by Booth, John
Meldar put a friendly hand on the Inspector's shoulder.
“The human worlds are like this because humans live on them. One in a hundred thousand living things is capable of hopping to another world if the circumstances warrant it. Compared with the speed of evolution that means it happens all the time. The instinctive urge is to hop to an 'ideal' world and all inhabitable places are ideal sometimes. And that's ignoring the influence of wizards who journey back and forth taking whoever and whatever they like with them.”
“There’s an infinity of alien worlds occupied by strange beings, but their food and atmospheres would kill us,” Card chipped in. “Then there are the worlds where our close cousins live. Rarely they share a world with humans, but more often than not they don't.”
“Cousins?” I asked, “You mean like monkeys?”
Card grimaced. He seemed to have a wide range of negative expressions.
“The companion races of man, those more powerful in magic than us. Even if you have never seen them there must be folktales about them on your world. They leave our worlds when the humans build cities. We believe they occupy many worlds of their own, shielded from us so we can never find them.”
Meldar helped the Inspector sit down before he fell over.
“And then there are the multi-dimensional species like the Dragons. It's said they occupy the folds in time and space itself. They can foresee the future and change the past, or so it's been claimed. In all of Valhalla's historical records there's never been a single instance of a wizard finding common purpose with a dragon. Oh, they sometimes take humans for riders, but never wizards. Can you see now why Valhalla finds you so fascinating, Jake?”
“So is this place real or fake?” Sergeant Jones asked. He looked bewildered.
“Whichever one you want it to be,” I replied.
“And is Bronwyn Matthews here?” Sergeant Jones looked hopeful as he spoke.
“She might be, though I hope not. Her parents are here. I saw them talking to the King and Queen earlier.”
Inspector Thomas looked up at me with glazed eyes.
“I don't think my training covers this.”
“Neither do I, Inspector. Sergeant, can you get the Inspector to his room so he can sleep it off? I'll explain things in the morning.”
Who was I kidding? I had no intention of explaining anything, but someone would have to carry the Inspector out if he stayed here any longer. Sergeant Jones seemed to think it was a good idea and helped the Inspector to his feet. I watched the two of them staggering towards the ballroom door and wondered if I should send someone with them to help.
“Such strange people,” Meldar remarked. “What exactly is a policeman?”
There was no equivalent in the language of Salice. However, I spoke Valhallan, though it was a language I hated.
“A policeman is an 'official appointed by the state within an organization sanctioned by the state to prevent and investigate infringements of duly constituted laws with a view to providing evidence to a tribunal where appropriate punitive measures of redress can be decided and enforced'.”
Believe it or not that was what they called a policeman in Valhallan, possibly the most tedious language in all the universes.
Meldar nodded.
“You allow these fools to persecute you?”
“They're only doing their job.”
“JAKE MORRISSEY!”
Callum stood in the middle of the room holding a struggling Jenny by her wrist. Captain Cari and another guard made their way between the tables to get to them.
“Excuse me?” I said to Meldar and Card and headed for Jenny. I have special skills and a clear path opened up in front as people found themselves lifted gently out of the way. I signaled the Captain to stay out of it and approached Callum.
“Let go of Jenny.” It was a command and Callum had no choice but to obey. She stepped forward to stand by my side, rubbing her wrist, which looked a little bruised.
“What do you want, Callum?”
Callum had drunk far too much. He turned his head as if looking for support among his mates. He wasn't getting any.
“How did Jenny ever fall for a wanker like you?”
“That's her choice, Callum, not yours.”
“Because I say you're not good enough for her.” Callum struggled out of his jacket and threw it on the floor. “Let's see if you've got the guts to fight.”
One of his friends grabbed at his shoulder. “Don't be stupid man. Let it go.”
Callum turned and punched him, knocking him to the floor.
“Jake, don't kill him,” Jenny said urgently. “He's just drunk.”
Why does everyone think I'm going to kill people? The moment Jenny was safe my rage had subsided. Now I just felt sad for this pathetic lump of humanity who obviously carried a torch for Jenny.
“Scared to fight?” Callum sneered.
Okay, now I had to do something violent to him or all of Jenny's friends would think I was a coward. It was a matter of pride.
“How about first person to end up on the floor concedes defeat?”
“Where'd you ever learn a word like concede, council house boy?”
Esmeralda had come down to watch and stood beside Captain Cari with a small smile playing across her lips. I wondered what she thought I would do. Compared with Bronwyn or Wenna this man was less than nothing as a threat.
The guests became silent. Callum's heavy breathing was the only noticeable sound in the room. Everybody stared at me. I took a step closer to Callum.
Callum charged at me, fists flailing. I stepped to one side and hit him on the back, driving him down to the floor. No magic was necessary, which was a good thing because I would have felt guilty if I'd used any.
“I win. Go and sober up.”
He got up and tried to attack me again, but two of his friends pinioned him and held him against the floor.
“Sorry about that,” one of his captors said cheerfully. “Callum's never been able to hold his liquor.”
“Try and keep him sober until after the wedding,” I suggested. I turned to Jenny and took her hand in mine. Passing a hand over her wrist took most of the bruising away.
“I'm very disappointed,” Esmeralda said from behind me. “No former suitors of mine have tried to kill you.”
“They know what a wizard is and have more sense.”
“True.” Esmeralda put her arms across Jenny and me and hugged us. “But why would any man be my suitor in the first place if he wasn't willing to die for me?”
“You're a hard woman, Esmeralda Doran,” Jenny said.
“Jake says that about me too. I can't think why.”
People returned to their seats and the level of background chatter got back to normal. I noticed the King and Queen watching us from the stage. They were smiling and I hoped they were pleased with the way I resolved the problem.
“Shall we join the rest of the royalty?” Esmeralda asked. I nodded and walked to the stage with my brides on either side of me.
Dad materialized in front of us and slid across the floor. He was bleeding from the head and appeared to be conscious. Urda appeared a moment later with Anna in her arms. They looked bruised and battered.
“Wenna's got your mother,” Urda said as she collapsed on the floor.
I let go of the girls and hopped to the Grand Hotel.
Chapter Thirty-Four: Chase
I arrived in the bar to scenes of chaos. Panicked people milled around the exits struggling with each other to be the first one out, chairs and tables were scattered over the floor and the fire alarm blared though there was no sign of a fire. I saw a woman fall to the floor and a man attempt to walk over her body.
“Stop!” It was a command and everybody stood still regardless of how inappropriate that was. Several people fell over, including the man stepping on the woman. I sent out a wave of magic to silence the fire alarm, which was making it impossible to think.
“Everybody, go and sit d
own where you were before this all started.”
I helped the woman on the floor to her feet and healed her cracked ribs and bruised kidneys while I held her hand. Nobody spoke because I hadn't given them permission.
A female member of the hotel staff stood by the bar. She wore a name tag that said her name was Hazel.
“Hazel,” I said. “What did you see?”
“Someone wearing a hooded cloak attacked a family over there.” She pointed at a table lying on its side. “The father was thrown at the wall along with his youngest daughter. I think there was blood. His other daughter fought with the one in the cloak. The fight didn't make any sense to me but I think the daughter was winning. The one in the cloak grabbed the mother and they … disappeared. They all just disappeared.”
“Show me exactly where the person in the cloak stood when she vanished.”
Hazel walked across the room to the upturned table and said, “Where I am now.”
I moved her out of the way and stood in the place she'd indicated. I then spoke to the other people in the room in a loud voice.
“You will calmly leave the room after I go. Then you'll return to normal. You will not be upset or frightened.”
I relaxed the control over them and vanished into hop-space.
Wenna's attempts to obliterate all her traces were excellent, but she kidnapped my mother and that motivated me. I made the mist wind back in space and time until I could see the initial swirl of Wenna's entry. I strode through hop-space forcing the mist in front of me to show me her path. What I followed wasn't particularly clear, but it was clear enough.
I didn't expect Wenna to hop far so it was a surprise when the trail continued out into the dark, well past Salice and her own universe. The trail became difficult to follow as the mist thinned. Then the trail ended in a small collection of lights in the middle of nowhere. I aimed at the end of the trail and left hop-space.
There was a flash of heat. It was so hot that the uppermost layer of my exposed skin and clothes vaporized in a millisecond. I couldn't see anything and thought I'd gone blind. Then a red light became visible and I found myself in the center of a protective sphere, my magic holding me away from its edges. I reached out with my mind and recoiled in horror.
I had materialized in molten lava. Not on it, but a mile or so beneath its surface. My subconscious must have sensed it as I arrived and forced a sphere of magical energy out from me, holding me at its center. It was amazing I survived.
If Wenna created this trap then her skills must far surpass mine. This was not where I was supposed to come out. It was a completely different planet that I would never have gone to by choice.
I fled back into hop-space. It was the work of a few seconds to shake the fine ash of dead skin and cloth off me. The layer vaporized was too thin to have done any real damage though it was lucky I'd blinked when I arrived. However, I think this proves that the speed of thought isn't as fast as some people claim.
I examined Wenna's trail again. It led to a human type world, though it was difficult to make out any of its details. Going in as slow as I could, I kept my shield raised and at the ready. The moment I arrived I was instantly thrown somewhere else.
The pressure on me was enormous and I threw a solid sphere of ice into hop-space so there would be room. I stayed a second before returning to hop-space. Instead of the human world, I'd been diverted to one of solid ice. Worse than that, I materialized miles below the surface. Even though I went in prepared I nearly didn't make it out. Even my magic couldn't protect me from the pressures on that world for more than a few seconds.
For the first time ever I needed to control my entry back into the real world with microscopic precision. As I approached Wenna's world for the third time my instincts tried to translate me to it, but I held back. At the very edge of transition I found what I was looking for. A strangely beautiful swirl of hop-space magic opened up a dozen exits to other worlds. Getting to the right one involved mental gymnastics similar to stepping over and crawling under light beams in a bank vault, touching any one of which would send me to my doom. Concentration was everything and I felt sweat dribble down my neck as I got closer to my goal.
I arrived face down onto sweet scented grasses and waited until the dizziness went away. It seemed I had finally made it.
Insects buzzed about me. I got to my feet and looked around. This was a beautiful tranquil place. The meadow I stood in was at the edge of woodland. The ground in front of me sloped down to a meandering stream which separated the forest from the grasslands. The meadow was alive with butterflies and bees feasting on the nectar of millions of small flowers. There was no sign of humanity. No fences or stepping stones, no smoke rising into the air from a cooking fire. This world had an unspoiled feel to it. There was so much oxygen in the air I wanted to jump up and down and shout at the top of my voice.
I walked down to the stream as it seemed the natural place to go. As I got closer I saw animals ahead of me. Two deer and several rabbits drank from the stream's crystal waters. They looked up curiously and looked me over before going back to drinking. Apparently they didn't think that man was dangerous. I stepped closer wondering when their survival instincts would kick in. The rabbits hopped along the bank to give me room, but the deer were happy for me to stroke their flanks.
Thoughts of rescuing Mam were hard to hold onto. There was a calming feeling I couldn't explain, removing all anxiety. I might have stayed to drink if I hadn't seen the footprints in the bed of the stream. Someone had crossed here and gone down the deer track that led into the forest. I stepped into the ice cold water being careful not to make the water muddy for the animals and followed the track.
I nearly missed the house, if you could call it that. It was only the residual buzz of magic that caught my attention. Four ancient trees standing close together had been magically distorted to create a dwelling in the space between them. Low lying branches were stretched and shaped like putty to form living walls. Leafy twigs sprang from the branches to create coverings for doors and windows. Pushing through them was easy, as though they touched to create a door, nothing from one side tangled with anything from the other.
It was gloomy inside and it took my eyes a few seconds to complete the transition. I saw a dark shape standing by a window obscured by leaf like curtains. I prepared to hurl a spell.
The shape turned.
“Hello Jake, Wenna said you'd get here eventually.”
“Where is she, Mam?” I stepped around the room carefully trying to keep my back to the walls, or branches, or whatever they were.
“She's gone. She said to tell you she didn't mean to hurt your Dad. Is he okay?”
“I came to rescue you. Urda will have sorted out Dad.”
Mam nodded. I could see her clearly now my eyes were fully adjusted. The room was unbelievable. Branches weaved in and out to form living tables and benches.
“Who built this place?”
“Wenna. She told me this was her dream world and once Bronwyn taught her to hop this was the first place she came too. She used her magic to make this house. Isn't it amazing?”
“You don't seem to be bothered about being kidnapped?”
Mam smiled dreamily. “How can things like that matter when you're here?”
I knew what she meant. There was a feeling of peace inside me that threatened to overwhelm my desire to catch Wenna or even go home.
“Is Wenna coming back?”
“Of course, Jake. How could anybody stay away? Wenna told me where to find fruit, nuts and vegetables, the forest is alive with them. She said she had an obligation to help Bronwyn and that was why she kidnapped me. She said that when they finished she would come and live here forever. She said I could stay if I wanted.”
Something thought this was the right place for Wenna. If they hadn't she could never have got through all their traps. The Valhallans said that wizards hopped to the places that suited who they were. What did that say about Wenna?
/> I took Mam by the hand and led her out of Wenna's living house. People like us couldn't live in a place like this; we'd spoil it with waterwheels, fires and roast venison. We would have lots of children who would build houses, villages and finally cities. It was who and what we were.
“We have to go, Mam.”
Mam looked incredibly disappointed.
“Do we have to?”
“Say goodbye, Mam. This world isn't meant for us.”
Mam blew a kiss into the forest and I hopped us back to Salice.
Chapter Thirty-Five: Decisions
Once Mam was out of the influence of Wenna's world she became worried about Dad and we hurried through the Palace to their bedroom. Urda had healed his head wound but he still felt woozy and had gone to bed. Mam shook him awake to make sure he was okay. He wasn't best pleased with her as he didn't even know she'd been kidnapped.
Urda returned to the Grand Hotel with Anna to look after the kids. All the commotion sobered up our guests and most were gone from the ballroom by the time we got back there. The three of us agreed to meet up this morning and try and figure out a plan of action.
I went with Jenny to Esmeralda's room for breakfast. Esmeralda insisted on Jenny and I standing in front of her while she enquired whether the two of us had been naughty during the night. Jenny started giggling and I couldn't keep a straight face. As it happened we were both far too tired from the events of the day to want to do anything, but Esmeralda didn't believe us. I'll be glad when we're married and this nonsense is over. That was the moment I realized this kind of thing might never be over. I had no idea how we were going to make a three cornered marriage work.
A servant arrived with a breakfast trolley and Jenny and I took the opportunity to get off parade and sit down. Esmeralda didn't look pleased. She sat facing the two of us and poured some of the awful muck the locals call tea. I started a list of all the things I planned to import from Earth to Salice. I'd start with tea bags and would progress to tea bushes the first chance I got. Where did chocolate come from? I'd have to find out and bring some plants over as well. Some things need to be spread over every world in the multiverse.