Alterni

by Sunshine Somerville

  If all this is true, who gives a rat’s ass if I’m naked?

  She pulled her long hair to hang over either breast, then put her hands on her hips, glaring at him. “And you, you little shit. You brought me here?”

  Hakim had the decency to pull his gaze to the ceiling. “Well, I’m part of it. Master Conjuri Roman performed the summono spell.”

  “The what? Did you say spell?”

  “The summono, yes.” Hakim pointed up at the ceiling where he kept his gaze affixed.

  Esme stayed alert but looked up, and she gasped as the ceiling disintegrated. Well, no, not disintegrated. The ceiling, like the monster, hadn’t been real. She now saw into an empty room with a transparent floor. A line of gold stretched in a wide circle around the floor, and etched into the glass around this circle were hundreds of symbols. One symbol was filled with what looked like sand. Esme didn’t know anything about spells, but she guessed that’s what she was looking at.

  “That brought us here?”

  “Yes, and it sent the others back to their homes. They won’t remember any of this.”

  She felt a degree of relief at this…if she could trust him. Also, she was glad he’d given her more information than she’d asked for, and she studied the symbol with sand above.

  Memorize it. If that symbol brought me here, it might be handy later if I can escape…

  When her perfect memory had locked the symbol in her mind, she looked back down at Hakim with one very important question. “Why am I still here?”

  With his brown eyes aimed at the ceiling, Hakim’s face turned serious. “We summoned you all here because we need one of you. I’m sorry about the smoke and mirrors – or smoke and illuso spells, in this case – but this is how we’ve tested alterni for years.”

  “Alterni?”

  “Those of you summoned from other worlds.”

  She tried to think. “Tested for what?”

  Hakim paused. “That’s something we should discuss somewhere else, once you’ve got clothes on and have calmed down a bit.”

  “If anything, you’re making me less calm.”

  He shrugged.

  She sighed in exasperation. “So this was a test?” She pointed back at the karaoke stage. “That thing was a test?”

  “Yes. You were by far the most composed. You tried to protect the others, and you were brave enough to attack.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him and used the tone she reserved for speaking with idiots. “I attacked with a spoon.”

  Hakim smiled. “Yeah, that was a first.”

  Esme lifted both hands to the sides of her face. Then she looked at the bar. “I need another drink.”

  Hakim chuckled. “I definitely picked the right girl. You and Owen will get along just fine.”

  “Who’s Owen?”

  “The king.”

  She raised an eyebrow again, this time with curiosity. “Alternate realities… Spells… Now a king. And I’m standing in a fake country bar, talking to a Middle Eastern guy in a suit.”

  “My lineage is way more interesting than that, actually. But you’re right about everything else. It’s all true.”

  Where the hell am I?

  “Look, I’m getting a cramp in my neck.” Hakim waved blindly toward the door. “Can we get out of here, please? I promise, I’ll answer your questions.”

  Well, she thought with a sigh, if they’re not sending me home too, I should figure out what’s going on. And, yeah, clothes would be good.

  Hakim seemed to realize she was giving in, so he turned and motioned for her to follow. After opening the door, he led her into a shockingly modern hall, considering the state of the bar behind her. The floors of polished tile reflected the bright lights overhead, and the long hall looked like that of a hospital.

  Before they encountered anyone else, Hakim opened a side door. She followed him in and saw a medical room. Hakim went over to a small armoire, opened its doors, and pulled out clothes on a hanger. These he handed to Esme, then returned to the armoire for a day bag. This he also handed to her without looking, and he turned his back to allow her to change.

  Esme rolled her eyes.

  What a polite kidnapper.

  She set the hanging clothes on the medical bed – a pale lavender blouse and a pair of nice black slacks. She opened the bag to find underwear and nice sandals. Before her abduction she’d been wearing yoga pants and a stained T-shirt, so the clothes were an obvious improvement.

  Better than being naked. But I’m covered in dirt from the floor of that bar. And my hair’s a mess… Really, Esme? That’s what you’re worried about right now?

  As she dressed, she noted that everything was in her size.

  Well, I’m an average thirty-year-old woman. They probably bought these clothes and hoped for the best…I guess.

  Dressed, she felt better, but she tried to keep her guard up. Running fingers through her dark locks, she asked, “Okay, what now?”

  Hakim glanced over his shoulder, looked relieved, and turned to face her. “Now we find Roman, the Master Conjuri, who cast the summono spell that brought you here. He needs to examine you. It won’t take long. We just need to make sure you didn’t suffer side effects of being pulled from your world.”

  This was a fear she hadn’t even thought to have…

  I’m in a different world. I could’ve shown up missing an arm or my soul or something.

  “After your exam,” Hakim went on, “we’ll go upstairs where I can interview you and answer your questions.” He gave her a quick smile and headed out the door.

  She followed. “Then you’ll explain what’s going on?”

  “I promise.” Hakim walked up the hall with his hands in his pockets, whistling to himself as he led her onward.

  Is he being so casual to put me at ease or to lower my guard?

  They passed a number of people in the halls, each dressed like a scientist. Everyone who looked Esme in the face recoiled with the same look of shock, dropped their gaze, and hurried away without speaking a word. After the dozenth person did this, it was undeniable.

  Not shock. They recognize me. Is that just because they watched us Esmes in the fake bar back there? Or maybe the Esme of this world… What is all this?

  Hakim stopped at a set of double doors and looked at her with a twinkle in his eye before opening the door to lead her through. Esme had had enough, but once she entered this room she forgot all about her kidnapper.

  It was a wide, high, open lab. Computers and equipment she didn’t recognize stood against one wall, and the other was lined with metal and glass cages. Most of these cages were empty, but a few contained the same gray-black smoke she’d seen with the monster in the bar. Only in these cages, the apparitions were real, though smaller than the bar’s monster. All kinds of tentacled, winged, and spindly-legged creatures thrashed against their imprisonments. In front of each cage, a symbol was burned into the floor. These symbols lit up and sparked whenever one of the giant spiders became too active.

  “Why on all the Earths did you bring her here?”

  “Roman,” Hakim answered with playful exasperation, “if you didn’t scamper back here to play with your pets, we wouldn’t need to come find you.”

  “I have to reinforce the barrio spells, don’t I?”

  Esme tore her eyes from the cages and saw a chubby older man hurrying toward them. He was hairless, beardless, and wore strange white robes like a magician’s. As the man moved his fingers just so, a hovering bubble of light appeared in his palm, sparking and tinkling. This he flicked away across the room. The light bubble flew to the nearest cage’s symbol, where it burst into a hundred pieces and dissolved into the marked symbol. An invisible bubble around this cage crackled with light before turning transparent again.

  The bony, spidery creature inside the cage scratched at the glass, throwing itself into the back of the cage as if trying to stay clear.

  It was all too much.

  Faint, Esme ordered herse
lf. The thing to do is faint.

  She didn’t faint.

  The examination hadn’t been what Esme expected. Roman had taken her from the weird lab back to a more normal examination room. Her physical checkup was brief, and he’d instead used his magic to examine her aura, or whatever. Roman was all business and wouldn’t answer any of her questions, but he’d said everything looked fine and that she hadn’t suffered any effects of the summono. After that, the Master Conjuri returned her to Hakim. She didn’t think Roman had stopped scowling their entire encounter.

  Now she stood at the window in a high-rise office, looking out at a perfectly ordinary city. Hakim sat somewhere behind her at his desk. His office was impressive. Granted, in her old life as a freelance artist she hadn’t been in many super-fancy offices, but she assumed this was a nice one. A corner office, two entire walls were made of glass. The view revealed office buildings, an apartment complex, and an enormous bank across the street below. She was thirty stories up, but the cars below were recognizable models. The pedestrians looked normal. She noted that it must be summer, same as on her world, because the trees were fresh and green. Up the street, a park in the distance was filled with people playing catch and lounging in the sun. The sky overhead was blue, and the noon sun shone on the city.

  “This is still Kansas City…Earth?” She returned to sit in the chair in front of Hakim’s desk. She was trying to take in everything he was saying, but the whole alternate reality thing was hard to believe. “I haven’t been back since my mom died, but it looks just like I remember.”

  Hakim nodded. “Alterni over the years have told us about their worlds. A few are drastically different from ours while others are quite similar. It’s funny where our pop cultures diverge.” He tapped a folder he’d started at the beginning of their discussion – or as he called it, interview. “We haven’t selected an alterni from your world in generations. Still, from what you’ve told me, our Earths are very similar. Same countries, same languages, same technology…”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Except my Earth doesn’t have magic.”

  “True. Our world is special in that way.” He smiled. “I assume you want to hear about it?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Her anger had subsided by now, and she found curiosity growing in its place.

  Hakim tipped his chair and put his feet on the desk. “Way back in ancient times, our scholars and astronomers discovered that our world has magic. In your alt-world, I think they’d call it elemental magic, since it draws from what exists in nature. Our oldest records refer to it as creation magic, but that sounds over-glorified to me. Making snow, fire, wind, lightning, and playing with gravity and matter – it’s that type of magic. We can’t create life or build planets or make animals talk.” He smiled.

  She nodded her understanding.

  “I’ll let Roman and the other conjuri educate you about magic. It’s not something I’ve ever been good at.” Hakim pointed to a pile of paper clips on his desk, then made a small motion like he was screwing in a lightbulb.

  To Esme’s surprise, the paper clips began to turn on their own, in the same direction his hand was twisting. Her eyes widened, but she saw Hakim shrug and give up the hand motion. The paper clips stopped.

  “See? I’m not very good.”

  She swallowed. “Looked impressive to me.”

  “You’re too kind.” He chuckled. “Anyway, nowadays the majority of our world doesn’t have a clue about magic. Roman and many conjuri like him are descendents of the original scholars, and they’ve established a secret Order that’s worked in the background for thousands of years.”

  “The Order? So that’s you people?”

  “Yes. This building is the Order Capiti, our headquarters. Our capital, if you will, for the king.”

  Esme blinked. “The king of the world rules from Kansas City?”

  “We’ll explain why once you’ve seen how we work.”

  In thought, she looked at the surrounding city. Then she chuckled. “The Royals make a bit more sense now.”

  “The what?”

  “My Kansas City’s baseball team. They’re called the Royals.”

  A grin spread over Hakim’s face. “Oh, that’s excellent.” He grabbed a pen and made a note in her folder.

  “You said this entire building is the Order’s?”

  “Yes. These top five floors are used as offices to conduct business with the outside world. We run a few global businesses, since we need to have normal functions in society. The middle fifteen floors are residential. Only Order members live here, and they work at various jobs around the city. Not everyone has to live here, of course, but some prefer to stay centralized as we work. The bottom ten floors are where we focus on our real work.”

  She was growing more interested the more she heard. “And what exactly is the Order’s real work?”

  “Well.” Hakim sighed and put his hands behind his head. “The big thing about this world’s magic is that it gave our ancestors access to other alternate realities, or the alt-worlds. Again, I’ll let Roman explain all that, but it’s because of the alt-worlds that the Order really exists. The short version is that one of the alt-worlds is very different. The creatures you saw in cages downstairs are from that place. Centuries ago, they opened a rift and got into our world. That had never happened before, since everyone else who comes here we have to bring through the summono spell.”

  She remembered this term. “The spell that brought me and the others here?”

  Hakim clicked his tongue and shot her with a finger pistol. “Exactly. But these uninvited beasts – they’re called the malevolenci – open rifts and invade our world. They’ve killed thousands over the years. The Order’s conjuri – our magicians – have tried to learn about the malevolenci to fight them, kill them, and someday hopefully stop them from getting through at all. But like I said, we can’t prevent them from opening rifts. The best the conjuri can do is use spells to shoot fire at them, freeze them with ice, throw them around with whirlwinds – that kind of thing. The conjuri create barrio symbols that trap malevolenci, but the spells don’t hold for long unless reinforced.”

  Esme remembered the symbols on the floor by the cages. Yes, those had been nasty little creatures, but what concerned her… “So that monster Roman created in the bar was one of these malevolenci?”

  “One of the worst. A bentaforx. By far the biggest.”

  Esme was trying to keep up. “If these creatures invade all the time, why doesn’t the public know about them? You said they’ve killed thousands.” She looked at the city again. “But everything looks so normal…”

  Hakim sighed and removed his feet from his desk, now leaning forward on his elbows. “The Order’s kept all this secret for centuries. We’ve infiltrated society on every level and have people in place to hide the truth.” He rolled his eyes. “It sounds shady, but it’s for the best. We don’t control the planet or anything. We’re just a weird little group whose job is to protect the world.”

  “And your king? Owen, was it?”

  “Owen Lord, yes. His forefathers also trace back to the original scholars. The first Lord was Cesare, by all accounts a brave hero. Cesare was the first to slay a bentaforx. After that, the Order named him king. Again, you can learn about our history from Roman or the others – there are scores of history books in our library.”

  Esme nodded, deciding to keep secret how easy this would be for her.

  My memory will come in handy in this place. Lots to learn…

  Then she noticed the uneasy look on Hakim’s face. “What?”

  Hakim cleared his throat and now avoided her eyes more than he had when she’d been naked. “Even with our magic and a hero like Cesare, those early conjuri feared we’d never stop the malevolenci on our own. That’s when they started casting the summono with the sole purpose of finding allies in the alt-worlds. They knew from years of summoning people that few alt-worlds have magic, but…” He held up a hand like this was important. �
�But, they also discovered that alterni have the unique ability to sense when a rift is opening. Because you’re not from here, you can detect when a rift pulls at the fabric of our universe. So, the conjuri realized that that kind of rift-detection was key to getting to rifts in time when malevolenci invade.”

  Esme gulped. This was no longer a fascinating story about another world. Now this hit home.

  “So that’s what you want from me? I’m from an alt-world, so I can be some kind of rift-detector for you people?”

  “Yes, and…” Hakim sighed. “Again because you alterni aren’t of this world, the conjuri devised spells that allow alterni to close the rifts. You alone can…reach what’s beyond our world, I guess you’d say. The termino spell that closes the rifts doesn’t work when any of us try it. Only alterni can cast it. Only you can close rifts and stop the malevolenci from completely infesting this world.”

  “So you want me to be a rift-detector and a rift-closer?”

  “Short answer, yes. That’s what we’re hoping you can do.”

  Her heart raced. “Why me? I’m nobody. You people took me without-”

  “There’s a reason it had to be you.” Hakim sighed again, and he didn’t look happy about this either. “In the beginning, when the conjuri first convinced an alterni to stay and help us, they trained him to work with King Cesare. The man’s name was Omet. Cesare and Omet became partners. That Omet learned to fight the malevolenci and defend himself, and of course we’ll give you that training too.”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I won’t lie – this is dangerous business.” He glanced away. “To move on with the story… Unfortunately, that first Omet was killed after a particularly fierce malevolenci battle. Cesare was devastated. The Order was right back to where they’d been at the beginning, without a way to close rifts. So, the conjuri performed the summono again to bring another alterni. At first they tried to summono someone from the same alt-world as Omet, but it didn’t work. When they tried a different world, a twin version of Omet appeared. It was a shock for everyone, and I imagine it was especially hard for the king to see a copy of his old friend.”