles? To avoid entanglements with people? Or is it a security thing? Or both?
I’m not so happy with this valley any more. Or Tauta, for that matter. I left Karvalen to Lissette. Can I leave La Mancha to Leisel? Not as it is, certainly. Maybe if Hazir and his friend help?
I finished with the trailer and called Leisel. Bronze wanted some more metal to work with, so we arranged to deliver a couple hundred pounds of iron bars and have them stacked all over the truck, spreading them out. I added one of my metal-diffusion spells, letting Bronze control it, to hasten the process of rearrangement. She assured me she could handle it. If necessary, she would even fire up the engine and use fuel to speed things along.
With someone happy—two someones, counting the sleeping child—I returned to my chambers and got in a little more practice brooding. I’m getting good at it.
Around dinnertime, someone brought me a half-dozen MREs and scampered away. What with the discussion about being a terrifying figure and all, I noticed the scampering. My grumbling took place behind a closed door, in my workroom. I peeled open the food and munched while I phoned my altar ego.
“Yo,” he replied, then blinked at me. “Is that a baby?”
“Yes. This is Renata’s daughter, and Renata died in childbirth. Apparently, the locals believe children whose mothers die in childbirth are murderers. The ones who have coppery eyes, are soulless. They leave either sort out in the wilderness to die, so this kid is doubly damned.”
“Uh… okay. Not sure how that evolved.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, if you grow a person inside another person—not a clone, but organically—it gets a soul. It’s that simple. I don’t know of any exceptions.”
“Really? Interesting. So you’re sure this thing has one?”
“Looks like it. Admittedly, my eyes aren’t what they used to be, but there’s something in there and it’s in the spot where people keep their souls, so I’m going to say it has one.”
“Here’s a weird question. Have you seen any glowing balls of light drifting around down here in the material world?”
“No. Why?”
“Just curious.”
“Are you keeping it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Got a name for it?”
“No.”
“Picked out a color for the nursery? Established a college fund?”
“Shut up,” I advised. He chuckled.
“You don’t raise your own kids, but you pick up strays.”
“First, my own kids had extenuating circumstances. Second, I haven’t picked up a stray and I’m not keeping it. This. Her.”
“Sure you’re not.”
“Sarcasm is unbecoming on you.”
“Seriously, though. You are keeping it. I can tell.”
“Oh?” I demanded. “Am I so easy to read?”
“First, I’m a psychic entity on your brainwave channel, so yes. Second, you smile every time you see a child.”
“I do not!”
“You do,” he insisted.
Boss? He’s right. You do.
“I do? How long as this been going on?”
“Ever since I’ve known you.”
Same here, Boss.
Somewhere, Bronze agreed with both of them. I backtracked.
“That doesn’t mean I’m keeping some random baby I rescued!”
“There’s no one else who wants it,” my altar ego pointed out. “You’ve adopted it.”
“Her!”
“See? You’re developing those pesky things. Feelings for it. You’re stuck!” he declared, grinning madly.
“I am entirely unqualified to be a parent!”
“Most people are. It’s not like you have to get a license.”
“People should!”
“I’m not arguing,” he agreed, still grinning. “I’m merely pointing out your lack of qualifications doesn’t disqualify you. You teach her to be a person, she teaches you to be a parent. Might be good for you, actually. There are a lot of parallels between being a parent and being a king.”
“I’m not confident.”
“It just means you’re already taking it seriously. Relax. You don’t know what you’re doing, but neither does she. You learn as you go. This is how everyone does it!”
That brought me up short. He had a point. I considered the baby and wondered about the right thing to do. Ideally, she should have a mother, father, and siblings. Being a single Dad could be detrimental to her, especially a single vampire wizard monster Dad.
Although, to be fair, she’s could win every schoolyard argument about “My Dad can beat up your Dad.”
“I don’t have time,” I argued. “I have bigger things to worry about.”
“Seriously?” asked my altar ego. “You have thousands of years and the blink of one mortal lifetime is too much? And is there any bigger worry than being responsible for a baby?”
“Sometimes I hate you,” I observed.
“There are upsides. Imagine the cute little outfits…”
“God damn it, what part of ‘shut up’ means ‘keep needling me about it’?”
“I’m a little short on power at the moment, so excuse me if I take your suggestion as rhetoric,” he replied, still grinning. I squeezed my temples and took several deep breaths. When I looked at him again, his expression was more serious.
“I do not,” I told him, “feel up to the responsibility for caring for a child.”
“I understand,” he answered, softly, “but maybe you should think about how you would be good for each other.”
“You’re crazy. Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not joking.”
“I am not.”
Somewhere slightly to the left of the center of my chest, I felt Bronze agreeing with my altar ego.
Him, I’ll argue with until doomsday. Bronze? Argue with Bronze?
“All right,” I sighed, resigning myself to a lot of forced personal growth. “Explain. I should at least understand why you think this is a good idea, not a stupid one.”
“You’ve been drifting away from humanity,” he pointed out. “You’re bad-tempered and less patient with people.”
“That’s an argument against raising a child,” I insisted. “They can be frustrating.”
“Yes, but you still have that short-circuit in your brain.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Every time you look at a child, you smile. Remember? You don’t even notice, apparently. It’s a crack in your monstrosity. The kid could be your lifeline, allowing you to encounter frustration while still maintaining your composure. If you can practice it, you should be able to master your temper. She could help you grow as a person, and a little personal growth wouldn’t do you any harm. More important, it might prevent a lot of harm to other people. What do you think?”
“It seems awfully cold-blooded to adopt a child simply as a self-help aid.”
“Oh, she gets something, too. You’ll
feed her, teach her, raise her, and love her.”
“I will?”
“Trust me. You can’t help it.”
I regarded the sleeping child and drummed my fingers on the edge of the sand table for a while. He might be right. Damn it, he might be right about everything. He’s not omniscient, but he sure has a good bead on me. And, since Bronze agreed with him…
“Tabling, for the moment, the question of a blood-drinking monster with a badly-used soul adopting a potentially-soulless child who may be possessed by an unknown type of celestial entity, can we return to the reason I called in the first place?”
“Oh. Sorry. The conversation kind of got away from us. What’s on your mind?”
“I wanted to check in with you on the local god front and ask your opinions on the upcoming wars.”
“Wars? Plural? With who?”
“I’m told the kustoni are a bull-headed bunch of idiots and we’re going to fight them repeatedly. I’m also of the opinion the Temple’s crusade is going to be crushed, but it’ll only antagonize the rest of the Temples and encourage them to send a bigger crusade. So, wars.”
I was gratified to know I wasn’t the only one who used such language.
“I know why I’m unhappy at the idea,” I interrupted, “but why are you so bent out of shape?”
“Religious wars always liberate more energy up here. It’s like human sacrifice, only more wasteful. It’s like the way white men hunted buffalo on the plains—killing for hides and leaving the rest. They got what they wanted and made their fortunes, but it nearly killed off the buffalo.”
“Aaaaand…?”
“Look, the proto-gods up here are going to get a huge boost. In a year, I might wind up being the smallest person present.”
“Whoa, hold it. You’ve got a steady source of power, don’t you?”
“Yes, and that’s helpful, especially in the Earth regions. Here? I don’t have many worshippers where you are. No one will be revering the Lord of Shadow, God of Fire, Master of Mysteries, or whatever else while they’re killing or dying for The Cause. Even your people don’t really know who I am. I barely notice the power they produce in awe of you.”
I leaned back from the sand table as I felt the flickering of an idea ignite in the back of my mind.
“You don’t have worshippers. I get that. Does it matter what they worship you as?”
“Yes and no.”
“You’re not helping.”
“It’s complicated. Look, under the ocean, I filled the niche for a god of fire. In Karvalen, I filled a niche for a god of shadows. The two can be related in some respects. Imagine a fire in a cave, making dancing shadows on the wall. God of fire and shadow. With me?”
“I can picture it,” I admitted.
“In the Temple of Shadow, I had the Banners, remember? I was also revered as a god of knowledge and learning. You wouldn’t think those went along with fire and shadow, would you? But the Banners always viewed it as drawing forth mysteries, bringing knowledge from the shadows and into the light of the fire. See?”
“I get it. So, if you’re revered here, you need something along those lines?”
“What I’m saying is I am defined at least partly by the worshippers. I can adapt with their worship, but if we want to build a church, we need to have people at least start by knowing me as I am. With a foothold, I can build up a base and hand down occasional pronouncements from On High, work up a list of commandments, maybe some parables or scripture. Keep them on track and make sure I have a solid niche for myself.”
“Oh. I was thinking of having you step into the shoes of the local god of warriors. We could pull that off, couldn’t we?”
“Yes…” he allowed, thoughtfully. “It could be done. He’s currently a proto-god, not a self-aware one. I could subsume him—eat him, in common terms—and make his essence part of mine. It would change me more than I like, though.”
“I thought energy-state beings couldn’t be destroyed?”
“It depends on how you define ‘destroyed.’ A full-on, sentient, sapient being is nearly impossible to eradicate, but you can keep it starved and harmless. The original Lord of Light had that problem in Rethven. He was weakened, but his pattern wasn’t scrambled. The Devourer didn’t succeed in consuming him. I suspect it avoided doing so, because trying to would cause them to merge. For example, if I overwhelmed the original Lord of Light and tried to merge his essence with mine, it would be like taking two notes and using them to form a chord.”
“It takes—”
“Shut up. I’m analogizing. The chord would then be a new being, a composite of the two. I wouldn’t be me, he wouldn’t be him, but whoever we became would be all there was. In Rethven, I was stronger, so I would be more ‘me’ than ‘him,’ but we would be a new entity. Conversely, if I were eaten by the current Lord of Light—assuming an ex-angel can even do that—the result would be mostly him and less me, but the resulting entity would be a composite of the two.
“What I’m talking about with the proto-gods up here is the same thing, only with lesser effects. I’d be mostly me, but I’d have a lot more leanings toward whatever attitudes and beliefs the other guy does. You and I would also have a much less effective resonance connection. It would get harder to contact you. Not to the point of a normal person, but it would be worse than it is already.”
“It seems to me,” I mused, “if we could get a celestial entity weak enough, we could find his frequency and hit him with focused static. A collection of waves designed to interact and interfere.”
“Maybe. It might work on angels, but I’m not so sure about the rest of us.”
“Anyway, is there a semigod up there you could cannibalize?”
“Maybe, but I don’t like the idea. Later, once they became fully aware, if the others got wind of what happened it could cause enormous problems. Besides, I’m not really a god of warriors or craftsmen or rulers. They’re working on being immortals based on ancestors. I’m more a primal forces kind of guy.”
“Don’t they have those up there, too?”
“Sure. Ocean, storms, earth—you name it.”
“But the Empire doesn’t worship them.”
“Nope. I think they’re too accessible. Anyone can pray to the sky. It’s more to the priests’ advantage to have people come to the Temple and pray to the idols. It gives the Temple more control.”
“No doubt,” I agreed. “So, who worships primal forces?”
“Uh? I’d say everyone else. It doesn’t seem too formal, but it’s pretty widespread.”
“Would a barbarian horde do as worshippers?”
“Well, yeah, but how am I supposed to tell them anything? I’m in no shape to do miracles, and they’re not going to go for the idea of praying at a statue even if you had one for them.”
“Give me a bit. I’ll think of something. Oh! And while I’m thinking of it, did the sacrificial diagrams I drew for the animals do what I wanted?”
“Yes, and I meant to thank you. It’s been busy up here.”
“Down here, too. Did I mention Hazir?”
“Not that I recall.”
“You may want to pay attention to him. I’m pretty sure he’s part of a religious group. I’m not sure if they’re reformationists or protestants, but the Temples probably think of them as heretics, regardless.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’ve got to run. Keep the faith.”
“Oh, you are funny today.”
What I needed was a movie director and a big CGI budget. What I had was a notion and time to think.
The sun went down, I cleaned up, and we—the small person and I—headed down to the truck barn. Bronze didn’t have the engine running, but she was in there and ready to go with whatever I had in mind. I called Leisel and asked for twenty husky men with no qualms about lifting, sorting, and stacking. With that underway, I climbed into the cab of the truck. My cloak molded itself onto t
he passenger seat as a sort of cross between a hammock and car seat. The small person slept perfectly.
As an aside, I did look her over. I don’t think I see actual souls, but I do see a number of different levels of energy within living beings. While I’m no expert on newborns, I’ve seen a few with my night-eyes. Nothing about the current one struck me as unusual. This made me wonder how the whole copper-colored eyes thing came to be and about those floating lights. I don’t know anything about either, which is a no-good way to wonder. Someday, if I have a couple of facts to rub together, maybe I can ignite the flame of an idea.
I fiddled with the opening of the barn, scratching all around the doorway, while I waited for people to show up. This wasn’t a matter of finesse, just brute force. Bronze relocated into her horse outfit, climbed up into the trailer, braced herself, and moved into the truck again. When the men arrived—led by Leisel—I waved and headed over. The men were unarmored and unarmed. Laborers of some sort, obviously. They seemed anxious. Well, who could blame them?
“I see you have the giant wagon-box ready to go.”
“I do,” I agreed. “If you’ll get the guys up in the back, we’ll go load supplies.”
“Do I need to understand what is happening?”
“The people in the mirror room—they’re watching the road and the crusaders?”
“Yes.”
“They can’t seek me out with the mirrors, but if they’re watching an area with me in it, they can see what happens.”
“I believe I understand.”
“But get some more husky lads down to the dungeon. The corridor with all the markings. It’s going to have a lot of stuff appear. Stay out of it until it does.”
“I take you at your word.”
We loaded up and headed out. The barn doors acted as the locus for a brute-force gate. While Leisel stood next to the doors, waiting and watching, Bronze’s engine thundered to life, belching smoke and fire from the stacks.
“What is that?” she shouted, moving more to the side.
“Six-point-nine on the Richter scale!” I shouted back. Bronze expertly backed us up to get a running start. She shifted gears. Airbrakes hissed, the engine roared, and we growled forward, building speed before I hit the gate spell. It shimmered, rippled, and appeared on the road outside of Spogeyzer. We rolled through it, accelerating the whole way, and the gate closed behind us.