Knightfall: Book Four of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  “Gruesome, but you can fix her, right?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the worst of it. By expending her own soul—whatever that is—she barely had a spark of existence left.”

  “Hold on. Does draining the soul out of someone age them?”

  “I don’t think so. I think her age may have had something to do with the auxiliary powers she was linked into, especially the anti-aging spells. By pulling power back through them, she might have sucked up a lot of age from other sources along with their spiritual energy. Tort was, chronologically, about a hundred years old, anyway; that might have had something to do with it, too. I’m guessing, though. Everyone I’ve ever yanked the soul out of dies fairly quickly. The body usually keeps ticking for a while, but never for very long. They simply may not have time to wither away, but I suppose it’s possible.”

  “And Tort, keeping a tiny spark of her soul, managed to keep a tiny spark of life in her ancient body?”

  “Exactly. But she operated, mostly, like a computer—a highly complex one, but still a dumb one, not a fully self-aware machine. Her brain recalled memories, clicked to the appropriate response, and performed actions based on her memories. She lacked… oh, not a critical faculty, but a creative one. She could make decisions just fine, carry out plans, perform her tasks, and so on. But coming up with a new idea, a different way of thinking was impossible. Well, almost. She did have a faint trace of that ability left, but for all practical purposes she was a machine running Tort’s personality simulation program.”

  “And if you ever die during the day, your soul goes wherever souls go, right?”

  “Right. Or so I assume.”

  “And when you get up at night, you’ll be an uncreative, robot-like automaton?”

  “Not exactly. From my experiments with soulless undead minions, I should still act a lot like me. I’ve been undead long enough my Memorex should be almost indistinguishable from the live version. The real key to telling the difference is the way I’ll approach problems. I believe I’ll be grindingly thorough, but lack my little spark of inspiration.”

  “So when I ask you how we should handle, oh, a squad of hitmen coming down the hotel hallway?”

  “I’d probably say we should simply walk out, take the bullets, and use their blood to heal the damage.”

  “As opposed to…?”

  “Do we have a fire escape? Can we jump to the ground from here? Can we climb to the roof? What are the walls made of and can we go through them with relative quiet? Or can we go down a floor to get below and behind them? Are they equipped with night vision? Can we blind them temporarily with bright light or with pitch dark? Is calling the police or hotel security an option? Do we have—”

  “You can stop now.”

  “But you see the difference?”

  “Yes. You’ll be boring.”

  “I’d say you’ve summed it up nicely,” I agreed.

  “So Tort was old and boring?”

  “Essentially… I suppose. Within the context of this discussion, yes.”

  “And you can’t get her back from the ball?”

  “No, I can’t. The energy involved isn’t actually her anymore.”

  “So, your godlike thing—what did you call it?”

  “Simulata.”

  “Right. This simulata of you has her spark of soul and is planning to reincarnate her.”

  “Yes.”

  “When will this happen?”

  “No idea. He hasn’t done reincarnation before and he didn’t have a lot to work with.”

  “But you’re definitely getting your Tort back?”

  “No. I’m definitely going to be meeting her reincarnation. Whoever she is, she won’t be Tort. She’ll be a reborn Tort. So, technically, yes, but at the same time, no. At least, that was my take-away from the discussion.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet, certainly. But I’m a little jealous, maybe.”

  “Of Tort?”

  “This seems like a lot of effort on your part.”

  “I’m willing to go to a lot of effort for people I love.”

  “I see.” She squeezed me a little harder, then let go. She leaned on the armrest by the window and watched a couple of countries go by. I wished for a quantum computer upgrade in my brain.

  Something about that conversation didn’t go well. I didn’t know what to say. Obviously, I said something wrong. Did she object to me seeing a reincarnated Tort? What else could it be?

  “Mary?

  “Hmm?”

  “What did I say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Alarm bells went off in my head. That’s a code phrase for You know what you did.

  “Yes, I did,” I argued, despite the warnings. “I said something that offended or upset you. Maybe it was the way I said it. Maybe I communicated my idea badly. But I swear to you, I don’t know what you’re upset about or why.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Do you recall, not so very long ago, when we discussed our relationship?” I asked. “In Zirafel, if I remember rightly. You were telling me how Tort was a pet and you needed to think of her that way?”

  “Yes.”

  “We were talking directly about how we feel. There wasn’t any of this beating around the bush and the whole man-woman passive-aggressive psychodrama. Someday, a thousand years from now, I’ll master the art of understanding what you think and feel without using magic. For now, though, I desperately need you to talk to me. Please?”

  One of the drawbacks to a robot cab is the lack of anything to do. In a regular car, I could pretend to pay close attention to the road or something. Here, all I could do was wait. And fidget. I’m a killer fidgeter.

  “You did tell me,” I added, “not to ignore you. You made me promise, remember? You’re important to me, and while my first impulse is to respect your silence, you told me not to.”

  “You know,” Mary said, finally, “you have all the tact of an anvil.”

  “Blunt instrument?” I guessed.

  “I was thinking ‘dense.’”

  “I can see that,” I agreed.

  “You keep telling me how you love Tort.”

  “Yes,” I acknowledged. She clenched her fists, but her voice remained level.

  “I have a problem with that.”

  “Why? I love you, too.”

  It’s amazing how loud an electric car can be. Maybe it’s only by contrast with silence.

  “I…” she began, and stopped. “How can you say that?”

  “I don’t like to lie.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “Because I’m getting better at understanding those pesky feelings. They keep cropping up in my life. I figured I better start paying some attention to them.”

  “Ever since you realized you suck at relationships?”

  “No, after that. When I realized how important our relationship is to me.” She started to say something, but I held up a hand. “No, wait. Please. It’s my turn to talk about how I feel, and I’m likely to fumble this like a greased football. So listen until the end, okay?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “It took me a while to recognize I loved Tort—most of her life, in fact. It’s a strange thing, this loving someone. We do it without realizing it. Loving someone doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone, though. There are lots of kinds of love, I guess. But when I say it, I mean I care deeply about the welfare and happiness of the person. It usually means I want to be around her, too, because it makes me happy to see her happy, and it makes me happy to feel useful by fixing whatever makes her unhappy.

  “It does not mean I want to… get married? Be a good husband? Commit to being the One True Love of someone? I don’t know how to describe it. What I’m trying to say is, when I love someone, I’m already committed. I may not have a way to express it in words—there’s no oath, no ceremony, no ritual to use—but I’m as cl
ose to a permanent fixture in your life as I can be. If you need me to be with you while you rob a bank, or if you need me to leave you alone for a century, those are the things that matter to me.

  “It’s true I love Tort. I also love Sasha, Shada, Kammen, Torvil, Seldar, Lissette, Kelvin, Raeth, Travis, and others. There’s a longish list of people I give a damn about, but a relatively short list of people I’ll break inter-universal barriers for. And an even shorter list of people I’ll actively try to spend time with. I know that sounds awful, but I don’t mean it to.

  “I guess what I’m saying is I’m here for you. And, being immortal, I can’t promise I won’t come across other people I care deeply about, even learn to love. But I do plan to be here for you in whatever capacity you need or want me, forever. I have spoken.”

  There followed a profound silence while she digested that. I worked on understanding it, myself. I didn’t know some of that until I actually said it.

  “About your pet Tort,” Mary began, and stopped.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry about your pet,” she told me, sadly.

  “So am I,” I agreed.

  “I think you should get a new one.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.” She scooted closer to me and took my arm. “Not right now. Maybe in a few years.” I didn’t answer, and she continued. “We can check with the Temple of Shadow. They might be able to put you in touch with someone.”

  “Ah!” I exclaimed, finally getting it. “Yes. Yes, I like the idea. We can definitely do that.”

  “But you owe me a bank job.”

  “What do you mean by ‘bank job’?”

  “I mean a bank robbery. You and me.”

  “Oh, I see! All right. Just one?”

  “I’m greedy in other ways.”

  Wednesday, January 6th

  Avanti Air is an Italian company based in Florence. They build personal aircraft. Not the custom, luxury jets of the wealthy, but personal aircraft—one and two-seat things. They have a one-man mini-jet, a personal helicopter, an air-motorcycle, and other expensive toys. They also make a “backpack” version of a personal helicopter—counter-rotating blades and a backpack-mounted motor—and a jet pack, both of which have terrible endurance but are reputed to be a lot of fun. So says the company brochure.

  The “motorcycle” came in two models, the personal and tandem versions. I was only interested in the two-seater due to weight problems. The mockups on the showroom floor weren’t functional, but they gave me a good feel for whether or not I wanted to try one. Some things you don’t want to buy online.

  The thing was arranged with a driver’s position and a tandem rear seat, just like a motorcycle. The controls were very similar, as well, with some basic instruments in the center and an augmented reality helmet for the rest. The four lift fans tilted to provide lift or thrust, and it had a cruising range of nearly five hundred miles. The optional windscreen came highly recommended. The top speed was a trifle over two hundred miles per hour.

  I also bought the optional parachute because I’m overcautious. The parachute wouldn’t work as well for me, but it was better than nothing. In the same way, carrying nearly five hundred pounds of me, the vehicle would cruise slightly slower and not quite as far, but it was enough to get me where I needed to go.

  Naturally, they didn’t have one simply lying around to be bought. Their factory had a new one coming out shortly, though, and I paid extra for it—another reason we visited. It’s hard to bribe someone over the cybernet. The salesman agreed to have it delivered somewhere our yacht could make port, someplace named Livorno. I felt confident the Captain could find the port for me.

  Mary and I promptly thanked him, paid him, got back into a cab, and returned to London. This time, we did have to stop to dodge the sunset—in Dijon, as it happens—before finishing the last leg of the trip.

  We walked around London for a bit while I enjoyed the nighttime atmosphere. Mary held my arm and kept looking around.

  “Problem?” I asked.

  “I keep wondering when someone’s going to demand your wallet.”

  “London seems surprisingly civilized.”

  “Probably all the surveillance cameras,” she muttered.

  “They do take their domestic security seriously.” Privately, I wondered what the cameras were seeing. If I don’t show up on camera at night, was Mary staggering drunkenly? How did that look? Of course, it’s not a crime to practice a mime routine or simply walk funny—there’s a Ministry of Silly Walks, as I recall—but would it trigger any supernatural suspicions? Probably not immediately, I decided, but it was good we were planning to leave.

  We went through the park to say hello to Bronze. Mary scratched along Bronze’s jaw with her fingernails. Bronze let me know a number of people were interested in her, many of them adults. A lot of cameras were involved. I assured her she wouldn’t be in the park much longer. She didn’t mind at all. Children played around her and kept trying to climb her. A few team efforts succeeded, which amused her.

  We finally returned to The Tea Party and my room. Mary chuckled at the Victorian décor.

  “Missing the cavern and your waterfall?” she asked.

  “Not especially. I’m slowly getting used to the modern conveniences, taking it an era at a time.”

  “Fair enough. Say, do you think I can visit your super-technology world, sometime?”

  “Super-technology world?”

  “The post-apocalyptic thing you were telling me about. With the ants,” she added. I shuddered.

  “Ah. That one. After Johann is pulped and splattered over a wide area, sure.”

  “About that.” She settled herself in one of the throne-like chairs. “We probably need to talk about that.”

  “What’s to talk about?”

  “You have a plan?”

  “Of course. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I escaped. I’ve had several plans, most of which won’t work. I think I’m closing in on a workable one, though.”

  “Good! So tell me all about it.”

  “I’m going to rip his intestines out and strangle him with them.”

  Mary blinked at me. Her face was otherwise completely neutral. Her posture altered slightly, however, as though prepared to leap out the window and run for it.

  Boss?

  Hmm?

  Calm voice, please.

  I sound angry?

  Yeeeees… I suppose angry is one way to put it. You’re not doing the weird, creepy voice thing, but you do sound, uh, borderline.

  Sorry.

  “Sorry,” I repeated, aloud, for Mary. “I’m still edgy about him. It’s hard to talk about it without sounding…”

  “Lethal? Pissed off? Mildly demonic?” she suggested.

  “Sorry,” I repeated. “It’s just… The man has to die. Preferably his whole family.”

  “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you threaten someone’s family.”

  “Probably. And I don’t mean it. Not his whole family. Just the ones who actively participated.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Am I sure about what?”

  “That you don’t mean it.” Mary crossed and uncrossed her legs. “What I mean to say is you seem much more… I don’t want to say grumpy, but it might be the word.”

  “It’s been some time since Johann had me in his clutches. While he did, I was tortured, deceived, used, abused, and hurt. I don’t mean he caused me pain, although he did. He used me to do things I find reprehensible. He used me to kill children. He deliberately and purposefully used me to kill children I personally knew. He’s done more than hurt me. He’s wounded me, and I’m not so sure it will ever really heal. I’ve had time to let it cool—this isn’t me just reacting. This is me having thought about it and partially recovered from it—possibly as much as I’ll ever recover from it. And, having recovered and taken time to think about what I want, I’ve made a decision.

  “I’m going to k
ill him. I’m going to rip what’s left of his soul out of him and grind it into dust. If I can kill him slowly, I’ll kill him slowly. But of the utmost priority is I kill him surely, finally, and permanently!”

  Mary licked her lips and glanced at the door.

  “What?” I asked, and turned to look. It was closed. There was nothing unusual about it.

  “Nothing,” Mary said. “I was just debating whether to run for the door or try and tackle you to the bed.”

  “Am I being frightening again? Is my shadow doing weird things?” I looked. It was looming on the wall, bat-winged and demonic. The depth of it was startling; the shadow was a dark place, even to my nighttime eyes.

  “Yes,” Mary purred. “Yes, it is, and you most certainly are.”

  I tried to relax. My shadow diminished, lightened, faded, turned more mundane.

  “I apologize. I’ve… been… suppressing a lot of… It’s been hard to not… this thing with Johann is…”

  “I understand. Sort of. It’s a thing, eating at you, and you’ve been trying to ignore it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then think about something else. Focus on something so completely it blots out everything else.” She smiled, lazily, impishly. “Do you think you can avoid breaking the furniture?”

  “It’s nighttime. I can’t do the sexual calisthenics.”

  “Is there a lot of movement involved in playing my nervous system like a musical instrument?”

  “I’m barely past ‘Chopsticks.’”

  Mary stood up, lifted her hair, unzipped.

  “You know how to get to Carnegie Hall?” she asked, wiggling out of the dress.

  Thursday, January 7th

  Loading most of the cargo was easy enough. The yacht docked in London and people hoisted cargo aboard.

  Loading Bronze was a trifle more involved. Rather than parade her through the streets, the Princess paddled grandly up the Thames on the high tide and pulled up at the end of a pier. It was a straight shot from the Gardens, down the pier, and onto the ship, which only left the question of how to get Bronze from the park to the pier without undue notice. I didn’t want a major news channel to report it internationally and possibly get Johann’s attention. “Giant statue comes to life. Boards private yacht.” No, thank you.