by Garon Whited
Bronze wanted to come along, but I vetoed it. I was going to risk attracting enough attention as it was. She didn’t like that, but I assured her that I would see if there was a way to bring her along on the second trip. This was just a brief scouting run, after all. She still didn’t like it, but agreed.
This is one of the main reasons I’ve taken so long to go through my gate: Nobody wants me to. They keep distracting me with the business of being King and suchlike. Well, except for Tort. She isn’t trying to stop me; she just made me promise to come back. She distracts me in much nicer ways.
Down in the gate room, we temporarily diverted the charging spells to the pool. T’yl, Tort, and I put ourselves at the points of a triangle and started working on the spell to open a gate.
I provided the targeting information and a lot of power; I remembered the pool I wanted to hit.
T’yl did a lot of the finicky work with the spell; he studied the modern spells for it when the Hand started using one in Telen. Those were similar to the one used in making the Great Arch of Zirafel, but I thought the modern versions were somewhat less elegant—as though cobbled together from descriptions. Possibly so.
Tort helped by defining the locus at the pool’s edge and providing energy channels for T’yl and I to push power into, as well as guiding the energy from the captives. Her magic bracelets also provided a sizable dollop of energy.
The water spun, gaining speed as we pumped energy into the spell. The last time I did this, it was with a crude version of the spell, brute-forced with a small herd of cattle for power, and more blood in the pool than water. Today, it was a streamlined, refined version of the spell, powered by dozens of living sources and three magicians—yeah, I include myself, from the standpoint of raw power.
The whirlpool formed in the water, reaching downward, ever downward, far beyond the depth of the pool. As I watched, I had a chance to really look at it. It wasn’t just a whirlpool of water; it was a writhing, circling mass of something else, too. The water was just the structure of the opening. What was really being twisted and turned was… what? Spacetime? Ether? Astral mist?
Contact!
Sunlight shone up from the whirlpool. Deep down, I could see sky.
Holding the portal open like that was draining; it didn’t become easier once the connection was established. Speed is always critical.
I jumped through in a forward dive as though heading for the bottom on the far side. There’s a trick, you see, to going through a portal that faces up-and-down, rather than side-to-side, like a door. With a door, you just step through; gravity is—if you’ve done it right—oriented the same way.
With a pool, if you just jump in, you fall down and through, then the local gravity has you and you fall back down and through, back and forth, until you either wind up floating in the middle and spinning around with the water, or someone cuts the spell and you wind up on one side or the other.
Potentially, part of you could wind up on one side, part on the other. Messy.
As I said, there’s a trick to diving into a portal like that and coming out gracefully on the far side, landing lightly on your feet at the opposite edge, and waving at your companions to show you made it.
I don’t have it.
The transit went cleanly enough, but I forgot that by diving like that I would be emerging on the far side upside-down. So, instead of shooting up through the portal like coming off a trampoline, I shot up through the portal like coming off a trampoline backwards. I tried to tuck and roll, sort of succeeded. I rolled well, thumping and banging down the side of a hill, finding every rock, stone, thorn, and spiky bit in the process. I eventually wound up skidding gracefully to a halt on my face.
I lifted my head, spat dirt, sneezed, and brushed mud out of my eyes. Grimacing, I climbed to my feet and took stock of my condition. Nothing broken—unsurprising—but several tears in my clothes and scrapes all over. Nothing outright bleeding, either, just oozing a bit. There was a patch of spiky-looking plants to my left that I missed by about a foot. Things could have been worse.
I worked my way up the hill back along the path I’d torn through tall grass and brambles. The pool was no longer whirling, just somewhat foamy and disturbed. It was greenish-black with algae and shredded plants. A stunned frog clung to one side and looked at me. The pool looked as though it had been untended for years.
There was no sign of the house. Not that I expected a house to be there; the last one burned to the ground, or mostly. The whole area was overgrown and wild, obviously left to Nature for some time.
According to the sun, it was either midmorning or midafternoon… north, that way, so east and west… okay, only about midmorning. I sat down, checked my scrapes carefully, and tried a couple of small healing spells. They worked, but it took a lot more effort than I liked; it was not a magic-rich environment. At least I felt better about my injuries. I didn’t think to bring bandages, but my spells could serve that purpose until my evening regeneration took over.
I hauled myself to my feet and collected my scattered gear. Time to hit the trail and see if I could find town. As I recalled, it was a long walk, but maybe I could hitch a lift.
As I set off, I noticed a large rock in the weeds. I didn’t remember it, and the shape of the top spoke of something manmade. I kicked through vegetation and cleared it, examined it, and felt a chilling shock.
It was a heavily-weathered headstone, which was unexpected.
It was Travis’ headstone, which was bad enough, but that fact only took third place in my list of shocks..
The dates grabbed my attention for second place: 1968 to 2071. He made it to about a hundred and three, so good for him; but how long past 2071 was it?
First place and the gold medal, though, went to the inscription: “I waited as long as I could.”
How long did I kneel there in the torn grass and weeds, staring at the stone? I don’t know. A long time, though, because when I came back to myself, it was well into the afternoon and I was hot, sweaty, and thirsty.
He was buried here, knowing that if I came back—no; knowing that when I came back—it would probably be through the same door I left through. He couldn’t have known I was delayed, or why. But he knew I’d be back. Eventually. And here he was to greet me, no matter what.
He was my best friend.
Immortality problems. Yeah.
I got up. There were no flowers around, nothing I could gather for his grave. All I could do was cut back the weeds and grass to clear a little space. I found a border of smaller stones around the area in front of the headstone, but the grass didn’t care. Still, I did the best I could.
Where does a soul go, here? Is there something that takes it by the hand and leads it to where it belongs? Or does it wander until it finds its own way? Or, since this world is pretty short on magic, does it simply come apart and dissipate? Does that hurt? If I had been here, could I have been his escort, or his doorway, into whatever comes next?
Whatever happens when a person dies, here, I hope it’s painless. That’s all I can do now, I guess, and that hurts, too.
The sun was definitely starting to go down. I didn’t want to get started on the hike into town and be caught by the side of the road at sundown—or in a car, for that matter. I searched around the place where the house once stood, finding foundations and the occasional bit of ancient ruin amid the overgrowth. My toe found the edge of the trapdoor to the basement, which caused me to cry out in something other than joy, then hop around for a moment before sitting down.
I’ll say this for basement bomb shelters: they can take a beating. Time and plants had worked on it, but despite rust and corrosion, the trapdoor still opened without coming off in my hand.
Inside, it was musty, damp, and fetid. It was also pitch black, which was all I really cared about. I left the trapdoor open and let it air out a bit. With luck, I could slip down when the sunset tingling started, close the hatch for a bit, and emerge with a whole night ahead of m
e to get the lay of the land.
I just wished I had some drinkable water. I could charm water out of the air, especially with the high humidity, but I needed something in which to collect it. It’s amazing, the things we forget when we don’t have to worry about them. It never occurred to me to bring mundane food or water. I thought I was going to have an easy time of getting those in a civilized area. I never thought I might be stuck in a wilderness, however temporarily.
Sunset drove me into the basement; I shut the hatch above me and waited for my eyes to adjust. I assume they tried to adjust, but pitch black is still pitch black. Then the sun vanished below the horizon and the darkness rolled back from me, revealing lines, angles, features, all in the black and white of vampire sight. Faint glows of life were scattered everywhere—fungus, mold, some spiders and other insects.
The place had leaked a bit; brackish, mucky water covered the bottom four steps, at least. All the things that a basement collects—even the “survival” things Sasha and I had stowed down here—were gone to rot and corrosion. There might conceivably be some irradiated, vacuum-sealed, plastic-wrapped food packets that were still good, or a sealed bottle of water purification tablets, or other things. Possibly. But unlikely. Judging by the headstone, it was at least… well, it could be eighty-seven years since anyone had been down here. Maybe a hundred and eighty-seven. Time and water will destroy almost anything. Just look at the gap between South America and Africa.
I sat on the stairs, under the closed hatch, and let the prickling, stinging sensation of my sunset transformation do its work. I sweated muck, adding appreciably to the collection of unpleasant smells.
Finally, everything settled into place. The stinging diminished to tingling, then to itching, then faded altogether. I held my breath and kept holding it; no need, no urge to breathe. And no signs of my minor injuries, either. Even the bloodstains vanished, presumably sucked back into my skin.
Good. I opened the hatch and climbed out. The night air was good after the muggy rot of the basement. I closed the trapdoor again and looked around. The driveway was that way, the main gate beyond it, there, and the road down that way…
One thing to do first. I revisited the grave and looked at it. Tendrils uncoiled and swept down, sliding through grass and soil and stone. Anything? Anyone? Was there even a trace of someone still there, or was he already gone to wherever it is souls go?
Nothing. He really was gone.
I started walking.
The driveway was rubble amid grass and weeds. The main gate was steel, originally painted with an epoxy resin against rust. It wasn’t meant to go this long without maintenance; the gates were rusted through in places. One of the gate leaves simply fell outward when I pushed it. I don’t think I pushed it that hard, but I could be wrong.
As I trudged toward the main road, I spent some time on a cleaning spell. Obviously, my usual cleaning spell wasn’t going to work; or, rather, it would work, but it would take a lot longer to do its job. I could speed it up, but that would take a lot more effort. I didn’t feel like testing just how much that would cost me.
Was there another way? Yes, I thought so. The same basic pattern of a usual cleaning spell, of course, but drawing mechanical energy from the motion of walking. This could be directed through the spell to toss away little bits of grime, goo, and other material from me and my clothes. Since I don’t sweat at night, the farther I walked, the cleaner I would be.
I found a spot where I could draw lines in the dirt and stand inside a spell-circle. Casting a spell by visualization alone is always more difficult. In this magic-starved environment, I wanted every advantage I could get.
I could feel it working, albeit slowly. If anyone tried to follow me with a bloodhound, the dog was going to have a very easy time of it. Important thing to know if you’re running for your life and being tracked: Don’t use this spell.
When I reached the junction of the drive and the main road, I realized there was more to my troubles than just time. The secondary highway was in very poor shape. It had fared better than the driveway, obviously; it had maintenance more recently, and was a proper road to begin with. Still, I’d have hated to take anything with a low suspension over it, and nothing short of a military vehicle was going to go faster than thirty miles an hour. I wanted a Jeep, maybe, or a Land Rover.
Maybe I should have brought Bronze, I reflected. I could have used the emotional support. I wasn’t expecting to find that I missed the place so much, or that I missed my friend so deeply.
Something about this, the ruins of the house and the road, said something was wrong.
Maybe they’ve finally got those flying cars everyone wanted. Maybe they just use jet-boots. Or antigravity harnesses.
But I haven’t seen any, and I would have noticed flying people. I haven’t seen anything in the sky, not even a plane.
I started jogging down the old highway, then realized I was thinking in human terms again. I stepped it up to a full run, sprinting at racehorse speeds through the night, heading into town.
I passed a number of buildings, some I remembered, some built since I left. All of them were dilapidated, ruined, falling down, overgrown. I didn’t bother to stop and check through them; I wanted someplace where civilization might be in full swing, not an abandoned piece of Rust Belt City.
Arriving in town wasn’t a clear event. It was a gradual thing. More dilapidated buildings, generally covered in vegetation, appeared by the roadside as I progressed. Eventually, I wondered if I was still in the suburbs or if I’d made it into town proper. There were no street signs visible and no landmarks that I recognized.
I started investigating ruins, looking for clues. Houses, strip-malls, bank, gas station, highway overpass, car dealership…
I glanced at the sky; overcast. No help from the stars, then.
What I wanted was a newspaper with a convenient article on why all this was in ruins. If they ever make my life into a movie, I’m sure they’ll include one. I had to do it the hard way.
Libraries.
Back when I was working as a professor, I once had a student in computer science expound at length upon the uselessness of a big building full of books. A computer can store all that information, make it easier to access, faster to find, and can do it all in a space small enough to be easily carried around. The information could go with you, instead of forcing you to go to it.
I argued that although the data storage of a computer was useful, there was one fatal flaw. You take your computer to a desert island and you can’t get the information out of it. A book—that’s something you can hold in your hand. You can read a book with your naked eyes; you can’t do that with your digital media files. So, next time you’re in a power outage and wishing your computer worked, or that you could charge your batteries, get a candle or six and read a book.
Which brings me back to libraries. There was a tiny municipal library; I figured it would be quicker to search through, as well as more likely to have hardcopy records. The larger university library was going electronic, last time I looked. So I started with the municipal library.
It was much quicker to search. The roof had been broken by debris from the collapse of a neighboring building. The cumulative effects of sunshine, rain, plants, and animals had turned the place into a wastebasket. Many of the books were solid blocks of fiber, the pages merged together into lumps.
I hacked and kicked my way through the place anyway. I wanted to check the periodicals section, just in case it was a separate, sealed room. It wasn’t. Something had used it for a lair at some point, and shredded newspaper was apparently ideal for bedding.
That library probably hadn’t heard spoken language in a century. Pity it had to be such unbridled language. And so loud. Ghosts of librarians were doubtless invisibly shushing me.
All right. A quick run up to the university library was in order. That building was somewhat more modern than the downtown municipal library, and maybe it was still intact. Bes
ides, being larger, it might have something salvageable—an encyclopedia would do. If it was in any way serviceable as a building, it might also do well as a base of operations in this world. I fully intended to loot everything.
As I sprinted along, I had time to wonder what happened. Did we finally nuke the place? Did global warming finally come true? Or did we just find a way off the planet? Come to that, is the whole world like this, or is this just a local thing?
I have a small mirror. I could look. But I think I won’t. Not yet.
Nothing bothered me on the way to the library. Well, there was a little confusion in finding the place; I didn’t exactly get lost, as such…
I found it, that’s the main thing. It looked pretty much intact. A lot of the university looked about the same: pretty much intact. There was a lot of overgrowth from the undergrowth. Ornamental trees now towered, their roots spreading under the churned-up bricks, for example. Ivy seemed everywhere, covering buildings with remarkable thoroughness.
Getting into the library wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. The front doors were hard to find behind the ivy, and I discovered that the ivy wasn’t regular ivy; it had small thorns all along its length. Annoying, but a point to consider; I wasn’t about to just grab handfuls and rip them down. I carefully cut away the mass of vegetation from the overhang in front of the doors.
The doorframes seemed okay, but the clear plastic that made up the majority of the main entry, while unbroken, was a milky, discolored white. I couldn’t get anything to budge when I tried each of the four front doors.
Well, that’s fine, too.
Tempting as it was to just kick the thing in, I managed to restrain myself. It was a bad day, what with one thing and another, and I think I deserve some kudos for keeping my calm.
A bit of fiddling with my tendrils told me that, while the metal frame might be mostly intact, the locking mechanism was in a less pristine condition. I tried to open it, but the corrosion had frozen what components it hadn’t destroyed outright. So, with considerable nicety and care, I put the tip of my sword in between the door and the jamb and simply sliced through the locking bolt.