by Pam Uphoff
"Oh. Great, something else she can be snide to me about. Let's see, what else do I need to work on. The silent shoes are easy enough. Then there's the message sending. I've heard about you using 'magic messenger pouches', but I haven't a clue how you did it."
"Oh, micro corridors, from a pouch to a pouch. Nice for sending intel. You just have to be careful about keeping the various pouches well separated, else the corridors start merging and there's no telling who will get which message."
"Heh. That could be awkward, at the wrong moment. I'll fix Janic up with some and see if I can sweet talk Aunt Obsidian into sewing an invisible suit." He took another sip. "This is nice. Pity it has to age so long."
"Yes. And I still like merlots. I tried a malbec, but it just needs more sun. I'll have to find someone down south to give it a try."
Xen sighed. "Pity Earth is being so massively stupid. I'll bet they've got a bunch of new varieties."
"Don't bet on it. Back in my youth, the mind boggling massive stupidity of some of the countries that thought a single government was a good idea had to be seen to be believed. Not to mention the massive egos of the countries that thought the whole world would conform to their values, and the massive lying by the countries that were determined to be the rulers." The old god sighed. "I still can't believe they actually united. The ego of the French, the tolerance of the Germans, the legal system of the Arabs and the ambitions of Russia. Turned loose on the Multiverse."
"You left America off your list."
"Oh yes, the naivety of a gentle giant. Or stupidity, or trust." He held his glass up to the last of the light, admiring the sunset's added color. "Kick one of the Europeans for me, will you?"
"My pleasure."
***
"Ow. Damn bruises."
Q grinned over at Dr. Kasik. "Worse than running around with Nil and Dydit?"
"No, but I was a lot younger, then." He was holding his shoulder a bit oddly.
Q reached out and touched his shoulder. "Lady Gisele has patched up the rotator cup, but those tendons need a little more time. She says you have all the insertions. What a pity you didn't get a power gene."
The professor glared at her. "You're as bad as your brother. Wafting through life all la-ti-dah, certain no one can hurt you. And analyzing genes with a touch. I'd kill for a power gene."
Q hesitated. "Umm, I didn't analyze anything. Physics is more my field, rather than biology, which, well, I'd need to advance to do much. And killing isn't necessary, for those power genes. It's pretty easy genetic engineering, but mother only did it before the comet, because we were desperate for people to help."
"What! And no one ever offered it to me? Never even mentioned the possibility!"
"You're not trained, and you're so old I doubt you'd be able to gather power."
He leaned closer. "Young lady, if you know those spells, you'd better give them to me right now."
"Oh . . . well yes, mother showed them to me. It's Nil's wizard gene and Dydit's mage gene that she used. Which one do you want?"
"Both."
She pulled out the spell boxes she'd put them in, meaning to study them later. Cast both. "I don't know how long it took the original recipients to start feeling the power. May I recommend a trip to the Wizard school fairly soon?"
"Sure. Drat. I don't feel any different." He looked over his shoulder at a cupboard. "Maybe that wine would speed it up."
Q opened her mouth to suggest he refrain . . . and shut it. He's not yet in touch with the collective subconscious. He's very smart. Barely on the handsome side of average, but hardly ugly. Has all the magic genes. And not any more in touch with the collective subconscious than anyone without the power genes! Do I have a window of opportunity here?
He pulled out a familiar bottle and pulled the cork. Oh, Professor! Do you have a secret vice? More likely you just patch people up occasionally; that bottle's pretty dusty.
He took a swallow and gasped a bit. Smiled wryly. "I shouldn't do this with a grad student in my apartment, even though you can beat me up if I get fresh." He leaned in like he really wanted to get fresh.
Score!
Q grinned and reached for the wine. "Why would I do a silly thing like that?"
He snatched the wine away.
"I really do need to advance."
"No. Out!"
"Now, look. You know all about witches . . . "
"No. No. No. Out!"
Q grit her teeth, and marched out. Thinking a whole bunch of bad words, mostly aimed at the collective subconscious. And not really at Weg. It really was just as well that the wine didn't compel behavior. However convenient that would have been for her.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Summer 1395
Fascia, Auralia
Lily rode into camp with orders for Xen, Deena and Easterly to report to Rufi.
Janic was already there, no doubt reporting to the general.
Rufi didn't look happy. "The more I think about it, the less I like it. It's as bad as trying to fight wizards. I'm not used to thinking in terms of hopping in a machine and flying from Fascia to Karista in a few hours. On consideration, we have decided that we need to lower the Earthers' mobility. I want their flying machines destroyed. You three have actual experience with advanced machinery. Go see what you can do."
Xen looked wistful. "Couldn't we steal them?"
"I spoke to several of the gods. They all said that flying was difficult, took a lot of training, and the machines run on a fuel not widely available here. So I want them damaged." Rufi pulled out some rough sketches. "We haven't actually seen the machines up close, but from what our observers have seen when they take off and land, the Gods said they hadn't changed much in fourteen hundred years. If you can destroy this little fan at the back here, it won't fly. If you put refined sugar in the fuel, it won't fly far. Grit in the moving parts will ruin them quickly. If it is flying low, any levitation or push that is not balanced side to side will tip it, with serious results. Take a look, use your ingenuity."
***
Deena and Easterly couldn't believe he wanted to bring the dogs.
"The obvious advantage of big ugly mutts is that no one would suspect them of being enemy scouts." Xen explained. "I worked this out with them. They'll mosey out and sniff around, and wag their tails and make friends with any hidden guards."
"They're not even full grown yet. And you say you've practiced this stuff?"
"Yep. You'll be amazed." I'm amazed at what they picked up in three days.
They were properly amazed.
The whole camp area was fenced off with a tangle of really nasty big spirals of razor wire. It was impressive fence. Brilliant lights on tall poles lit the entire area. The gate was even more protected, but that didn't matter tonight.
Xen traveled through first, with Pig. Pig faded into the shadows and Xen followed, in a light warp. Starting from the small building where Weg had been held, they worked up wind. Hopefully if they were spotted by a camera, a dog slinking around in the shadows of a building wouldn't alarm the guards. When Pig paused and sniffed, and headed to the side, Xen dodged as well. The patrolling guard had a dog too, a big black and tan alsac. It sniffed suspiciously, but passed on.
They eased around a corner, and there they were. Xen trotted invisibly across the courtyard to the first helicopter. "Stay, Pig." He traveled back to the observation point.
"Okay. We've found the helicopters." Xen grabbed Deena and Easterly, and they touched the other dogs.
Pig was waiting between two of the three helicopters, and they got to work. Even with light warps, he felt hideously exposed.
The four dogs crouched in the scant shadows of the brilliant lights. Xen sliced carefully through the blades of the little propellers, leaving them attached with foil thin sides.
Deena had the sugar, and poured it into anything she could get the lid off of. Easterly had fine sand, and was working it into the complex attachment of the main blades to the spindle.
Trotting feet and scrabbling claws. The guard dog barked and growled, and the man he was dragging along on the leash started talking to thin air. Xen pointed at Barracuda and waved her out. He crouched by the other dogs, covering them with his lightwarp.
Barracuda galloped out to meet the guard dog, wagging her tail, and leaping playfully around.
More guards rushed up in a gyp and got out. They mostly ignored the dogs and checked the area. Easterly and Deena held still. The slight distortions of their light warps didn't attract any attention.
"No sign of entry. Checking further. Check the fence." The nearest guard walked on. This close they could see something in his ear.
Laughter from some of the other guards, as the first one got pulled off his feet and then lost the leash. Barracuda led a chase around the guards, dodging in and out, wagging her tail and making it clear it was all a big game. Then she ran off out of sight, with the soldiers fanning out, still searching for anything other than a stray dog.
Xen finished his part hastily.
He started hiding charms in and on the copters. He'd be able to find them, have easy focus points for levitations and pushes . . .
Laughter from somewhere out of sight.
Then shots and yelping, yelling from the far side of a building. Barracuda tore around the corner, making impressive speed on three legs. Her brothers ran out and launched themselves on the first pursuers, big heavy mutts that had been trained to disarm soldiers . . . Xen finished up hastily as Barracuda leapt at him. He travelled her out to the corridor, then Pig, with Easterly and Deena as they finished. Then he ran across the open space to where the scrum of men and dogs was getting nasty, grabbed the last two pups and traveled.
They hustled through the corridor, and found Lily standing by with wine and an already recovered Barracuda. Shark and Piranha got a dose, and Xen hastily popped Barracuda into a bubble.
"The four of you are bad enough. You three behave yourselves."
"Can you hide everything and close the corridor down to a pinprick, in case they search outside the fence?" Lily asked. "I think we shouldn't go back and observe for a few hours."
Easterly glared at Xen. "You trained Barracuda to do that?"
"Yep. I didn't think they'd hurt a friendly dog. And it worked fine until some sadistic spoilsport decided to shoot the stray bitch. Poor Barracuda, she was just having so much fun."
Pig barked approval and wagged his tail.
Xen popped back through the chain of corridors and removed everything from their cave, and sealed the entrance. From inside the corridor he pinched the southern opening down to a pin prick, then pulled the northern end back to the border camp.
“This way we can check periodically without getting any closer. And I can pop it, if it seems necessary.”
They took a quick peek through the corridor. The gate area was buzzing with activity, so they closed it down again and called it a night.
Pig settled down to guard the camp, and Xen fell asleep listening to the distant sounds of Shark and Piranha attempting to woo coyotes.
In the morning, the gate camp sported an oily black column of smoke, and Xen snuck in long enough to observe one helicopter with smoke coming from the engine compartment and the tail fan lacking blades. The other two helicopters had been towed away, and appeared to be in the process of being disassembled.
Captain Orobona and Jaime Lillian, or whatever his real name was, were with the group following General Soeder around. The general had a load of ire sizzling in his brain.
" . . . fail to see how the Natives knew how to sabotage a helicopter! There's been leakage. I want every half breed off the base. I want someone's head."
"In retrospect it is obvious that the dogs were used to distract the guards, but we still can't find any indication of how the saboteurs got in or out of the Camp." Orobona was also looking irate. "The pilot reports that he noticed nothing odd. His visual inspection showed nothing wrong—I suspect his inspection may have been a bit superficial and hasty, as everyone wanted him up and searching the desert as quickly as possible."
The General growled. "Now tell me how those dogs got in and out. They disappeared right in front of a bunch of soldiers, some of whom are badly injured."
"The Westerners have the strongest group of magicians, sir, and illusions are their stock in trade. I'm wondering how many actual dogs there were, and how many illusions there were. I believe no one actually made physical contact with the dogs until after there was at least one loose guard dog running around."
"You think our dogs were doing the biting, and the rest was illusion?"
"Hard to say sir. The way the dogs disappeared in front of people seems to make at least some illusions likely." The Amma was fence sitting.
The General eyed him. "More of this magic? I don't believe any of that bullshit. It's miniaturized tech. Like that nanotech healing potion you got from the natives."
"Yes, sir, controlled apparently through genetic modifications to the brain. Calling it magic is just a useful shorthand."
The General eyed him. "Don't lose track of that. We don't want to forget that these Natives haven't even invented steam engines. They don't even have black powder muskets. They are primitives, using tech they don't understand, with a bunch of mumbo jumbo thrown in to control the masses. The next time we capture a native, perhaps we’ll send him through to Earth, and they can handle the interrogation. Or dissection."
The Amma opened and shut his mouth without saying anything. Would it make a bit of difference if I reminded him that in fact they have both? Just not widespread.
"Now, this is twice they’ve come and gone without tripping a single perimeter alarm. How are we going to prevent a reoccurrence?"
Xen followed them around for another hour, happily listening to their plans.
***
Two days later, one of the helicopters crashed.
Deena overheard enough chat to award that one to Easterly.
The third one worked fine until Xen levitated and pushed it around. It managed a controlled landing.
"One hopes that they won't trust helicopters from now on."
They watched through several gate openings, but apparently no more helicopters were going to be imported.
A satisfied Janic called them home.
"We received a stiff message to the king. Warning us about siding with other cross-dimensional nations or organizations. They said that any further sign of that would 'destabilize' the situation. If those arrogant snots . . . Old Gods! It's like trying to deal with a planet full of . . . " Janic shook himself. "Well done, you three take a few days off. If they ease back, fine. But I don't expect that. So rest now, and come back prepared for war."
Chapter Thirty
Late Summer 1395
Crossroad, Kingdom of the West
The sisters' third smuggling trip to the Natives was gratifying. A boy was watching the table, and ran off as soon as he spotted them. Their half of the table was piled with various crystals and a few lumps of gold. One quite large.
They piled the other side with the grain and meat from the bags slung over their horses' quarters, and put the two knives they'd brought on top. They loaded the horses back up and retreated, slowly this time. The group of natives gave them large smiles. Two of the men argued over the knives. The women hustled the meat and grain away.
Back at the Crossroads, the soldiers didn't notice a thing.
It was a good summer. In more advanced classes Crimson learned metal working, and a few offensive spells. And as she started seeing bubbles, Quicksilver showed her how to carefully grab them, and attach handles so they could be used.
Very useful. No need to juggle a baby while riding, she could just bubble her during critical periods.
The fourth trip, the natives left a Oner computer on the Sister's side of the table.
Crimson stared at it. "There's another connection to the One World? Old Gods! Does anyone
realize that?"
Macaw poked at the plastic case. "Are you sure it's from there?"
"Yeah, I recognize the brand name and everything . . . We're going to have to hide this . . . figure out some way to charge the battery . . . Wow. If we could sneak into the One World . . . Oh, wow. We could be so rich . . . " She swallowed. "And in so much trouble . . . "
Chapter Thirty-one
Late Summer 1395
Fascia, Auralia
They had three weeks warning.
Quicksilver shivered a bit at the sheer number of vehicles, armored gyps, mobile artillery vehicles and out-and-out tanks the Earthers had lined up and ready to pour through the gate.
As they warmed up the gate, and maneuvered their army to pour through, Quicksilver again threw everything she could at the gate. Nothing could touch it. She could easily bring down her own type of gate now, but these powered ones . . . The tunnel she was viewing firmed up, and the column started edging up.
:: Ready Xen? They're coming.:: Every time she opened her mental shields to talk to him, her view through the gate exploded into swirling energy.
::Ready. God forgive me for what I must do.::