by Daniel Ruth
At night I helped Beth progress with some guided meditation. She already had a good foundation with basic meditation, it didn’t take long to get in touch with the energy within the ley lines and focus it through her. Not only would this enlarge her reserves but it would speed her transformation in the war wizard class.
Of course, all of this was in preparation to touching the firmament and forming a relationship with it. Practically all type of mages from the elementalist to necromancers did this. Whether they formed an understanding with the concept of the elements or the undead, ideas and concepts were what the firmament was made of. The strongest entities in the universe were basically a concept made physical. Likely they got bored of floating around with the other concepts and decided to come down to the third dimension to hobnob with the less... one dimensional.
Naturally, most of my theories were hearsay. Vague feelings or fragments of racial memories combined with old wives’ tales told by dimensional traveler’s from home. I was pretty sure it was the truth or at least close enough to be a truth.
Once Beth finished, either too exhausted to continue or simply wanting to follow her own projects that she had on her terminal, I had the room to myself. I occasionally wondered what Stella was up to but she rarely was around much anymore. Getting ready for her exodus to the elemental promised land was consuming her attention.
So late at night, it was just me studying the papers I had stolen from the demon lord’s desk and concentrating on the ley line maps that lined his walls. Jeremy’s world was the simplest. I already had tons of maps from there and with an inquiry to Beth, could find out more. It turns out that the portals were almost all in the ancient cities. The only surprise was the one in the forests of the Amazon and another in the Congo. They were big ones too, I had no idea how Conrad’s government had missed them. I mean they had huge glowing walls of energy pointed directly at them.
I made a note to ask Conrad about it when I got another wrist terminal. The world I was in now was a lot less clear. The portal Mirabel was sitting on was obvious, as was the one in this city. In fact, they were unusually close together. I was not clear on the geography of this world, so the other eight did not really mean anything to me. Except for the one at the bottom of the ocean. That one caught my attention because I had never seen one underwater before. I did not pay too much attention to it though since from what I knew, very few demons were amphibious. That is not to say they would drown but it was not much fun unless they found a lost underwater civilization like Atlantis and wanted to torment some mortals.
The other worlds I didn’t have a clue about. Perhaps once I went through a portal I could figure out which map went with which world and connected to which portal. Until then it would be mostly guesswork.
The study of the circles was fascinating. Vatapi might have been an ancient psychopathic demon from hell, but he really knew his stuff. I learned a lot of tricks and techniques from his design notes. I also realized how lucky I had been in modifying his circle. While I was correct in assuming the matrix would have exploded if I had broken it, I hadn’t realized how finely balanced it had been. If I hadn’t taken the conservative approach and simply added my name to the ‘authorization’ portion it very likely would have spun out of control and blown up.
From the notes on the energy involved, releasing it would have been on par with the Chicxulub event that killed the dinosaurs. It was improbable that I would have survived, even with my durability on a node. To say nothing of my people and possessions. I could not be sure but if it had backlashed through the portals to the other ninety-nine circles in all ten worlds, then it would have been a glorious end. For everyone.
It was actually Beth that ended this relatively peaceful period of study and contemplation one peaceful evening.
“It’s there,” she said looking up from her wrist terminals holographic display.
“What is,” I asked, only halfway listening as I tried to follow an interesting bit of notation onto the next page. It was less clear than most of Vatapi’s work. Not quite code, just sloppier than the rest.
“The rocket is on Mars. It hasn’t destroyed the planet!”
I glared at her. There was no way a small bit of anchor stone would have destroyed Mars. Well, it would have been very, very unlikely. Less than one percent. Really.
“So it landed and no one noticed?”
“Well, I think someone might have detected some atmospheric anomalies at the end, but they are likely to just chalk it up to meteorites. Mars doesn’t have much of an atmosphere yet, even with the terraforming we’ve done so it’s not unusual for small particles to hit the surface. They might send an automated response but they probably won’t be in a hurry. Uh oh.”
“That doesn’t bode well.”
“One of the satellites detected something in space. The timing matches when the fusion reactor was ejected.”
“Will they connect the two?”
“Not right away but give them a few hours and their drone will actually find the fusion core floating in space. At that time, it’s going to be pretty busy around the rocket landing site.”
“I suppose triggering a self-destruct of the core would just hasten that?”
“There’s a ton of safety features to prevent anyone from detonating the care,” she said innocently. I simply stared at her. “Okay, so I defeated them. But yes, it would just make things go to heck faster. I’ll still blow it, so they can’t trace it back but I’ll do it later. It’s going to get busy there.”
“Well, then,” I said as I changed to my default form and favorite ‘tweed’ suit. It felt a bit odd in the magical silk raiment version I was using but it was still my favorite outfit since Jeremy had introduced them to me. “The flask on the left is ready for harvesting. Simply use the tongs to remove the gem from the solution. It should be pretty obvious how to inject energy into it for later use. When the other gems look the same, please remove them. Stir them once every six to ten hours until they ripen.”
“You’re going?”
“It seems I am on a time limit. See you on the other side.”
“Right,” she gave a ladylike snort. “I don’t think you’ll find me on Mars.”
“See you soon, Beth,” I said with a nod. Then I synchronized with the second anchor shard, and I was gone.
Chapter 33
I regained consciousness only to realize that this trip was different than the previous ones. I felt far worse than usual. Considering how horrible this experience actually was, that was saying a lot. I lay there for at least ten minutes, slowly writhing in agony before I realized I was healing a lot slower than usual. I groggily opened my eyes to see a red desert, a thin wind blowing dust in the air. In the distance, the sun reflected dimly off the surface of a domed city.
I looked down at myself and saw that most of my skin was charred black. My suit was partially burned as well but I could see that it was already recovering faster than I was. I was confused and still not thinking clearly but this seemed wrong. Was each jump using the anchor rune permanently damaging me?
I sat up with a groan and saw I was laying on top of the rocket. I fumbled the compartment open and pulled the shard out. The jar of blood had almost evaporated. The liquid still in contact with the fragment still bubbled and hissed. Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that, good thing it wasn’t completely gone. Make that less than two percent.
I shoved the anchor fragment into the rocky ground and tamped it into the ground. Then I finally stood up, hissing in pain. The last bit where the skin regenerated was always the worst. I felt so weak. Then it hit me. There were no perceivable ley lines here. They were all stagnant or dead.
“Oh, crap!” My voice sounded odd in the thinner air. The chill did not bother me much but without the hugely inflated energy filling me up, I felt much more fragile than usual. In a way, I was very lucky. When I had first left the range of the anchor stone and been reined back through the dimensional weft, I had been similarly weak an
d hurt. Although still incomparably tough compared to a human or even a shifter, my constitution couldn’t bear the un-buffered journey through hostile dimensions. I wasn’t conscious, thank goodness, but I had been horribly burned down to my muscle. It had taken me hours to heal.
Obviously, I felt like garbage but it was not that bad. I had to assume that I had some residual energy that kept me at least a tiny bit more durable than my first accidental trip. While I was now back to my weakest state, it had lasted long enough to keep the worst damage away. Seeing my skin only now filling in, I realized the irony of that.
I shook my head to clear it. I was on a time limit. Once they tracked down the fusion reactor, they would undoubtedly make a b-line to here. Whistling in pain I drew my paints and my incense from my pouch and started to put together the ritual. It was a cobbled together hodgepodge, drawn from a dozen various different sources. I honestly had no idea how well it would work to draw a god’s attention. I certainly was no priest. I had no affinity to the gods. This was more of a ‘Hail Mary’ pass than anything else. Originally, I figured there was no harm in trying. After all, if it failed I would simply teleport back. That was before I had realized how low the ambient energy was. If I left like this, I just might not survive the trip.
It was in a gloomy state of mind that I set up the candles and lit the incense. The atmosphere was so thin that the lighter wouldn’t work and I had to ignite it with my newest spell. So far, that was the highlight of this trip. Soon everything was laid out and I began chanting. Lamia’s history was mostly ancient Greek, so I made sure to translate the ritual into that tongue. She probably didn’t care but it’s the little things.
After thirty minutes I was starting to get worried. The energy I was gathering was going somewhere but I didn’t sense any other reaction. If I was stuck on Mars and I did not succeed either, then this day would really suck.
“As fun as this is to watch, you can stop now,” a female voice echoed out from behind me.
I admit I jumped. Then I turned and looked. Behind me was a woman. A large willowy woman with dark hair, sultry eyes and thirty feet of snake as a body from the waist down. She had some very nice scales.
“Hail, goddess Lamia,” I replied, continuing the ritual. She impatiently waved her hand.
“Never mind that. I never had a dragon sing my praises. As interesting as it is, you must want something. Dragons never call on gods unless they do.”
This was true. Gods and dragons had an interesting relationship simply because we had none. We generally didn’t need to borrow anyone’s power and didn’t have a concept of worship. Even dragon gods didn’t expect dragons to worship them. In an ironic turn, far more humans worshiped the dragon gods than did actual dragons.
“All right,” I began. “You may have noticed that the main inhabited world is cut off from outside influences.”
“It’s the main reason I am here,” she acknowledged with a nod. “The others have no idea why. Frankly, most don’t have any worshippers left, so they don’t care either.”
“However, you do? Could I venture a guess that the vampires of that planet owe their sanity to your benevolence?”
She sneered in anger. Fortunately, I wasn’t its target. “You may have heard some stories regarding me. Hera catching me with Zeus and forcing me to kill my children.”
I smiled and nodded stiffly. Jeremy was going to look this up for me. Then we left for France and his sister kept him in a mental fog. I suppose I should have made the time to research that. Lamia didn’t seem to notice.
“It’s only partly true. She engineered events so that my children were turned. Zeus did not do a damn thing. As usual.” During her tirade, she seemed to be slowly working herself up into to a frenzy. I had not really asked for any of this information but she seemed to want to vent a bit. “For reasons that aren’t your business, Hecate gave me the power to break the bonds of an undead to its master. During my crusade against the entity that damned my children, I freed enough of the undead that their worship sparked my ascension.”
“I didn’t know that vampires counted as worshippers,” I muttered.
“Neither did I, at the time,” she said with an undulating shrug. “I drove Vanth out of that world. I lost contact with it over the ages.”
“So while you were… taking a break, a demon lord set up a barrier between this world, nine others and linked them through ten portals in each world.”
“That’s new. He set up his own little fiefdom. He gets an ‘A’ for imagination. Was that why you called me? If so, you’ll be disappointed. I don’t do crusades anymore.”
“No, I already killed Vatapi.” Her eyebrow raised in interest at that. “It was a thing. The issue we have is directly related to Vanth.”
“What! I expelled that little worm!”
“He is, coincidentally, on one of those ten interconnected worlds.”
“I felt my influence being severed,” she muttered softly under her breath. “I assume he took advantage of my absence to re-establish himself.”
“All the vampires in the world, except for some of the oldest, are becoming feral.”
“I see now. You want me to reassert my dominion.”
“Most gods would want their followers back. We would rather not have a large portion of the civilian population killing all the other portions. It’s bad enough we have a demon horde on the loose somewhere.”
“I can see that. Did they gain citizenship? That never happened before.” She closed her eyes in concentration. “I can faintly feel the ones, not under his domination. Only the strongest kept their senses, as you said. However, spreading my influence across this system would take too much energy. I could easily do it if I went to the planet but I would have to stay there to maintain it. I do not wish to stay in your world.” Her glowing eyes dimmed as she remembered events in her past. “There were reasons I left it.”
“The energy level is outrageous,” I wheedled. “It’s the perfect place for gods and demons now.”
“And dragons.”
“And dragons,” I agreed. “Except for the ravening horde of demons and undead. I think a god’s personal power is dependent, to some degree, on how many worshippers you have. You could increase your power considerably by living there or at least getting your people back.”
“I don’t wish to move back.”
“Vanth stole your people, just like he once stole your children.”
She looked at me flatly. “You lack subtlety. I should rip your tongue out.”
I snorted. If she expected me to tremble in her presence she was in for a surprise. As I mentioned, dragons lack the entire ‘awe’ factor. In addition, from what I knew and could feel, she was a minor deity. Vatapi, as a demon lord, outclassed her by a huge degree. I killed Vatapi. Admittedly, it was a trick rather than raw power but it gave me enough confidence to know that she was not going to be able to wave her hand and wipe me from existence.
“Are you going to let Vanth take everything away from you?”
She stared at me unblinkingly. In fact, I do not think she had blinked once during our entire conversation. I had gotten so used to humans that this little detail stood out.
“I suppose I have been around the likes of Hera and Zeus too long. I do want vengeance. I want it very much.” She sighed heavily. Raising both hands to the sky, I both saw and felt the dimension’s tremble. Eleven poles appeared a hundred feet above the ground and then ten speared down from the heavens to embed themselves around us in a perfect circle. The eleventh struck the anchor stone embedded in the ground and affixed itself there. “Take these ten staves. Give them to a powerful vampire in each world. They will be my high priests and be able to draw on my powers.”
“All ten worlds? I am pretty sure this dimension is the only one that presently has any rational undead.”
“Kill any rabid undead you meet. When they reform their body and see this symbol,” she gestured to the coiling serpent on the head of each stave. �
��They will be freed from Vanth’s influence. Whether that will make them your ally is not within my power to decide. However, since you will decide on the wielder of the staff, you should be able to gain an advantage in each world.”
“I’m not sure I want to be drawn into a crusade across ten worlds.” I certainly didn’t sign on to lead a war against Vanth.
“How amusing. Neither did I.” She didn’t look amused. “You have six months to raise a high priest to me. If one is not promoted after that, the power will dissipate and Vanth will regain his domination. After that, you will have another six months to raise another high priest in another of the linked worlds, before the cycle repeats. Once all the worlds have a high priest you can go your own way.”
I looked at her with a frown. I had just been shanghaied into her war against Vanth. I could say no, but then my home would be hip deep in the undead. My house would exist in a perpetual fog. Wait, that would actually be cool.
“Don’t look so bitter,” she consoled me with a superior smile. “You have a horde of demons at your door. Surely you can use an army of revenants at your side.”
My lip curled at the thought of constantly working with the undead. They weren’t my favorite race. The only reason I was here was because the rational version was better than the feral equivalent.
“I suppose this is how it has to be,” I said grudgingly. “I don’t suppose you can send me back to earth?”
“Send you back? What kind of dragon are you? The dimensions may be blockaded but any dragon I know of can move along the fabric of space.” I winced. Normally, without the anchor rune, I have been able to hop from dimension to dimension. My breed doesn’t teleport from within the dimension. It’s just not something we can do. I usually use psionics talents simulate this for short distances but its only good for a few hundred feet. I didn’t feel like explaining this. Reluctantly, I unbuttoned my shirt and let the goddess see the runes branded on my chest.
“Runes! Engraved on flesh. I have never seen the like. It’s a miracle your body didn’t explode.”