by P. S. Power
Coalescence: Book Two
Pain Stones
P.S. Power
Orange Cat Publishing
Copyright 2017
Chapter one
Will had to duck his head to get through the door of the small stone temple. It wasn’t that he was a giant, as much as the fact that the builders of the place had been smaller individuals. The blocks of gray stone that made the thing up were heavy. Dense in a way that pressed on his mind after a few moments. It wasn’t that he feared the things tumbling down on him, as much as being able to actually feel the weight of them over him. Hundreds of tons. Hovering right over his head.
The things had stood for thousands of years and simply wouldn’t be falling down that day. The light unease that he felt faded almost totally when his Aunt, Taman, pressed her right hand against his back, pushing him forward a bit. Where the door had been very low, the stone ceiling was at least seven feet high. That meant standing up was doable for him. Even if he was nearly six feet tall. Now. Until about a month before he’d been about five-four his entire adult life.
The Wizard Tim, his Uncle as it turned out, had changed him on a deep level, to give Willum powers. The kind that almost no one in reality was allowed to have. Strength, speed and durability that made him impressive. As well as more size. Not enough to stand out in most places that way, but that hadn’t been the point. He was, nearly, the right size to fit in almost anywhere. In a whole lot of different realities. Then he’d gone out and learned how to travel between worlds for himself. It had taken about a day, in the world he’d started from.
In the void between worlds it had been more like three, possibly three and a half thousand years. Most people really couldn’t get that part of things, however. To them, if he was gone for a day, or a month, then that was how time had passed for him. It wasn’t true at all.
Recently he’d spent two months off in a different world, training to fight and blend in as smoothly as possible. That had taken nearly sixteen months in the world he came from. Which was the place he was in at that moment.
In fact, the temple that they were using for his current testing, which was dim inside, lit only by a few glowing sigils on the floor, was only about half a mile from where he lived. That was in Soam, far away from the forest of his home village. Pine Creek. Up in Noram.
He couldn’t really make out the woman behind him with his eyes. There was a sense of her presence, a slight shadow in pink that showed the warmth from her skin. She was smaller than he was, being a foot shorter and slight of frame. Her voice was soft as well. Then, there was no one else there and if there was any sound inside the stone building, the pyramid, at all then he couldn’t hear it. His ears were pretty sharp now, as well. They’d always been really good, but Timon had altered him into being superior in nearly every way.
Taman cleared her throat slightly, then made a low, nearly grunting, noise.
“You can see the sigils on the floor. Each one of them is attached to a different stone. When you pick them up, you’ll have about thirty seconds to work out what the pattern is on it. Past that time, about thirty seconds, you’ll start to feel pain. It will start out feeling annoying, then get stronger, until you work out what is needed by the individual device. A puzzle, of sorts.” There was no sound of teasing or fun in the words.
That was a bit of a shame.
Willum knew that the goal was to train him to be a spy. One who could go to other worlds and blend in rapidly. Instantly, if possible. That wasn’t really a thing that could be done, of course. Without basic information, the rules, language and customs of a place, it was impossible to do that at all. His part time job, running messages around all of reality had shown him that one really clearly.
It meant that, in the end, if he were going to fit in at any given location, he needed to practice first and work out a way to buy time, instead of just going in and making himself fit instantly.
Aunt Taman however really wanted to push him that way. Trying to force him to be hyper adaptable, if at all possible. It could work, he knew, so shrugged. He was the student, not the instructor. True, she wasn’t a master spy herself, but that would just mean that she’d gotten with several of them to try and figure out what kind of things he really needed to know.
There was a gentle pat on his back, meant to be reassuring, instead of fondling his backside. That was what had actually taken place, of course, due to the blackness of the room and their height differences. Will didn’t even think about it. There had been a time, less than a year before, where he probably would have been close to killing himself if that had taken place, even on accident. She was his father’s sister after all. At the very least they shouldn’t have been alone together under the rules he’d grown up with.
Now, he knew that she was probably going to decide that he needed to have sex with her one day. Not because she desired him as a man either. Just because it was the kind of thing that might come up in a different reality and she wanted him to be ready. It might also not happen. That would be better for his peace of mind, but that was the very reason she was probably going to have to push him that way.
“The stones will explode, if you don’t pick up the next one inside of ten seconds after the last one is finished. If you try to leave, with one or not, or attempt to change the magical pattern on them, then they’ll blow up instantly. It might not kill you, but in an enclosed space of this size, even you probably wouldn’t live through it. You get the idea?”
She could have gone into the whole thing a bit more deeply, but he really did get the plan. It wasn’t like the idea was a new one to him.
“I have to fight through a bunch of puzzles, and can’t get out of it?” He tried to sound relaxed. Charming was in there as well, though only in that way that people who were in stressed situations could sometimes pull off. Tense, but not enough to make him lose composure. Not yet, at any rate.
“Exactly. Some of these are really simple. Some could be traps, or even tricks, to get you to make mistakes. The pain will be different as well, with each one, to make it harder to get used to. You should be done with this in about six hours. If it takes much longer than that, you’ll probably die. Ready?” There was no real hesitation in her voice. Then, there wouldn’t be. She was clearly in a deep trance state, to hide her own apprehension about what she was doing. That wasn’t a wonderful sign in Will’s book.
Looking at the glowing lights on the floor, he counted. There were twelve of them that he could see, at the moment. That didn't mean there wouldn’t be more than that, just lying dormant, waiting for him to let his guard down, or feel relief, when he got to the last one, only to steal that away at the very end. It was what he would have done, if the training were up to him.
Which probably meant that he was a bit of a dick.
“Ready. You probably want to leave, so my screaming and cursing won’t bother you as much.” That, or the blowing up portion of things. That part could really ruin a person’s day. He was tough, but the truth was that enough contained force might actually still kill him. His Aunt was an ordinary woman that way, as far as he knew. Well shielded, thanks to magic, but that was all.
He was so hard to hurt that anything that would be enough to harm him even a little would flat out slaughter his delicate and youthful looking Aunt. She seemed to be about fifteen or sixteen in looks. She was an Ancient though. A near immortal, who wouldn’t age or die unless she was killed. Her real age was something closer to twenty, he thought. Really, he’d never asked her about it. They were family, but being that close to the woman wasn’t really a great idea. She already seemed sad half the time, when she gave him a training scenario or mission.
Them being pals w
ouldn’t make that better for her.
She pushed him on the back, between the shoulder blades this time.
“Go! You have ten seconds to pick up the first stone… Starting… Now!”
Responding, his reflexes so fast now that he didn't really think about it, Will focused his mind on the task at hand. Enough so that he didn’t notice Taman running out of the room.
The rock in his right hand was smooth and oval in shape. The pink glowing sigil on it looked nearly like a letter. It wasn’t one in any language he knew, however. If it meant anything he didn't get it right off. For a moment, he wondered if that was the puzzle. Him having to figure out how the sigil worked.
Then the room, which was very dark, started to glow. Right over his hand. The light wasn’t blinding or anything, it was more of a picture that happened to be brighter than absolute black.
The puzzle wasn’t that hard to understand, once he saw it. The thing was just a maze. Floating in the air, in glowing red. Inside of it there was a marker, in purple. When he looked at it, thinking lightly, it moved under his gaze. Away from the direction he started in. So he could control where it was, by mentally pushing it a bit.
On the top left hand side there was a little box, which was, hopefully, where the little pip of light needed to end up. The maze had hundreds of turns, dead ends and twists designed to distract him from the correct path. Starting at the far end, at the little empty box on the top, he worked his way backward. Hurrying, but knowing that getting the marker stuck in the wrong place would be harder on him than finding the path first.
The only mistake was that, by the time he had the basic idea down, his left hand was radiating pain. It didn’t feel like anything he’d ever noticed before, either. It wasn’t hot, or cold. There was no sense of having hit anything or of inflammation. It was just pure hurt. Coming up with that was probably a sign that his little Aunt was brilliant on a level that he’d never honestly considered before.
It just so happened that she’d turned her powers to evil for the day, with him as the target.
Instantly, without even noticing he was doing it, Will concentrated, to push his mind into ignoring the discomfort. He was a line walker after all. That meant he’d mastered things like that long ago. Eons past, in fact. Except that this time the pain just kept growing. No matter what he tried to do.
After a minute, finally focusing on the small rectangle of purple light, it was bad enough that he was distracted from the task at hand. That meant, even knowing the pathway he needed, Will made two mistakes and had to backtrack. Finally, nearly three minutes in, pushing the little thing along to the empty box, fearing that it wasn’t the actual goal of the whole thing, he yelled.
The pain cut off instantly though, as soon as the marker was in the right place. Then, the red maze was gone. Replaced with numbers in the air.
Counting down.
To an explosion, no doubt, since it started at ten. Moving quickly, he got to the next sigil. There was a bit of a shock, since the stone it was on was rough this time. Like lava rock. If he’d been a regular person, it would have cut his skin when he grabbed it. Instead of a fun and interesting maze to solve, there were just lines of text.
In English. A language that he knew, thankfully.
This time the riddle wasn’t really one. He just had to read the text, then recite it from memory, as soon as that was finished. There was constant pain through it, however. That was just to make it harder on him. Plus, for extra excitement, he was blasted with a jolt of extra pain every time he misspoke at all. Thankfully he had a nearly perfect memory, but there was nothing to show him where he was in the process while he went back over it.
Unlike the first time, this one took him nearly half an hour. The pain growing so much that he nearly started screaming the whole time. It made it really difficult to get the words out in a way that counted. Only the fact that he might well die if he dropped the stone and tried to run kept him from doing it. Even then it was so bad he was nearly tempted to try it.
That was more than a little humbling for him.
Will had figured that he’d become very tough, over the last months of his training. He didn’t blink about being hit with weapons or facing his fears now, for instance. Even unpleasant tasks weren’t actually that daunting for him. Which, he was beginning to understand, had a lot more to do with the powers that he’d been given than any extra character or internal fortitude of his own.
The next puzzle wasn’t one really. He just had to not drop the rock. There were words in the air, and a countdown, which would take a little over an hour to happen. The problem there was that the thing he was grasping did everything possible to make him let go of it. His hand went numb first, then stabbed at him with different negative sensations. It even felt like it was trying to pull and twist away from him. The sigil didn’t move though, so it was all about what he was feeling at the moment. The pain didn’t get bad though, really.
Not in any kind of constant fashion. It just kept trying to startle him into doing the wrong thing. Even as the words in the air reminded him of the goal.
It was still hard to make happen. Five times he nearly lost the thing, unable to stop his left fist from opening. Being tricked into nearly dropping the thing. The one time he did there was massive pain, making picking the thing back up nearly impossible.
Will managed it though. Somehow.
The other stones were different, of course. On one of them, where the exercise was just about using his other hand to feel shapes in the air and then name them out loud, made his bones tickle, instead of pain being involved at all. That was distracting, and left him feeling oddly weak.
Of course, on the very last of the original twelve stones, which had taken him six hours, as promised, two more lit up on the floor. It was really annoying, even if it was what he’d expected.
Words, all in golden light, appeared in the air then. They looked hand written and were lovely, as far as the script went. Flowing and pretty as they twinkled in front of him.
He read them out loud, not thinking about it. That was probably a poor plan, but he was feeling more than a little ragged after everything. It was an explanation if not good enough to save him if that were the wrong plan.
“One will give you the worst pain you’ve ever felt, the other the greatest pleasure. Pick one up now.”
Then a countdown started. The sigils on the things were identical, being the word for guess. One was glowing in yellow, the other in a pale mint green. There was however, no way to tell which was which.
So, as the numbers counted down to five, Will moved to get the one on the left. The yellow one. He expected a punishing pain, so was ready to hold on, if that happened. Instead, music started to play. It was nice, but not the greatest pleasure that he’d ever encountered. Really, it was a pleasant arrangement of reed pipes and drumming. A bit like what they played at festivals in Pine Creek.
After a moment, words appeared in the air. That just said that the task was over, in Standard. There was an arrow, pointing at the door to the temple behind him. When he left the space, pushing the curtain that had been put over the front door to the side, it was night out.
No one waited for him or anything, naturally. There was a small floating box next to the thing, that had a note glowing on the front. The handwriting looked to be his Aunt’s, of course. That made sense, given that in their entire land, only two people could do Noram style magic so far. He hadn’t left himself the message, so it was pretty much going to be Taman.
“Pack the stones up, please… Well, I can do that.” His voice should have been harsh and gravel like, from all his shouting, but it was normal to his ears. Smooth even.
Going back in, figuring that it would be a trap, he was able to collect all the pain stones up, placing them carefully in the small floating box that followed him. The amulet that controlled it was in his hand, the hemp cord on it wrapped around his fingers. It took a few minutes, but once that was done he walked back tow
ard his Aunt’s palace. That was a magical construct, but had been made to look like something from Noram, instead of anything that might have fit in there, in Soam. Really, they probably should have made it seem like a granite stone temple on the outside. Instead it looked like something that the king or a countess might live in. It really was pretty, but it stood out too much.
Then, the Ancient of Soam, Taman Baker, wasn’t trying to fit in really. That was his job. Her job was to fix the damaged and broken land there.
Taking the box in that direction, walking across the middle of the spaceport there, he got a bit of a surprise. In that someone actually started down in a craft. It was a spaceport, so that kind of thing wasn’t impossible or anything, but it wasn’t exactly a daily occurrence. He could see them coming well before they got there, since they did it right, following his cousin Dareg’s landing rules for such things. Dare was, as unlikely as it seemed for a fourteen-year-old, the world commander of all the space ports. To that end he’d come up with ways to keep things running smoothly that actually worked.
That meant moving in from the side, about ten miles away. Then, at about a thousand feet up, they moved over the port, slowly. There were landing areas marked out in different colored lights. The big ship glowed itself, in a nice pumpkin orange color. It headed toward the area marked out in that same shade. Close enough that it probably wasn’t a coincidence or anything.
What that meant, Willum didn't really know. He was from the deep woods. The truth was that he knew more about how to get by in the IPB reality than he did in Soam. The idea of dealing with space related things was even further away from that what he knew than either of those things.
Instead of fleeing into the night, he stood for a few seconds, then reached into the small bag he had on his right hand side. In Soam they didn't wear clothing that had pockets, going in for simple wraps, most of the time. A bit of cloth to cover their waists. It was the same for both men and women, but didn't offer a lot of protection from anything. Including insects. That wasn’t an issue for him, but that was due to the fact that the little critters couldn’t actually bite him anymore. He was too hard for that.