Strontium-90

by Vaughn Heppner

  ***

  The holographic woman reappeared before Lord Ramos in his mansion overlooking the Sardis River.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “We’re sorry for the delay, Lord. Communications have been reestablished with 70 Ophiuchi.”

  “It took long enough.”

  “Unfortunately, the link isn’t as complete as before.”

  “What’s this?” asked Ramos.

  “Technical difficulties,” the woman said. “You may be pleased to know, however, that I’m authorized to give you a ten percent discount.”

  “Barely acceptable,” Ramos said, although he nodded.

  The holographic image vanished.

  Soon Lord Ramos studied the new figures. Ah, together with the discount… yes, if he shifted the black flour to Deneb…

  The Oath

  The knightrix gambled her soul in the caverns of the Abyss. Flames roared around her. Tormented shadows writhed on the walls. Above, stalactites threatened like swords of Damocles. Drifting fumes exuded a sulfurous stench.

  The knightrix wore an enclosed helm with silver wings and she wore silver mail. A leather-clad maiden named Brenna trembled behind her. Brenna’s whitened fingers clutched a crossbow.

  “Don’t do it,” Brenna whispered. “He’s sure to trick you.”

  “No tricks,” the master of this fiery realm growled. He dwarfed them both, a massive man-thing with gorilla-like shoulders. He wore a coarse robe with a shadowy cowl. From his sleeve came a brief hint of clawed fingers as dice tumbled onto the floor. The bone dice had pips the color of spilled blood.

  “Forget your vengeance,” Brenna whispered. “Please! We must leave this place while we still can.”

  The knightrix turned and patted one of Brenna’s hands. Then, with a clink of mail, she sat cross-legged before the dice.

  A loud sigh emanated from the cowl of the massive man-thing. “You’re a bold gambler. I admire that.”

  The knightrix reached for the dice.

  Brenna moaned as she bit her lower lip.

  The man-thing with his coarse robe grew still, perhaps with anticipation.

  The knightrix hesitated then. She pulled back her hand.

  The opening of the man-thing’s cowl rose up. Two hellish motes flared into existence, eyes perhaps.

  The knightrix pulled off her leather gauntlets finger by finger. When both gloves rested on her lap, she twisted off her enclosed helm. Sweaty hair lay against her scalp. She had lean features and was surprisingly youthful. Her name was Razoress.

  “I sought you out because of your reputation for powerful magic,” Razoress said.

  Behind the man-thing, a vent hissed with fire, a crackling sound. Shadows retreated because of it, while beads of perspiration prickled Razoress’s cheeks.

  “My reputation is well deserved,” he said.

  Razoress nodded. “I’ve heard, too, that you follow your bargains with unerring precision.”

  “Words are like wine or like people even,” he said. “Something to be savored.”

  A fierce emotion glinted in Razoress’s eyes. “I mean no disrespect, but you also have an unsavory reputation for trickery.”

  “Nor am I known for my patience.”

  The faintest of smiles might have played upon Razoress’s lips. “I will be brief and to the point then. I desire magical power.”

  “This vengeance your friend spoke about?”

  “My enemy is one of the living dead, the most powerful of its kind. I’m determined to see it destroyed for wicked crimes committed against me and mine.”

  “Yes?”

  “I want a magic item powerful enough to obliterate the Ancient of Bones,” Razoress said.

  “…You don’t desire riches perhaps, enough to hire sorcerers for this task?”

  “The Ancient of Bones is immune to most spells.”

  “That makes what you ask… difficult.”

  “I wouldn’t have come here if it was easy,” Razoress said.

  “You’ve obviously thought this through. What kind of magical item do you desire?”

  Razoress stroked her leather gloves. “What would you suggest?”

  A wisp of smoke issued from the cowl. The motes that must have been eyes flamed brighter. “What about a gauntlet?”

  Razoress nodded slowly.

  “A dark gauntlet,” the man-thing said. “It would fuel itself… from your life-force, the tap opened by fear or rage. Yes. Given your powerful constitution, it could shatter mountains or the Ancient of Bones—to use its oldest title. Of course, some would think such a gauntlet as a cursed item. Shortcuts in magic are an illusion. The price for power must always be paid.”

  Razoress mopped her face with her sleeve. She knew all about paying the price.

  “Your soul staked against a dark gauntlet,” he said. “We’ll let the dice decide, eh?”

  Razoress’s throat tightened until she remembered her sister, her mother and father, her entire village turned into aftergangers. They no longer marched in the undead horde. Razoress had officered in the army that had hacked every afterganger to pieces. She had carted squirming chunks of undead flesh into the fires that had turned her former sister and mother into greasy ash. What she’d failed to do was find the lair of the Ancient of Bones.

  Razoress took a deep breath and almost choked on the sulfurous stench. “The gauntlet would need to be immune to spells.”

  “Alas,” he said. “An anti-magic item is greater than even I can forge.”

  “Not anti-magic,” she said, “but reflective perhaps.”

  “Like a mirror?” He sounded dubious.

  “I’m thinking more like water. A flat stone skipped across a river. Spells would skip across the glove.”

  “Ah, I see. Yes. It would difficult, but possible.”

  “That’s the item I want,” she said.

  “That’s the item you wish to gamble for,” he corrected.

  “Yes,” she said hoarsely.

  Tension eased from his gorilla-like shoulders. “I’m known for precise bargains.” He spoke in a businesslike tone now. “You must vow not to fight in my caverns or you will forfeit your soul.”

  “I’ll fight if attacked,” Razoress said warily.

  “…Yes, if you’re attacked, you may fight, otherwise not.”

  “I don’t like this,” Brenna whispered.

  Razoress stroked her chin. “I agree.”

  “Make the vow,” he said.

  “I agree provided you swear not to attack or otherwise harm me,” Razoress said. “You may not poison me with fumes, drink or cause sirens to sing. All your servitors, allies and merchant partners must let me pass in peace.”

  “…Only for this day,” he said.

  “For as long as it takes me to leave the Abyss.”

  “Provided you go after we’ve completed our transaction,” he said.

  Razoress nodded.

  “Then make the oath,” he said.

  She did, conditioning it on his oath.

  “Yessss, good.” The man-thing spoke a binding vow patterned off her conditions.

  After carefully listening to it, Razoress wrapped her hand around the hilt of her sword. With a hiss of steel, she drew the curved blade. She passed the sword over the dice.

  The man-thing shouted in outrage. “You vowed not to fight!”

  “I’m not fighting,” Razoress said.

  He leaned nearer. “Where did you get that blade? It’s been lost for centuries.”

  Razoress knew about shortcuts. The sword doomed the bearer to a quick life. But quick and true did the blade cut, as she now cut any spells binding the dice to their maker.

  Thus, with the cursed sword in one hand and the hot dice in the other, Razoress gambled her soul. She rattled the bones. She threw them onto the obsidian floor.

  The massive man-thing, Razoress and Brenna all leaned forward as the dice rolled to a halt.

  “—You cheated!” he hissed.

  Razo
ress shook her head as she trembled. “My dark gauntlet, if you please.”

  The hidden eyes become fiery. Then he turned toward the depths. His feet made leathery sliding sounds. Soon there came the ring of a hammer and harshly chanted syllables.

  “You did it,” Brenna said.

  “So far,” Razoress said. “We’re not done yet.”

  In time, he returned. “You’re clever, aren’t you? Catch.”

  Razoress used both hands to snatch a metallic gauntlet out of the air.

  The massive man-thing moved fast then. He shuffled near Brenna and shoved. Brenna screamed. Her fingers twitched. The crossbow’s steel string snapped. The magical bolt hissed in flight and exploded against a cavern wall. Fragments showered onto the floor, pelting it.

  Razoress turned in surprise.

  A strange portal opened in midair. Brenna stumbled through into a gargantuan bone talon. The talon closed around her, removing Brenna from view. Then a beastly skull lowered into sight, peering through the ghostly portal. The eye-sockets burned like flax fires. They flickered from Razoress to the man-thing.

  “There is the gift you sought,” the man-thing said.

  “No gift,” the Ancient of Bones rumbled, “but my price for a sack of enchanted bones.”

  “I would prefer that you remained quiet concerning our trade,” the man-thing said.

  “As you will,” the Ancient of Bones said.

  Brenna wailed from somewhere just out of sight.

  Razoress’s face twisted with rage. She donned the black gauntlet and reached for her sword.

  “Now, now,” the man-thing said softly. “Remember your oath. Fight in the caverns and you are mine.”

  Razoress hesitated.

  “You have done me a service, mortal,” the Ancient of Bones told Razoress. “Your companion… her blood shall awaken the Old Ones. Your journey to the Abyss has thus repaid me your former harm to my aftergangers. I shan’t thank you, but I believe it is fitting. No?”

  Razoress whirled around, faced the man-thing.

  “There is equity,” he said softly. His eyes glittered. “We’ve both been duped today—unless, of course, you wish to draw your sword and vent your rage upon me.”

  “Not vent,” Razoress said, as she slid out her curved sword. “But salute you, master of deceit. I knew you couldn’t stand to be cheated. Your reputation is well known. The one thing I lacked was the whereabouts of the Ancient of Bones.”

  So saying, Razoress sprang for the portal, tried to take them both unawares.

  The Ancient of Bones raised a talon and waved it, as a wizard might. Brenna shouted as the ghostly portal began to close upon air.

  Razoress moved with desperate speed, aided by her sword. She dove, and she shot her dark gauntlet into the nearly collapsed portal. Rage at the undead monster powered the cursed item. Her fingers jabbed into the portal as it almost snapped out of existence. Under normal conditions, that would have sheered off her fingers. Instead, the magic skipped off the gauntlet. Razoress shouted, and yanked, and opened the portal wider.

  “Goodbye!” Razoress shouted to the man-thing. She yanked once more and uttered her battle cry. Then she jumped through the portal to slay the Ancient of Bones with her terrible new gauntlet. First, however, she let go of the portal, which snapped shut behind her. She was thus free of the Abyss and her oath against fighting in the man-thing’s fiery realm.

  War’s End

  Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth, and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.

  -- Revelation 6:4

  Two Siberian shamans and a tall, earth witch from Florida sat with me around a midnight fire atop Mount Shasta. We debated how to find world peace. The lamas in their Tibetan Monasteries had no idea. Neither did the Jesuits in Italy. They thought in the old ways, were stuck in the ancient paths. Then a phrase from the earth witch gave me the idea how to eliminate war.

  “We need to strike at the root of the problem,” she said.

  The shamans crooned agreement.

  I grunted, only half listening. I concentrated on a small piece of trickery. Lately, I’d taken to secretly draining bits of soul-energy from those I met and storing the energy in a crystal around my neck.

  “Did you hear me?” the earth witch asked, touching my shoulder.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  She frowned. “You probably don’t agree. You’re probably glad for war, glad for fighting. It must be a matter of your build.”

  She had a point. I was born with a robust body, Viking-like, people said. My red hair added to the image.

  “Just think about the prestige,” she said.

  I did, and I grinned. “You know what motivates,” I said.

  “You’re a male,” she said, as if that explained everything.

  I left Mount Shasta deep in thought, the earth-witch’s words riding my shoulders like an Aztec death vulture. A Nordstrom by birth, I was descended from a family of rune priests who had practiced the bloody art of Odin worship for generations. When I returned home to Modesto, California, I put on work gloves, snipped rosebushes and pruned my plum tree.

  During the mid-morning of the third day, I dug a hole for a new pomegranate tree. A caw interrupted me. I laid aside the shovel, wiped my brow with a sweaty forearm and shucked off my gloves. An eagle-sized raven watched me from atop the nearest telephone pole. It spread its huge wings, dove and landed on my shoulder with a jar. With its thick black beak—there was a nick near the upper tip—it stroked my nose.

  “Muninn?” I asked.

  The raven squeezed my shoulder like an old friend. Then the raven flapped away, brushing my sunburned cheek with its wing. I’m not sure why, but that convinced me.

  So I put away my gardening tools, phoned the land office and told them I’d be gone two weeks, maybe three. I purified myself afterward. Five hours later, I went to the backyard and ducked my head, crawling into a pyramid house. I locked it and spread out several long out-of-print books. Hours went by in intense study. Finally, I went into a trance and fasted for three days. At the end, I opened my eyes, knowing what I had to do. I crawled out and staggered to my bomb-shelter under the house. The man I bought the property from had been a survivalist. The thing that convinced me to destroy War was the challenge. Cursed with a massive ego, I considered myself the most powerful magician since Merlin. This was practically my duty.

  The trapdoor creaked as I closed and locked it. I liked the idea of working for world peace from a bomb-shelter. It seemed fitting. I lit a hundred candles and scattered various arcane articles on the floor: Inca masks, an African spear, voodoo dolls, crystals, flasks of cauldron brews, you name it. I had conversations with several spirit-beings, a few diametrically opposed in metaphysical outlook to each other. You could say I was a mixer of crafts. I took what worked to create a mystic smorgasbord.

  The next-to-last-step was the hardest—summoning the Book of Veils. Only four people these days could. Of those four, only two could open it. I’m one of them. The other lies slumbering in a Transylvanian crypt. As I mouthed the last syllable, a big, black leathery thing with red splotches on the cover appeared. Some said Solomon had used the book. Others in the know claimed Nostradamus had read it. Frankly, I had my doubts about Nostradamus. Nobody who’d read the book was ever that flashy. Anyway, I knew that where I’d be going I would not be able to carry it. So I memorized several key passages. Page by page I uttered the opening phrase and worked my way to the back. I had to pry apart page 332 like a new encyclopedia. I think no human had ever looked at page 333 before.

  As I finished uttering the last word, something nearby popped like a firecracker. Sulfurous-smelling smoke billowed. An icy howl blew out all but one candle. I stepped back and watched the final candle. A drop of wax rolled down its stem. The smoke rolled away, and there on page 333 stood a five-inch imp. He had a narrow head, vampire teeth over thin green lips, warty skin and fiery
yellow eyes. I didn’t like him. He garbled harsh words in an alien tongue.

  “Say again,” I said.

  He cocked his head, regarding me. Then he cleared his throat and growled in devilishly accented English, “You want to travel the Corridor?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you know your destination?” he asked, arching forward on his clawed toes.

  “You’re a clever little fellow,” I said.

  He narrowed his evil gaze, and after a half-second’s hesitation, he snapped his fingers. A blood-red skeleton key appeared in his tiny hand.

  “Any time you’re ready,” he said.

  Ah, the cunning imp tried to trap me.

  “First, let’s add a little injunction.” I sing-songed one of the passages I’d memorized. He growled uncomfortably, blinking harshly at each note. When I’d finished, I said, “Now I’m ready.”

  He scowled before he shrugged and pasted on a used car salesman’s grin. He inserted the key into a slot that had appeared in midair. He twisted the key and my bomb-shelter vanished. Red smoke billowed in its place. The imp took a gigantic leap and landed on my shoulder, the same one Muninn had used. The imp grabbed a tiny fistful of hair for support.

  “Is this the Corridor?” I asked.

  “First question,” he said, holding up a tiny green finger.

  My gut knotted. I only had one free question. The rest I’d have to pay for later, much later. “We can both count,” I said. “Now answer the question.”

  He grinned viciously and spewed reptilian breath as he said, “Your instincts are marvelously spot on. We’ve arrived in the Corridor.”

  The smoke took on shape to resemble an underground cellar. It had a moldy-old-feel of something seldom used. The walls and ceiling constantly shifted as if the smoke struggled to hold its form. Limbo came to my mind, because when I looked at my cowboy boots, I saw that they’d sunk into the smoke up to my ankles. So this was the famed and anciently arcane Corridor of Time. I’d read hints about it in a brittle Chinese scroll from the Ming Dynasty. The tunnel snaked away into the distance much farther than I could see. I didn’t know where the muted light came from, but I was thankful for it.