The room was far too large, and she wanted him close.
He pushed her gently away and fumbled with the buckles on the leather straps that held his armor in place. She was hardly aware of her soft cry of disappointment. Astrid drew from the Well and snapped just enough straps to release him from his armor.
He let the metal fall without a second glance.
“Sorry,” she shrugged with an impish grin as she led him by the hand to the nearest cot. “You never have to apologize to me,” Jiri spoke in a husky voice.
She kissed him deeply to make sure he believed it when she told him, “I know.”
She yanked the blankets from the bed and hastily threw them on the floor. They wrapped around each other as they collapsed into desires too long deferred.
Back at the Workshop
Vinnie stood beside Oscar at the work table in the middle of the main courtyard. Both men had their arms folded across their chests. Cole tittered at the unintentional mirroring.
“Who put these identical statues here?” the boy joked. He pulled behind him a hand-wagon loaded with equipment.
Jakub and Elise followed behind with equally-loaded wagons.
“Thank you, students,” Vinnie stated, brushing off the joke. “You can leave the wagons and go back to your studies. We will take it from here.”
“What?” Cole snapped. “We already had our lesson for today. Tarkon even kept us a half-hour late.”
“He says our Sacred Steel is getting better all the time,” Jakub added. “We made those rappelling cables in less than two hours.”
“You see all these rifles?” Vinnie asked.
“Ah, nope,” Cole replied with sarcasm, scanning the line of troops ready to open fire.
Vinnie closed his eyes before he spoke. “This object or creature or whatever is very dangerous. I don’t want you around to get hurt if another portal opens.”
“Then why not have us around to help in case a portal opens,” Cole shot back.
Vinnie turned to Oscar for help he knew wouldn’t come. “I hate it when they get like this.”
“Come on,” Cole persisted. “We know we can’t fight remnant. Woods people are not afraid to run and hide when they need to. Same thing as fighting because retreating lets you fight another day.”
“As always, young Cole,” Vinnie replied in that tone that told the kids they’d won. “Your logic is impeccable. If something happens, you retreat. Understood?”
They began preparing the equipment without delay. Before long, the portal creature was ringed with testing equipment.
Vinnie handed Elise a sight glass. “Elise, please examine it closely. If we’re going to do dangerous things, let’s not skimp on the danger. This optical device will help you.”
She took the instrument without delay and bent over the critter. “It’s blurry,” she remarked.
Vinnie told her how to adjust the focus by way of a ring in the center of the tube with numbered notches surrounding it. “The adjustment ring at the top controls the magnification,” he explained. “Test it out on both eyes, if you will, dear.”
He watched carefully as she adjusted the glass and jotted down the number settings on the dial. Jakub noticed Vinnie’s note-taking and cocked his head, to which Vinnie replied with a wink.
“I see a seam,” Elise exclaimed. “You can’t see it without the glass.”
Vinnie handed her a grease pencil, and she traced the line of the seam from the narrow end to the wide end. She rolled the creature over and marked every seam she found. When she was done, she handed the glass back to Vinnie, who put it away.
“What else did you observe?” Vinnie asked.
“There are five seams, and the husk has pores,” Elise replied. “They look just like human pores, only with a bit more irregular edge.”
“Shellfish have pores like this,” Oscar noted.
Elise continued. “Up close, the color isn’t as consistent. There are darker spots, and the seams have raised edges, but again, you can’t see that without the glass.”
From there, they turned on the sensing equipment. The portal critter rattled and began to glow.
“Step back!” Vinnie barked. He pulled Elise behind him and used his arm to make the boys back away.
At the same time, thirty rifled soldiers aimed their weapons at the critter. The whine of the magitech weapons in unison was dizzying.
“Don’t fire unless a portal opens up.”
One or two of the soldiers stepped closer. The creature glowed brighter.
“Stop,” Vinnie commanded. “Everyone back up.”
Once the soldiers moved away, the portal maker dimmed, then stopped glowing altogether.
“Everyone switch your rifles off,” Vinnie ordered. He snatched a rifle from the nearest soldier, brought it close to the bestie. He held it inches from the shell, then turned it on. The shell glowed. When he stepped back, it stopped.
“Collect the numbers from all these devices,” Vinnie commanded. His students jumped to work. “Not you, Elise. I want you to go to the big machine and record the numbers there. When we’re done here, you and I are going to compare them.”
“What will that do?” Oscar asked.
“Give us information,” Vinnie replied with a huge grin. “Don’t you see? We stumbled across a way to control it. It responds to energy.”
Elise chimed in. “And measuring the energy from two locations gives us an idea of how far the energy can go.”
“I don’t understand much of the math,” Jakub admitted. “Cole and I just gather the numbers for people who do.”
“We design and build the machines that make the numbers,” Cole added.
“So gather the numbers, then,” Vinnie urged. “And be quick about it. The work you’re doing right now might let us find and kill this...whatever it is.”
The boys got to work while Elise scrambled away to the big machine.
“Teacher,” Jakub asked. “Why did you record the numbers from the sight glass?”
“Yeah,” Cole added. “And why does that glass have numbers?”
Vinnie just beamed at the boys. “All I will tell you is that it’s for Elise. And if you speak a word of it, I will…” he struggled to find words.
“Beat our asses?” Cole asked.
“Yes,” Vinnie declared unconvincingly. “I will beat you. Severely. So. Don’t. Say. Anything. And go get something to eat from the kitchens when you’re done. Make sure to take Elise. You are all much too skinny.”
They turned to go, and Vinnie added, “If you really want to be part of the secret, come by the office later and see what I’m building. I have a feeling you can help.”
Go Get the Damn Wagon
Gormer shuffled up the workshop steps after the drama with the portal creature had ended. He’d stuck around to help with whatever small tasks he could, but he was just too damn tired. He pushed open the door to Vinnie’s office thinking about a nice cot where he could sleep for a while—a long while.
He found Mortsen sitting on his cot and stretching his arms above his head.
“Good morning!” he greeted Gormer. His gruff voice sounding like an unintentional parody of cheerfulness.
“It’s afternoon,” Gormer mumbled. “You slept through all the fun. I need sleep.”
He stumbled over to a cot and was about to lay down when one of the workshop assistants popped open the door behind him.
“Vinnie says he wants you to go get the wagon you left on the road,” the boy announced.
“Tell him to get the stable hands to do it,” Gormer moaned.
“They’re all busy. Vinnie says he needs what’s in the wagon,” the boy stated.
“Tell him to find someone else,” Gormer snapped.
“He says—"
“What the fuck!” Gormer shouted at the poor kid. “Are you making this shit up?”
“He told me you’d say everything you said so far,” the boy claimed, hiding behind the door.
“I’ll go with you, Gormer,” Mortsen assured him rising from the cot.
The boy looked at Mortsen smiling at him with his gold teeth and ursine forearms and bolted down the stairs.
“You can do it. Why do you need me?” Gormer complained.
Mortsen grabbed him by the arm as he tried to sit on the cot. “Don’t shirk your duties, kid.”
“You’ve been asleep for twelve hours,” Gormer tried to shout, but he was too tired.
Mortsen practically dragged him outside to where a four-horse team waited.
“Wait,” Gormer said. “No saddles.”
“What, are you fucking stupid?” Mortsen barked. “This is a horse team. We have to walk them to the wagon.”
Gormer turned, intending to find his bed until Mortsen’s hand clamped onto the back of his neck. He force-marched the mystic toward the gates.
“Come on. This will be good for you. You’ll feel better when you get the blood pumping.”
“I hate you,” Gormer moaned. “Let’s go.”
He understood there was often a reason to Mortsen’s madness, so he shuffled along with his eyes about to close and waited.
The wagon was a couple miles down the mountain. They hooked the team quickly, but the horses took some coaxing and spent much of their strength pulling the wagon out of the ditch where Gormer had wedged it. Mortsen handled the team like the old hand he was.
When they finally got the wagon properly on the road, Mortsen remarked, “You smell that?”
“No. Smell what?”
“I heard Vinnie say he was sending you out to pick up some rotten meat, only it ain’t rotten.”
“When did you hear that?” Gormer asked, suddenly more alert.
Mortsen just flashed his gold teeth. “That thing came out of his meat suit more than two days ago, and it isn’t rotten. Funny that yeah?”
“I guess that’s why Vinnie wants to study it,” Gormer replied with a shrug.
Mortsen stopped the wagon where the switchback leveled out. “I bet you can tell more than he can. I mean don’t get me wrong. The man’s a genius, but sometimes he just doesn’t have that certain something.”
Mortsen whipped back the canvas to reveal the back of the wagon. Their wrapped bloody cargo lay smashed against the side of the wagon where it had slid when Gormer parked it.
“Let’s unwrap the butcher’s bundle, shall we?”
Before he could object, Mortsen hopped up and pulled open the canvas tarp. The flesh still glistened. Only it wasn’t flesh.
Gormer saw it with new eyes. Mortsen drew his dagger and poked one of the larger chunks of muscle and skin. It jerked away from the tip of the blade.
“It’s…still alive?” Gormer gasped.
“Not quite,” Mortsen pointed out. “It never was fully alive. It’s somewhere in between. Our new friend controlled it from the inside. I felt that he was connected to it somehow. And if it could connect to him and it’s made of something like human flesh…”
“Maybe I can connect to it.”
“Give that man a drink,” Mortsen declared. “But it’s probably very dangerous.”
Gormer met and held his eyes. “Why can’t I read you, Mortsen? And how can you read me without me knowing it and I never see your eyes change?”
“You’re not looking close enough. You’re the guy who’s always looking without ever seeing.”
Mortsen’s eyes turned milky white. He grabbed Gormer’s hand and thrust it into the quivering pile of torn flesh.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Snipe Hunt
Elise ran to the outdoor work table waving a stack of papers above her head frantically. With her poor eyesight, she stumbled over cobblestones and cracks but did not fall.
Vinnie met her halfway for fear she would tumble. “What is it?” Vinnie asked urgently.
“It’s a pattern,” she exclaimed. “A pattern! At first, I thought it was the big machine having trouble, but then Cole took some of the spare readout dials and took off the faces and dipped the indicator arm in ink and put them above the paper and when we dragged the paper underneath—”
“Slow down,” Vinnie suggested, taking her hands. He looked down and for the first time saw what was on those papers. “You made the machine produce a graph,” he exclaimed.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she nearly shouted.
Elise swept much of Vinnie’s work aside on the table to make room. She spread her papers and pointed to peaks near the top of the page. Then, she stabbed her finger at a group of numbers scribbled at the bottom.
“There are numbers hidden in the pulses of energy from this thing. I think they are communicating somehow.”
Vinnie kissed each of her cheeks. “Lei è brillante,” he shouted in the New Ancient tongue reserved for moments of pure joy like this. “Gather a team. It is well past time we go retrieve that other portal beastie.”
“We searched for it everywhere,” Elise opined. “We triangulated just like we did for the moving beastie. We should have found it.”
“We should have,” Vinnie replied. “If we had looked underground… I think Charlie knew where it was. That’s why he piled the rocks on top of the place where we buried all the dead remnant from the first attack.”
Evening was almost upon them. The assistants locked the creature away in a heavy steel lockbox the workshop had produced to contain the portal critter. It hadn’t moved since they brought it back, but they still had sixty soldiers with rifles standing by. The watch commander had added portal critter annihilation duty to her rotation.
Vinnie shooed Elise away to gather the things he would need.
“I will meet you in the arboretum,” Vinnie replied, then stomped off.
The piles of fruit and vegetables outside Charlie’s habitat had grown. The verdure had produced more than the considerable appetite of the fortress could consume.
Vinnie expected to find the Giant easily, but he was nowhere in sight. He made his way down the stone path, that was really just a trail that the greenery hadn’t claimed. It led right to what looked to Vinnie like some kind of monument or talisman.
“This is no simple arrangement of stone,” Vinnie remarked aloud with hands to hips. “It is not random.”
He noticed how Charlie had piled stone with more quartz at the bottom. A center layer seemed to have more feldspar, while the top consisted of sandstone. But with everything else going on, it never occurred to Vinnie where Charlie had gotten the rock.
He spun when the thick forest rustled behind. At first, he thought one of the trees was moving, but it was Charlie. The tunic and pants made for him by Protectorate artisans were gone. In their place, he wore garments made from a material that resembled oak tree bark. It wasn’t cloth exactly, but it was semi-rigid and tough-looking. Vinnie had the impression that it had been grown rather than crafted.
The giant knelt in front of Vinnie and placed one of his four-fingered hands on his chest. With the other hand, he cupped Vinnie’s head and cooed.
Charlie had developed a habit of treating most other creatures like pets. He rubbed Vinnie’s head, then sat down cross-legged. The impact shook the ground.
“We have some work to do here, Charlie. Is that OK?”
Charlie cocked his head. It was difficult to know what he understood or how.
“I need to tunnel underground to find something buried there. It is something not from this world that we need to study, then destroy.”
At the word ‘destroy,’ Charlie’s eyes widened. He turned his palms to the canopy and waved them back and forth.
Vinnie understood. “I won’t harm your habitat here. Don’t worry.”
Charlie displayed his gap-toothed smile and nodded his head. “Gruggghhhllmmm,” he mumbled.
The vocalization surprised Vinnie. In addition to his sudden growth, Charlie had started making more vocal sounds that resembled words.
“You are just a child, aren’t you?” Vinnie asked. That was the only thi
ng that made sense. His sudden growth, his inability to speak and his apparent lack of worldly knowledge when they’d met, all pointed to that conclusion.
“We have to get you home, Charlie,” Vinnie murmured. “Your family must be out there somewhere worried about you.”
Charlie cocked his head, then stood. He made a fist—a gesture Vinnie had never seen before—bigger than Vinnie’s head, reached out and bumped his knuckles gently over Vinnie’s heart, then did the same over his own. He petted Vinnie on the head again, then turned and disappeared into the forest.
All Vinnie could do until Elise, Jakub, and Cole arrived was stare with childlike wonder after Charlie.
The clatter of wooden wagon wheels over stone brought him out of his reverie.
“We brought all the necessary equipment,” Cole announced. He wasted no time unloading.
Jakub explained the loadout. “We brought one of the detectors, another smaller collection mast, and one of the calculator units from the big machine.”
At the last item, Vinnie arched an eyebrow.
Elise spoke up before Vinnie could object. “The shop manager on duty suggested it. Everyone agreed. It’s a secondary part, so the big guy can still do its work well enough.”
“And we’ll have accurate readings the closer we get,” Jakub added.
“I’ll open a tunnel,” Vinnie advised. “You’re going to have to shout directions to me while I’m down there. Vinnie picked up a rifle and switched it on. He turned the power setting to high. “When I get close to the portal critter, the signs should get stronger, and weaker the farther away.”
“We get that,” Elise pointed out, one hand to her hip. “We were there.”
“Of course,” Vinnie replied.
His eyes clouded, then glowed with orange, swirling light like whirlpools in twin calderas. The ground opened, and Vinnie stepped into the tunnel with a bright, white light in his palm lighting the way.
“Got a signal!” Cole shouted into the hole. He had, of course, the perfect voice for shouting. That’s my Cole, Vinnie thought with a chuckle.
Vinnie took a guess and angled below the depth where they’d buried the remnant bodies. But on the way down, he encountered the mass grave. The condition of the bodies shocked him.
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