The Blood Storm (Unwithering Realm Book 4)

by John C. Wright

  “Gypsies stealing children? I thought that was a myth.”

  “Monkey-Girl is famous throughout the Tower. She whose destiny no star can see is the only free soul in this whole world, so, naturally, she had to be one of us. Rom Baro is our title for whatever man of the tribe by strength, luck, cunning, or merit wins the heart of the people, and speaks for them, and leads.”

  “You don’t have elections? Royal families?”

  There was a lilt of laughter in his tone. “We are a free people. The free people. Rules are for chumps.”

  I said wryly, “So you make it a rule not to make rules?”

  Foster said, “Something like that. The local Romany tribes would not be able to help us off-world. The Astrologers know where all the gates are, and when they are fated to open and shut.” He turned to Penelope, “I thought if Sea-Prince Dakkar selected the landing, I could get ashore unforeseen by star-mages, and with my cape of mist, unseen by men.”

  Penny said sharply, “You’ve created another reason to reopen old quarrels among the wise. The Nightriders will be forced to repudiate your trespass, or else back you and defy the Empress of Undersea. Either way, they are shamed.”

  He shrugged and smiled a charming smile. “First, the Prussians are not my people, as you just reminded me. I merely live among them. Second, the Nightriders are not involved. Only me. I am of the free people. When the Wise are unwise, it is the way of the Romany to remind you.”

  Interesting. I wondered how divided this Wisecraft was. I said, “Hold it. This interdimensional spy network you told me about didn’t send you after all? Why did you come?”

  He looked me in the eye and straightened his shoulders. “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, brave. I was not going to leave my patrol leader a prisoner in the Darkest Tower. And I never again want to hear you say You should have been there. I’m here. I’m here for you, buddy.” He raised his fist, and I bumped my fist into it.

  “Troop Two!” he said.

  “Second to none!” I answered.

  Penny said angrily, “That is enough! MY plan—”

  I caught her eye and spoke softly to her in that way my dad sometimes can do, when speaking softly is louder than shouting. “Your plan to stay captive long enough to sneak into the library would not do anything for the other young ladies imprisoned here with you, would it? Your fellow harem girls.”

  The look of surprise on her features was priceless.

  “You were just thinking about you,” I added. “Weren’t you?”

  Her face fell. “Okay, cleaning boy,” she said, when she could raise her eyes to mine again. “You may be smarter than you look. Tell me what plan you have.”

  “Are there more girls?” I pressed, “Ones who are resting, or drugged, or something? Don't you think we should help them escape?”

  Penny said, “There are two other watches of slave-girls, one hundred fifty in all. This is the maiden wing: we’re all virgins.”

  Well. That was more information than I'd bargained for. It was also the moment that I knew she was not from Earth. Girls on my world are ashamed of being virgins.

  I turned. “Abby, repeat this to the party. Ossifrage has to levitate back to the aerial burial chamber we just left. Nakasu has to go with him not just to lift the debris off the coffin, but to hold the lid shut so that the Cold One does not get out. Abanshaddi has to go with them both so she can use her needle to point the way. Foster, you will go and keep everyone unseen, so you guys can go in, get the coffin, and get out, and get back here lickety-split. And finally, Miss Dreadful—”

  “Please don’t call me that,” she said. “It’s not my name.”

  “Very well, Penny,” I said, and perhaps my voice betrayed how much I enjoyed saying her first name. It seems she noticed, for she blushed again. “Penny, your job is to get Wild Eyes to gimmick the needle so it points to the right place.”

  Foster said, “Did you call us the party?”

  I said defensively, “I play D&D. If I didn’t, I’d call us something else. But, come on. Abanshaddi is the thief, Ossifrage is the cleric, Nakasu is the fighting man, and I am the Highlander.”

  Abby stamped her foot angrily. “I am not a thief! You impugn my name!”

  “Sorry. You’re the spy,” I said.

  “That’s not a character class.” said Foster.

  “I think Spy is a character class in Fourth Edition,” I pointed out.

  “No, I meant Highlander. Besides, what am I?”

  “Uh, Ranger? Druid? You’ve got a longbow.”

  Penny said, her voice dripping sarcasm. “He’s the burglar. Just not a nice one like Bilbo.” This disoriented me for a moment, because I was so accustomed to thinking of her as a sea-witch from another dimension, I forgot that she was an Earth girl, too. Maybe she had time to read The Hobbit on her yachting trip around the world.

  This thought prompted me to ask, “Penny, by the way, why did you sail around the world? If you are not from our dimension, you wouldn’t care about our world records. Or do you sail around the world on all worlds?”

  Penny said, “It was to draw a ward, a charmed circle. The only way to inscribe the whole world was to go all the way around the globe. This is why the Dark Tower cannot gain a proper foothold there. A power hostile to me reached across the dimensions through wind and wave and capsized my boat. Who it was, I have no idea. Luckily, you still have some dolphins on your world who remember the old ways. With their help, I found the broken spirit threads. I was able to continue the magic circle from the position of the break, and the Moon gave her verdict that the ward was legitimate. It counted. I did not have to go back and redo the whole thing. The hard part was not sailing so quickly and skillfully as to blow my cover. All the seas of all the worlds have songs that are almost the same, but each with its own mood and hue and beauty. The waves tell me of home. I love sailing as much as I love dancing!” She sighed a lonely sigh and shook her head so that her hair made a very slight, wet noise. I knew she had been on Earth for at least five years. I wondered how long it had been since she last saw home.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask,” I said, “How can you dance? How do you have legs? Where is your tail?”

  She smiled, “Mr. Muromets, it is hardly proper to inquire about a young lady’s tail in such a fashion. Only Wild Eyes can see it.”

  Foster saw the dumbfounded look on my face, and said, “She means it is made of dream-stuff called ectoplasm. It is a spiritual tail, so only spirits can see it. It works the same way the feet of an Abarimon work.”

  Since I had no idea how the feet of an Abarimon worked, that explanation was as clear as mud.

  Penny said, “It was my first big mission! My first solo effort! Mother would be so proud of me. I hope so. She will still criticize me, because that is her way, but deep down, I know.”

  “Must be nice having a mother,” I said. “All this time, I thought the Professor was a widower.”

  “Perhaps he is; I know nothing of his past. My real father is an aerospace engineer from Togarmah. I suppose I cannot call him a surface-dweller, since he lives in a sky city. And my mother cannot come up on land. Weight problems, you might say.

  “In any case,” she continued, “That answers your question. I was not trying to break the record. In fact, I was really trying to avoid the attention, the newspapers, and so on, because I did not want your Church that guards your world to realize who and what I was.”

  Abby gave me a smug little smirk. “Virgo. Jupiter ascending and Mercury in retrograde. I told you she was no glory-seeker.”

  I said sternly to Abby, “Heroines never say ’I told you so’! It’s petty.”

  Abby’s face lit up, “Then… am I a heroine?”

  “After saving me from that hellhole?” I exclaimed, “As far as I am concerned, you are Batgirl and Joan of Arc combined!”

  Foster said, “I hate to break up the meeting of the mutual admiration society, but what is this plan to break these women out of prison? Robb
ing coffins?”

  Abby said softly to Penny, “Daughter of the Sea, will you call your walking shadow here? We need the winged monster to point the Remembering Needle to the Funerary Chamber, to go and recover the coffin as Ilya the Barbarian has asked.”

  Foster snorted and looked at me skeptically. “Wait. What are you going to be doing in the meanwhile, Ilya — here in the harem of silk pillows? While we go off to collect this mysterious coffin o’ fun?”

  “I am going to stay here and protect my — uh —”

  “Mistress,” said Abby.

  “—my boss’s daughter. My plan is to chopify anyone who comes into this room with my mad-leet sword-fu skillz.” I held up Shirabyoshi in her rayskin and silk scabbard, adorned with the Imperial chrysanthemum, and then frowned, wishing someone would explain to me how my grandpa just so happened to get his hands on a magic sword.

  “Nice plan,” said Foster. “And why did short stuff call you Ilya the Barbarian?”

  “Because I am planning to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of their women, like any real American would do. Why else?”

  “Sorry I asked,” Foster said, “So who or what is in the coffin we are trying to steal?”

  “I told you. A Cold One.”

  “A what?”

  “One of the Host who Quaffs Blood like Wine.”

  “All right… but why the hell do we want one?” He glanced at Abby. “Sorry, make that heck.”

  Abby waved off his apology. “They are naked horrors that consume the souls of men. The Astrologers put out their eyes, since to meet their gaze is to fall under their charm. They do not age as men do.”

  “We are talking about the Hexenvampir then? The pale things that look like human bats?” asked Foster.

  “They are pale,” said Abby primly. “And they are unclean.”

  Foster said, “Oh, right! Those guys! Well, hel—heck, Ilya, you are coming with us, because you are the only one carrying a crucifix.”

  I blinked at him stupidly. “Don’t they worship elves or something on your world? You said. Or did you want to pray the rosary—”

  Penny glared at me, irritated. “The Cold One is a nosferatu. A vampire?”

  “Oh.” I blinked, a little embarrassed. It seemed kind of obvious in hindsight. “Got it.”

  “All mortals carry our lives as if in a wineskin,” Abby said quietly. “And when it is pierced, life runs out, or old age leaves it wrinkled and dry. It is known that there are those who know the secret lore, witches and wise men, who can store a bit of themselves in walking shadows as if in smaller bottles for safekeeping, or to send or to fetch what is desired from the unseen order of being. But the life of the deathless abomination is connected to an unending stream. That is why you, Ilya the Barbarian, are particularly vulnerable to the breed.”

  Penny said to Abby. “Please tell the others that we should follow Ilya’s plan. I admit I have no other.” She sighed. “Perhaps the library of all worlds will be open to me at some other time. Eflast, carry Ilya’s crucifix to protect yourself and those with you. You will be safe. Abanshaddi, go with them so the headless giant can talk and listen. The Nosferatu cannot approach you.”

  Foster said, “Abanshaddi might be safe, but I won’t be! What good will the crucifix do me? I do not worship the White Christ.”

  I said, “Hold up. And you call yourself a Boy Scout? What about being reverent?”

  “I am reverent!” he said. “Toward Odin.” Then he turned back to Penny and said, “The crucifix will not repel vampires for me: you have to have faith for that to work.”

  Penny raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? Where did you learn this faulty lore?”

  “Um…a movie called Fright Night,” he said.

  “The moviemakers were likely in the pay of the blood-quaffers, then,” she said.

  Foster looked offended. “But it starred Roddy McDowall!”

  “Only if the White Christ had never lived on Earth nor died on the Cross would that foolish idea be so. Or do you think it is your own name, your own power, that commands the unclean spirits? If so, then baptisms and marriages and all sacraments blessed by sinful bishops would be invalid: which is absurd.”

  I said, “But in D&D, clerics of any alignment can turn undead, with a holy symbol of their god or goddess. It’s pretty generic.”

  Foster and Penny both looked at me like I was an idiot.

  “Sorry,” I said, shrugging. “Me technomancer. Show me a gun. I know the difference between a clip and a magazine.”

  11. Nice Timing

  “Why isn’t he coming?” demanded Foster, hooking his thumb at me.

  Penny said, “He is staying with me.”

  Foster smiled his most winning smile. “No, I think you want me to stay! I’m better looking.”

  Yes, he was handsome, and yes, I so wanted to punch him in the face for that fact. If I punched hard enough, he would be less handsome. It seemed a logical thought at the time.

  I turned to her. “Wait! Is it so you can tell me this all-important plan for Ossifrage?”

  She nodded. “You seem to think you have another way off this planet, now that Dakkar and his ironclad submersible are gone. If you do make it off, you will have to know where to take Ossifrage next, and what the plan is for the Colossus.”

  “Why not tell me later?”

  She looked off to the left, and lifted one shoulder, saying airily. “We need to be prepared in case, ah…”

  “In case my friends don’t make it back? In case you don’t make it out of this room?”

  Foster said, “I still don’t understand what is going on. Why are we getting a coffin with a vampire in it?”

  I brushed some clinging water droplets off my armor. “I’ll explain as we go. I’m coming with.”

  Penny said, “No! I will not allow—”

  I whirled on her, angry now. “You want to talk to me now because you don’t have faith in my friends, and you think I might get caught if I go with them. You don’t think I can get you out of this room! You don’t have faith in me that I am going to rescue you!”

  She said nothing but looked chagrined.

  I said sternly: “I will do all I have said I will do! A Muromets does not compromise his word! My nay is my nay and my yeah is my damn straight!”

  She said, “Please spare me the posturing. We are short on time. That is all.”

  “That is not all,” I said. “When we get back to Earth, you are going out on a date with me. Dinner and a show, and maybe a ride in a carriage. Or at least a haycart. I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

  That caught her by surprise. She had a confused look on her face, like she did not know whether to be flattered or annoyed, to get angry or to get icy.

  She decided on icy and angry. In a voice as cold as an Arctic glacier, she said, “If it were not for your schoolboy crush on me, I would not have been captured. I have the power of deep waters, where no stars shine, and I can hide from them, and could have entered here on my own had I wished, rescued Ossifrage with no aid from you or anyone, and been in no danger of the iron hooks!”

  “Miss, if it is my fault you are in danger, it is my responsibility to get you out. And to take you out.”

  “How can you think about—” Now it was just anger without ice. She made a little growling noise of frustration. “How can you—! I am on a mission! My first real mission in the field! You don’t know what is at stake!”

  I said, “Look, Parthygirl, or whatever your real name is, if you don’t have any faith in me, my attempt to save you will end in miserable lingering painful failure, so you will never get back to Earth and never have to grant what I demand. You can agree to a date without any worries, because the date for the date will never come. Right? If you do have faith in me, well—then you can trust me to behave myself. We share a slab of meat at the steakhouse, a slice of pie, and catch a musical.”

  “No one makes musicals anymore,” she said flatly.

>   “Disney does. We’ll catch a rerun of Beauty and the Beast at the campus theater on cheap seat night. It’ll be appropriate. Unless you think Little Mermaid is better, considering?”

  She said, “No. I’ll cook. We’ll watch a black and white at my place. To Have and To Have Not. But in return you agree to carry out the mission to unearth the Colossal Zoetic Panoply from the Chasm of Azin!”

  “On one condition,” I said. “You tell me first about my birth and background. Then I’ll decide whether to carry out this mission.”

  “Granted,” she said, raising her chin slightly as she spoke.

  “Uh. Don’t you need a towel? I mean, I cannot pay close attention, while I am also worried about your–”

  “–areolae,” offered Foster.

  “–health.” I said smoothly, slapping the back of Foster’s head with my free hand as soundly as I could. “Get moving Fos! Black Hats are all around us, and someone surely saw us throw the hoppy-hopper squad off the brink. Hurry back so I can kick the h—um, heck—out of you for your wiseass mouth.”

  I sat down on one of the decorative benches near the pool, looked at Penny, and patted the hard seat next to me.

  The Other Sons of Adam

  1. How to Sit

  Penny sat down next to me.

  She seemed a little distracted or confused, although she kept her face straight. First she sat down primly, knees together and feet flat on the floor; then she crossed one leg, which made the absurdly skimpy hem of her shift creep upward on her thigh, which she tried to straighten with her hands. Pulling on the hem of the shift made the transparent, wet, thin fabric cling more tightly to her curves. Then she pulled both legs up and she placed her hands around her ankles, fingers intertwined. Then she blushed, and twisted both legs under her, so she was kneeling on the bench, hips over her heels, knees together. She also did not know what to do with her hands. One moment she had them folded casually in her lap, as if the way she were undressed was no big deal, but then she was tucking strands of sopping hair behind her ear again, but the hair was too heavy at the moment to stay put. Then she started wringing out locks of her hair like you’d wring a stubborn washcloth.