by Jae Vogel
“You summoned up those women?” Bernice asked him as they walked down the stairwell. “How did you ever learn how to do that?”
“It’s a natural ability I had when I was born,” Dion told her. “Most people have some ability to work with elementals, I have more than most. But I can’t do much with them in this world and the ones I can manipulate need to be brought over from mine. Single use, too, which means I am down to two other elementals.”
“Let me know when you need to use them,” she mentioned. “I’d love to see that battle again!”
Chapter 14
When the exited the stairwell at the level of the great hall, Dion saw his uncle in a heated exchange with the three sisters who controlled the tower. Kiley Mahen, dressed in her customary black, sat in her high chair and listened to him with boredom. It was plain to everyone in the room that she had endured this before.
“You have to do something about the situation out there and up in the tower,” he yelled at her. “Eventually, they will find a way down and inside this tower. When that happens, we’ll be trapped in the middle.”
“I just found out your nephew had some of his elementals secure the door to the level above the art gallery,” she told him between claps of thunder, “I don’t think the ones outside want to risk the lighting strikes, so we can afford to wait. Besides, we have no way to know what is out there in all that wind and rain until the storm dies down. Which it doesn’t intend to do right away.”
Dion sat down next to his parents who never seemed to express much of an opinion. They were quiet people and he could hardly ever recall either of them raising their voices. His mother was on the tall side and sat next to his father, who was an inch or two shorter than his wife. Funny, Dion remembered his father told him once that they were the same height. They wore the same kind of tunics Dion noted the tower retainers wore, but they’d been here over a year and were abducted by his uncle’s men. Whatever they wore came from this time circle.
“I think this whole experience is pretty groovy,” said the woman who sat next to him. Dion had noticed Bernice wondered off to another group of women when they reached the great hall level.
“Depends on your definition of the term,” Dion said to her. “I don’t find it very groovy we are caught between two different kinds of demons under the command of some fiend from the abyss.”
“It’s more adventure than I have back home,” she told him. “China. China Masters.”
“Dion,” he introduced himself. “I’m sorry you had to get caught up in this mess. I can’t do much to remedy the situation until the fifth elemental grandmaster returns. No one seems to know where she went, but she’s supposed to be back soon. I hope.”
“It beats sitting in the tea shop everyday waiting for customers,” she told him. Dion noted the woman was light of complexion and had long gray hair tied into a bun.
She also had a tattoo of a star around the back of her neck, which was unique. Dion hadn’t noted any tattoos on the women from the bus or the tower. She wore a knitted top, which reminded him of the sweater worn by mountain dwellers in Peru. Dion could only speculate on the chain of events, which brought her to the bus trip.
“Always was a big reader,” she told him. “I’m working on several books at the same time, but never can get around to finishing any one of them. I’d hoped this trip would take me somewhere where I hadn’t been before and give me some new ideas. At least I’ve had my share of new experiences.”
Dion almost told her that a mad rush from the Azuroth wasn’t an experience he would wish on anyone, but kept his mouth shut. Who had brought the sphinx over to attack him? A sphinx was aether elemental and seemed to be native to both time circles.
“We have to consider the worst case scenario,” Susan Mahen spoke to her sisters. Dion was a little surprised to hear the youngest sister speak aloud.
“What do you define as a worst-case scenario?” Loris, the middle sister, asked her. “Things are pretty dire right now.”
“What happens if the Azuroth break through to this level?” she asked. “We have to get out of the tower if it’s compromised. The storm is still in progress outside, but it could lift at any minute. All the thunderclouds have to do is move on and the rain will diminish. When that happens, the other Azuroth at the front gate will pin us inside the tower. If we can’t go out, we’ll have to attack those creatures in the upper tower. I have no idea how many of them are up there. Do any of you know?”
“I saw ten when the door busted open,” Dion spoke from his side of the table. “There could be a lot more behind them. My earth elementals sent them back and fixed the door barricade before the rest could emerge.”
Loris turned to Dion. “Can you get those elementals back?” she asked.
“One-time use,” he told her. “I just summoned some air sylphs to take out the sphinx in the elevator shaft who tried to kill me. And no I can’t use them again either.”
“Which leaves fire and water,” Kiley Mahen brought up.
“I’d rather not use them until I need their help,” Dion pointed out. “Keep those two in reserve for whatever happens until the grandmaster returns.”
“What about elementals from this world?” Kiley brought up. “Can you make use of them?”
“I don’t feel anything when I try to sense them. If there are elementals here, I can’t do a thing with them.”
“So how is it you can with the aether element?” Susan asked.
“The aether is the root of all the other elements,” Dion explained to her. “The same aether works in this world as in all others. It’s why so few people have ever mastered it.”
“How are we going to get out of this tower if the guards can’t keep those things upstairs from flooding into this level?” Susan changed the subject back to where it was. “Even if we get the drawbridge down, we still need to deal with what is on the other side.”
“We have enough bows, arrows and spears to arm the guards and household staff,” Kiley pointed out. “I don’t know how many of those things are outside, but they should be able to send them back with what we have. We’ll have to make a run for it to the gate Dion and his uncle used.” She turned to Dion’s uncle. “You do have the key which opens it, don’t you?”
“Yes I do,” he responded. “I have the sigil disc with me which will open the door to my world. I wouldn’t think of it as an option since none of us know how to get across these rocky lands to it unless the Azuroth are gone.”
Dion stood up and walked over to the collection of women who were milling about at the other end of the great hall. They seemed to be in the middle of a detailed conversation and he wondered what it was. They didn’t seem to mind his presence, so he wondered over to the small crowd of women, just out of hearing range, near the big table where everyone else was seated. Another burst of lighting sent flashes through the windows. The storm didn’t show any sign of cessation.
The first woman he encountered was a thin woman with a slight Asian appearance. She wore a long jacket of some type, but he had no clue if it represented anything in this world. She was drinking from a glass when Dion approached her.
“You’re Betty, aren’t you?” he remembered. “Betty Mook?”
“Correct,” she acknowledged. “I seem to recall your name as Dion?”
“Also correct. It seems there is big discussion taking place.” He was about to say something else when a clap of thunder drowned him out.
“We’re trying to figure out which book had the most sales last year,” she explained to him. “Some of us think it’s Bobbin Herrod’s The Wastoids, but I think it’s James St. Susan’s Mountain of the Soldiers. Have you read either one?”
“Sorry,” Dion apologized. “I haven’t had much of a chance to read this past year. I was forced to move in with relatives and spent most of the year adjusting. What line of work are you in?”
“I teach women how to defend themselves,” she explained. “With all the crime these days,
it’s important they learn how to do it. I’m certified in three styles and am working on another one. You ever do martial arts?”
“Not yet. It is something I’ve wanted to try for a long time.”
“You should give it the opportunity. Plenty of good schools around and no shortage of qualified instructors. I spent last weekend watching four people learn how to grapple on the ground. You can never tell how those kinds of things will turn out. I was surprised to see the one woman in the group come out on top of them all.”
“So have you written anything yourself?” Dion asked her. He needed to make small talk and get some angle on this woman. She didn’t seem to be what he’d assumed on the first meeting.
“Just some poetry,” she told him. “I don’t give readings very well. I need to work on my delivery and my rhyme scheme. Do you fancy any modern poets?”
“I don’t know enough of them to make a difference,” Dion told her, which was true. He was clueless as the art and literary accomplishments of this time circle. All he could see was the tower, which was impressive enough.
As Dion turned and looked at the women who congregated at the far end of the hall, he began to wonder about them. It was very convenient they showed when they did. They claimed to be tourists on a holiday when their bus broke down in an area plagued by thunderstorms for months. Somehow, their bus managed to miss the Azuroth encampment just outside of the tower. It was too dark and difficult to see anything in this storm beyond the moat, so the bus was not visible. Granted he could summon another one of his two elemental forces that yet remained, but this would be a waste of his resources.
He watched them interact with each other and realized he didn’t know much about this group. As a matter of fact, neither did anyone else in the tower. From what he could tell, the tower and its inhabitants were isolated from the rest of the kingdom and didn’t know much of what happened in the world outside it. How they managed to survive as long as they had was a mystery to him, but there was the mention of tenant farmers who used to live in the valley and the lands around the tower. The tower was of no military value or it wouldn’t have been leased a hundred years ago to the Mahen family.
Did this group of women figure into the plan his uncle had for using the energy from the abyss? His uncle wanted to enrich himself and expand his power base back in his world. Dion looked at them and watched the women continued to talk to each other in the same idyll fashion they’d used since entering the tower. Even Bernice, the one with a military background, didn’t seem too worried over what lay outside the moat or over them.
Still, there was the problem of their arrival. Way too much of a coincidence from Dion’s point of view. He was certain there was a connection to them and the events it the tower. However, he had no way to prove any of it. Right now, it was merely a sensation, but Dion learned a long time ago to trust those.
If they were connected to the assault on the tower, then what was the connection? Dion hadn’t arrived early enough to meet the elemental grandmaster, so he didn’t have a means to judge any link between the women and her. There were ten women in this group, he knew. Ten was a powerful number. Many divine beings came in a series of ten. There were all kinds of decimals in the universe. Elementals came in a series of four, so no connection in that aspect. He watched five women in the far end of the hall talk to each other. He had a difficult time believing they were connected to the attack on the tower. Sometime there were coincidences in the universe. Perhaps now was such a time.
Chapter 15
Dion walked back to the table and seated himself between his parents and the three women at the head of the table. His uncle was still across from them and the fire blazed high at the end of the hall. It was a little hard to see how the fire provided warmth for the hall. It wasn’t too cold outside, but that fire couldn’t possibly supply the heat for the rest of the tower. He didn’t know how the seasons worked in this world, but if they were anything like the ones back home, it meant this place would endure freezing weather three months out of the year. Did each level of the tower have its own fireplace? Perhaps they shut down most of the tower during the colder months. The place was drafty enough and Dion could only imagine what it was like when the inhabitants were all military.
The height of the tower made it an excellent watch on anything coming down the mountain pass. By the time any force penetrated into this side of the pass, the tower could see it and launch their own forces. Even if the advance wasn’t halted, they could send a messenger to the nearest castle or fortress to let them know the enemy was on the march. Plus, the pass was narrow enough that it wouldn’t take too many armored men to halt the advance and plug up the gap.
As he watched one of the tower servants turn the wood and stoke the fire, Dion saw another man in tower livery walk up to Kiley Mahen and hand her a written note. She read it over and tossed the paper in the fire in disgust. Curious as to what it was about, Dion paid close attention to what happened next.
“Tell them to make ready and let us know if anything changes,” she told the man. “I’m going to station someone at the speaker tube. We don’t need it for the elevator since it’s grounded at the bottom of the shaft.”
“What was that about?” Loris asked her sister. Even Susan Mahen took an interest in the note.
“The Azuroth have begun to pound on the door again,” she told them, while the flames leaped higher not three feet from them. “Dion’s elementals sealed it better than any of our people could have done, but they’ll get through eventually.”
“Do we need to have the servants bring out our body armor?” Susan asked her older sister. “It’s downstairs in the warehouse. I had it taken down there when this whole mess began.”
“Not yet,” Kiley responded. “We wait until they’ve begun a concerted move down to the main level before we go that route. I want to avoid bloodshed as much as possible. According to the accounts I heard from the guards, Dion’s elementals proved those creatures will flee if shown some pain.”
“So long as we are the ones who administer the pain,” Loris reminded her. “I don’t want to be on the receiving end of it.”
“We all know what to do if this situation gets out of control,” Kiley reminded her.
“Run to the hills?” Susan asked. “Can we make this gate in the rocks that Dion and his uncle claim to have used? There is no guarantee is it will work for us.”
“I’m not talking about the three of us,” Kiley snapped back. “Our people in this tower can make a run for the gate. You know it’s not an option for us. I refer to the prophecy.”
“Oh, there she goes again with the prophecy,” Loris sighed, as she leaned back in her chair. The glass she held made a loud clunk as it hit the table. “We’ve all heard it since the day we were born. Do you think it will apply in this situation?”
“I didn’t think so at first,” Kiley spoke. “But the more I think about it, the more I am convinced it will. Too many coincidences to think otherwise. When the fifth element grandmaster showed, I knew there had to be a connection.”
“I never saw her do much with her supposed abilities,” Loris said. “If she was so all-powerful, why didn’t she get rid of those things when they entered the tower?”
“She tried,” Kiley pointed out. “It was because of her that we didn’t have things become much worse. Do you not recall she stopped them from leaving the top levels? She summoned those dwellers from the threshold. Queen Lilith and her thugs went into full retreat.”
“Why didn’t she get rid of them at that moment?” Susan demanded. “Like I said, if she is so awesome, why are they still there? Couldn’t she use that thing she summoned to send them back to the abyss?”
“All I know is that she claimed they had too much combined power in this world to open the gate and return them without letting anymore of them inside. I was impressed enough by the stories everyone told me as to how she stopped them in the first place. Plus, she didn’t want the Threshold Dweller t
o stay around very long. Some of the maids still have nightmares over what they saw when she summoned it.”
“I wish she would get back soon,” Loris stated. “We could use her help. Those things stayed at the top of the tower until this evening for some reason.”
“Something she needed to find,” Kiley pointed out. “I didn’t get a straight answer from her about what it was. But there was something she needed we didn’t have that would get rid of Queen Lilith.”
“I hope she brings it back," Susan gave her opinion. “Because I am tired of living under siege in our own home. Several times I’ve been ready to take a pike up there and end our problems the quick way.”
“I don’t think you’d get very far,” Kiley pointed out. “There are quite a few of them up there.”
“So how long do you think this siege will last?” a voice said to his left. Dion turned to see one of the bus women he hadn’t spoken with sitting next to him. She was a tiny woman, not much taller than five feet with a pair of horn-rim glasses. She spoke in a soft voice, which was hard to hear due to the continuous conversation in the back of the hall.
“Mary Tangent,” she said, while offering her hand. “I was bored listening to all the talk about which writer was better than another, so I came over here.”
“Dion,” he introduced himself again after accepting her hand. These introductions were routine.
“I teach math,” she told him. “At the academy in Ynos. It doesn’t pay the best, but I like my work, so there is that. Symbolic logic is a hobby of mine.”
“If P, then Q?” Dion asked her with a smirk on his face. The fire began to die down so one of the servants worked to keep it burning.
“It begins with that,” she laughed at him. “Gets much more complicated later.” They were illuminated by a flash of lighting from the window.
“That storm is one of the worst I’ve ever seen,” she told him. “Worse than the one which took out most of the street lights in my hometown. I’d heard for years the weather was crazy up in the hills, guess I had to come here and see it for myself. Now I know it’s crazy.”