by C. A. Pack
He considered ways to evict the shapeshifter. Most Terrorians were not known for their subtlety, especially Nero 51. In a flash, he wrapped a tentacle around the shapeshifter’s neck to fling him out of the vehicle. Before he could complete the action, Odyon dissolved into a beam of light and reappeared on the Terrorian’s other side.
“That was uncalled for,” Odyon said icily. “Don’t consider doing it again, or I will be forced to focus your deadly intent back upon yourself. However, if you do as you are told, we may be able to form an alliance.”
Nero 51 felt his jaw clamp tightly. “Alliance?” the Terrorian repeated incredulously. “Why would I want to partner with you?”
“Because, together we could rule the world.”
“I do not need you to rule the world,” Nero 51 claimed. “I’m already close to doing that myself.”
Odyon sneered. “Really? Stuck in an endless loop while the overseers discuss the best way to punish you after they allow you to escape into their trap. I could teach you how to disappear and reappear at will. Of course, that’s not to say it’s easy to learn. You would have to work hard at it. But it’s a good skill to have. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how useful it could be.”
True to his word, the Luminan designer tasked with creating uniforms for the Romantican militairres delivered the prototypes to Pru Tellerence not long after she asked for them. A Luminan model accompanied him, to show off the outfits.
The fabric was deeply ruched and draped beautifully. The boots were as soft as kidskin, yet protective. And the crossover harnesses looked like works of art, done in silvery mesh for the everyday uniform and golden links for the dress version.
“You said these were for Romantican women. I know how exacting they are in their dress. I have taken the liberty of having quivers made that match the boots. The knife sheaths are a complementary color, and a metalsmith has designed daggers that should be easy to access. He has provided me with both gold and silver daggers, as well as gold and silver arrows for the quivers.”
PT:★You have done remarkably well. Pru Tellerence picked up one of the uniforms. PT:★They’re lighter than air.
The designer smiled. “What you don’t see,” he said, taking a uniform, “is the lining. It is lightweight and silky, yet it’s made with auroriumide, which has been woven into a protective material that is as strong as any diamond or metal. An arrow or projectile will not pierce this material, although the flesh beneath it will bruise from the impact.”
PT:★It’s that strong?
“Yes. But the overall design is not foolproof. Your militairres’ heads, necks, and shoulders will be exposed.
“With that in mind, I took the liberty,” he continued, “of having one of my finest apprentices put together short jackets with a hood and long sleeves. It will protect the wearers against weather changes that often plague the others realms. They will be made of the same hides as the boots and be lined with the same protective material. I will have them delivered to you by tomorrow.”
PT:★You have more than risen to the task. Thank you.
Mal and Ryden Simmdry arrived on Fantasia together.
“Rather than answer your diary entry, the master and I thought it would be better to stop by instead.”
Johanna turned to Ryden Simmdry. “Myrddin wants to talk to you, personally.”
RS:⌘ I’m sure he does. Did you say you were keeping him in the vault?
“Yes, but he has asked us not to enter the vault until the person trying to steal his memoir is found. We have a book that he answers us through. Would you like to speak to him here, or would you prefer the privacy of my office?”
RS:⌘ This is as good a place as any. Is the book here?
“Just a moment. I’ll get it for you.” Johanna walked to the circulation desk and removed the book from one of the lower shelves.
Ryden Simmdry had followed her and now stood across the counter.
She handed him the book. He paused before opening it, his face oddly emotional. She felt a chill. She’d never seen Ryden Simmdry’s countenance so unguarded.
The overseer looked at her. RS:⌘ What you witness here must remain among us. It is, what you might call, classified information. He lifted the cover. Myrddin popped into view. At first, neither one said anything.
“It is true, then. We have gone on to become master of the College of Overseers.”
RS:⌘ Yes.
“I suspected as much after she said you had created the black cube, when I knew full well that I had devised it. In retrospect, there could be but one answer. How is it I am dead and you are not?”
The overseer smiled. RS:⌘ Your depth of experience ended in the caves of Skokholm. But one of our associates from Lumina had summoned us through a diary. I appeared to him in Lumi. Suddenly, I felt free, and I chose to stay. I tinkered with the Longevicus Blessing, which we had worked on with Rathbarth, and was able to reform it completely. My only limitation is here on Fantasia. I cannot leave the confines of this library, because it is on this realm that we were cursed. If I were to walk out the door, I would be transported back to the cave where I would once again be trapped.
“So you guys are brothers?” Jackson asked.
“No,” Johanna answered. “They’re two parts of the same psyche. Ryden Simmdry is Myrddin Emrys.”
“Of course,” Myrddin said. “You should have known that at once. His name—Ryden Simmdry—is merely an anagram of my own—Myrddin Emrys.”
Jackson gaped.
Johanna gently slipped her fingertips under Jackson’s chin and closed his mouth. She turned back to Ryden Simmdry. “It’s your life’s work that someone is trying to steal.”
RS:⌘ Yes. And, at this point, I am very sure it is Odyon. There was a time when we were friends and worked on our magic together. As I’ve mentioned previously, he is a very powerful wizard. But there were some levels of power he could not attain. And it is better that way, because they could change life as we know it, forever.
While he spoke, Jackson worked out the anagram with paper and pen. “You’re talking about Totalis Pereamus, right?”
“Total annihilation,” Johanna added.
RS:⌘ Your depth of perception never ceases to amaze me.
“Both names have the same letters.” Jackson slapped the pen back on the counter. “So just to confirm—Odyon can’t do that, right? Totalis Pereamus?”
RS:⌘ Not right now, but that’s not to say he won’t perfect that curse in the future. His specialty, after all, is déofolcræft.
They all fell silent. Jackson paced the length of the circulation desk, before turning and retracing his steps several times. After a minute, he stopped and looked at Johanna. “I’ve got nothing. I can’t even think up something ridiculous that we could do to solve this. How do you fight a guy like that?”
“If only there was a way to transport the black cube directly into the time machine,” she said, “then it would suck up Odyon, and we’d only have to deal with Nero 51.”
“Who now seems cuddly in comparison,” Jackson said, smirking.
Johanna laughed but stopped abruptly when her eyes met Mal’s. “Oh my goodness, I didn’t even ask you how you are.”
“That’s perfectly all right,” he said, giving her a hug. “You’ve had a lot on your mind.”
“Where have you been in all your greenness?” Jackson asked.
“Trying to work out a tax system for Mysteriose,” Mal replied.
“Mysteriose,” Johanna repeated. “Isn’t that where Odyon is from? Won’t he try to go back there?”
RS:⌘ Right now, I don’t think Odyon cares where he ends up, as long as it’s not here. Although I’m sure he would want to take a crack at your vault if he knew my memoir was inside.
“Do you want to take it with you?” Johanna asked.
RS:⌘ No. I think your vault is the safest place for it. Leave it be and forget it’s there.
“That’s kind of hard to do, isn’t it?” J
ackson said. “It’s like carrying a bag of peanut M&M’s in your pocket. Sure, you can ignore them. But there’s so much temptation to just pop them in your mouth.”
“Bag and all,” Johanna said under her breath.
Jackson nudged her with his elbow.
RS:⌘ There is something we could do, but it would mean opening the vault.
“It’s safe to do that, isn’t it,” Mal asked, “considering Ava reported seeing Odyon in the time machine before it became trapped in the portals?”
RS:⌘ It would seem so. We should hurry, though. Ryden Simmdry led the way to the lower level with Johanna, Jackson, and Mal trailing behind him. Once they entered the Chamber of Doors, he approached the one in the middle.
Jackson tried opening each door in turn, without success. “What’s behind all these doors?”
RS:⌘ Right now, we’re only concerned with what’s behind this door. Johanna…
She walked over to the door and held her left palm to the lock. The door sprang open and a light automatically came on.
This is the Duplication Room. Please, give me a moment of silence. I need to concentrate.
As they watched, Ryden Simmdry approached a compartment in the wall, closed his eyes, and started to hum. His lips moved ever so slightly as he called upon a spell. He held his hands parallel to the surface for about a minute, then quickly clapped. In front of him appeared a copy of Myrddin’s memoir. He waved his palm in front of a button on the wall and identical books started piling up on top of the first one. He levitated several of them to a table as even more of them appeared. Within minutes, there were hundreds of books.
“What are we going to do with all those?” Jackson asked.
“Camouflage the real one,” Johanna answered.
RS:⌘ Precisely. The overseer spent several more minutes touching various books and chanting. RS:⌘ As an added precaution, a few booby traps are in order.
“That’s hilarious,” Jackson said. “Exactly what did you do to them?”
RS:⌘ That’s not important. What is important is that you don’t touch them. Only I can approach them. He turned to Johanna. RS:⌘ It’s time to open the vault door. He dug into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a black cube.
Jackson pointed to it. “Is Alianessa Anjou still in there?”
RS:⌘ No. This is a duplicate cube. Johanna, please hold this in your right hand and open the vault with your left.
“I can hold the cube,” Jackson volunteered.
RS:⌘ No. Johanna generates much more magical power than you do. I don’t think Odyon is nearby, but if he is, this will be a deterrent. Johanna…
She followed his instructions and opened the vault door. Within an instant, all the books he had duplicated started flying into the vault, swirling around the original, which eventually lifted into the stream and swirled with the others until it was impossible to tell which one it had been. Just as quickly, the books settled down into haphazard piles along one side of the room and Ryden Simmdry pulled the vault door closed. He looked at the cube in Johanna’s hand. It emitted a soft pink glow.
—LOI—
12
Jackson looked from the cube in Johanna’s hand to Ryden Simmdry. “Does that pinkish light mean she caught someone?”
RS:⌘ No. It means the status quo is unchanged. Ryden Simmdry waved his hand over the cube, and the light disappeared. RS:⌘We should return upstairs and forget all about Myrddin’s… my… memoir.
“We’re still not any closer to capturing Odyon,” Jackson pointed out.
RS:⌘ Oh, but we are.
“How?” Johanna asked.
RS:⌘ You pointed out the solution yourself. We just have to transport a black cube into the time machine. It should be possible, but I’d like to give it some thought, first.
Ryden Simmdry’s stomach grumbled. RS:⌘ How odd. It seems far too soon for my annual meal. It must be because I’ve expended much more energy than usual lately.
“Do you like French food?” Jackson asked. “There happens to be a great place really close by where we can get some tasty tidbits.”
Johanna looked at him quizzically. “You want to go to Le Chat for lunch?”
Jackson spoke with a phony French accent. “No. I want George V to bring zee lunch to us.”
“Lead the way,” Mal said.
Ryden Simmdry broke into an odd smile when he walked into a luxury suite in a space previously designated for periodicals.
Jackson handed him a copy of the room service menu. “Order whatever you like.”
After much discussion with Mal on the differences between nouveau cuisine and classic Gallic cooking, the two men ordered a veritable seafood feast. Johanna and Jackson stuck to their usual order of burgers.
RS:⌘ I wonder if the original overseers had this in mind when they made Fantasia a class L realm? They meant for the books to come to life and be enjoyed, but I don’t think this is exactly what they planned.
“Probably because travel guides hadn’t been invented yet,” Jackson replied. He watched Johanna smear béarnaise sauce on her burger. “Why must you insist on ruining a perfectly good hamburger?”
“I’m not ruining it, I’m enhancing it. And I’m doing it because I can,” she said, before taking a bite out of her burger. “Umm umm!”
They didn’t mention Nero 51 or Odyon during the course of the meal, but once they finished and room service waiters had removed every last utensil, they picked up their earlier conversation.
RS:⌘ One issue clouds the clarity of our intended action. The time machine is not static. Even though it’s trapped outside the portals, it does not rest at a singular point. Instead, it travels along a string of time that lies between the closed portals. That makes teleporting the cube inside of it very difficult, because at any moment, it may be anywhere along the string.
Jackson leaned forward. “Couldn’t you send one of us—me, for example—out into the same trapped space, where I could throw the cube into the time machine when it appears? I’ve got a pretty good throwing arm.”
RS:⌘ A string of time is not a straight line. It’s long and tangled, Ryden Simmdry waved his hand, … like spaghetti. I need to give this serious thought. He stood. RS:⌘ I must travel back to Lumi. I’m sure I will find the answers I need in the Library of Origination.
“Is the Library of Origination different than a Library of Illumination?” Johanna asked.
RS:⌘ It is very similar. You would find all the same books that you have here in our library. However, there are two major disparities. The first is that our library is not part of a closed circuit. While every new piece of literature that is introduced into being anywhere automatically appears in every realm’s library, including ours, information only flows into the Library of Origination. It does not flow out. So there is knowledge housed within our walls that the twelve realms do not have access to.
“Why?” Jackson asked.
RS:⌘ We are privy to information that the realms may not be ready to handle. It is disbursed when the time is right.
“What’s the second difference?” Johanna asked.
RS:⌘ Our oracle.
Perog 2 struggled to remove the rest of his bindings. He meant what he said about leaving Mope 98 behind, but had to admit the other trooper’s temper had allowed them to break free. “We have to find a way back into this library.”
“They’re getting the flamethrowers. I’m going back to the pond where I can at least escape them.” With that, Mope 98 revved up his tentacles and propelled himself away from the library, looking for a way to double back to the pond without being seen.
Perog 2 reluctantly followed. We’re stronger together than apart.
The pond appeared deserted when they arrived. Mope 98 dove into the water; however, Perog 2 took a moment to look around. He found the storm drain and drew in all his tentacles to make himself compact. He moved inside the drain and found it would easily accommodate him. As he pushed forward, he found the storm
drain remained a uniform size. Watery runoff collected at the bottom of the drain, and Perog 2 found the humidity it caused helped ease some of his discomfort. They could last indefinitely in the drain, if they had food. I’d better get Mope 98 in here so we won’t have to hold our breath like we do in the pond.
He retraced his steps but stopped short of exiting the drain when he heard voices. He stood back and watched as several kiddlets walked around the pond, poking the surface with long sticks.
“Hey, I found something,” Pollo called out, and the others rushed to gather around him. He kept poking at something and then waded into the pond. He ducked down and reached for something in the water. “I need help here,” he screamed.
Marbol waded out to meet him. He reached under the water, and together they tugged.
“Heave-ho. Heave-ho. Heave-ho,” the others chanted.
Finally, they dragged a large kayak-like object onto the shore.
“Hey,” Pye called out. “That’s my floaty that sank last year. Do you think it still works?”
“Sure,” Marbol answered. “But you’ll have to clean all this stink-mud out of it. It’s really slimy.” He stuck his finger in a hole. “And you’ll have to plug this. There must have been a knot in the wood that popped out.”
“Nope. No knot,” Pye answered. “I was taking on water and drilled a hole in the bottom so it would drain out.”
“You knucklehead. Everybody knows you should only drill a hole on dry land,” Pollo said.
Pye defended his honor. “It was an emergency.”
“Let’s take it to the cottage. We can fix it there.”
The group picked up the foul-smelling boat entangled with decomposing weeds and carried it away en masse.
After their voices faded, Perog 2 crept out of the storm drain to search the pond for Mope 98. He swam across the pond using his tentacles as feelers. He grasped onto Mope 98 and pulled him above the surface of the water.
“Oh. It’s you,” Mope 98 said. “I thought, for a moment, the kiddlets had found me.”