by Garon Whited
The gate spell had linked itself to an archway on this side. It was an ornamental thing of interwoven metal, probably wrought iron, in an overgrown ruin of some sort. It destructed at the same time the other one did. A circular plane of disruption blasted out from it, as though the arch turned into silver-white energy and expanded into infinity… which it might have. It left strange distortions behind it as it scythed through concrete, earth, and iron. It made unnatural ripples in the materials as the space things occupied bent in strange ways. The clouds roiled above us, as though something sucked them up and spat them back down along a narrow line. I smelled something like scorched iron, briefly, before the wind and rain washed it away.
When we came close to look at the aftermath, the archway was gone, probably disintegrated into the void between the worlds. The epicenter of the effect was obvious; there was an overlapping pattern like two counter-rotating spirals in the grass, both radiating from the points where the arch had touched the ground.
“You okay?” I asked. Bronze snorted, the rain making metallic plinking noises on her. She was fine.
“Firebrand?”
Still here, Boss. But… does it seem cold to you?
“I hadn’t noticed, but I’m dead at the moment.”
Good point.
I checked the sphere; it was unharmed within the makeshift sack of my cloak. Good. I took a quick look around for carnivorous plants or omnivorous ants. Nothing leaped out at me as dangerous. Also good.
I sat down and started to examine the ball on a magical level, right there in the muddy grass, in the rain. After all, what was I going to do? Catch a cold? More important to me was that if Tort was still in there she might not have long.
I probed the sphere with what magic I had on hand—not much, but enough for a superficial examination. This place’s magical field was only a small fraction of the potency in Rethven. There would be several minutes of gathering and focusing and storing before I could cast anything but the most subtle spells.
The sphere was a container, a prison. I was in there, all right. I recognize the darkness living inside my soul, and that was it. A hungry, sullen darkness that would cheerfully—well, willingly; there was nothing cheerful or joyous about it—devour everything living that had the misfortune to encounter it.
That was all I could tell. It radiated anger and hostility. Otherwise, the sphere was an impenetrable blackness. None of my rudimentary spells could get anything else from it.
Cautiously, I traced the curve of the corrupted glass with a tendril. With Firebrand and Bronze backing me, I feared nothing that might live within that ball. It might even fear me under those conditions. But I could not reach into the thing. It was solid to my tendril-touch, smooth and seamless, dark as the void.
I withdrew my tendrils and regarded it: a solid ball of black glass and malevolence, holding a personal demon and, possibly, the woman I loved. More likely, it had already destroyed her for her part in freeing me and imprisoning it. I had no doubt she would risk—and give—her life for me.
In a sudden rage, I seized the ball and lifted it, prepared to dash the damned thing on a rock. It urged me on. I could feel it taunting me, straining to be broken, pushing me to do it. Do it. Do it! Do it! I felt a strange sense of bilocation. It was as though I gazed down from between my hands, seeing everything in that shadowless darkvision of my vampire eyes, yearning to descend like a thunderbolt, like a meteor, to smash, to destroy, to shatter and break and wreak havoc and death and despair, to devour the world in a never-ending hunger…
How long I stood there amid the lightning and the rain, looking up at the dark sphere and looking down from it, I do not know. I wanted to destroy the thing and my rage wanted me to fling it with all my strength against the stones. It wanted the same thing, to be broken, to be released, to be free of the binding upon it. It hungered for escape, to find another form of flesh and live within it until that flesh was consumed.
But my natural contrariness wouldn’t let me. Whatever the thing wanted—anything it wanted—I wasn’t going to give it.
Was I?
I balanced there, on the point of a decision, while the skies grumbled their disgust and spat upon me.
Eventually, slowly, I lowered my hands, still holding the black ball. The bilocation faded, leaving only one perspective, my perspective. The Thing within the orb didn’t speak to me, but I felt the soundless scream of frustration within its prison. I wrapped it in my cloak again, tied it closed, and put it down. Maybe I could break the glass and destroy the thing set free. Maybe it would awaken my inner demons again and I would lose. Maybe I would prevail over it and my inner demons, both. Or maybe the glass was unbreakable by any power at my command.
That wouldn’t give me Tort. It wouldn’t even bring me satisfaction. I would still be here, wherever here might be, as lost and alone as ever.
I wept bloody tears the rain was never quick enough to wash away.
The remains of the ruins tell me it was once a zoo. We found a gap in a hurricane fence and spent the rest of the night in the back of something’s former lair. I think it belonged to some sort of big cat, but the plaque was gone. At least I didn’t see any signs of the jumbo-sized omnivorous ants. Carnivorous ivy I can deal with. All the same, I was careful. I might not bleed at night—it all flows toward me and soaks in—but the ants seem to home in on the smell of blood. Tomorrow, I would need to find better housing and start scrounging.
I spent most of the night in my mental study, tidying up after the mess the Dark One left in it. Papers of memories were everywhere. Getting my head put back together was no easy task. At least, it wasn’t as bad as the massive mess left behind by a half-million ghosts. What irked me most about it was the way I’d had it all put together before. This was a mess made by someone who chose to make a mess. It was… spiteful. Yes, that’s the word I want. Spiteful.
I also tried to delete the trapdoor down to the basement. It should be a simple modification. Have the floor roll up over it, sink down, and there, it’s gone. It didn’t. The floor stopped at the edge, rippling and rolling, and wouldn’t cover the door.
That scares me. I’ve had to settle for adding some more locking bolts. I do not regard this as a good thing.
Then again, what do I know? Is there a psychologist in the house? What does it mean?
Having done that—or, in the case of the trapdoor, having failed to do that—I was stuck with having time to think.
I want my Tort.
That may sound self-centered, even ungrateful, but there it is. I’ve had very few women in my life who mean something to me. Typically, they get taken away from me by betrayal or tragic circumstance. But Tort is the first one to sacrifice herself to save me. Not merely die because of me; willingly go to her doom for me.
Maybe I don’t know how to accept a gift, but I’m not pleased by this.
I want my Tort.
That phrase keeps coming to mind.
I’m not sure if she’s in the Black Ball of Bad or not; I can’t exactly look inside. If she was, she’s utterly consumed and destroyed therefore. Utterly consumed and destroyed is not acceptable. I therefore will believe she was not inside it and was not consumed. I choose to believe in my Tort.
She knows I wouldn’t want her to die for me. Since she knows that, Tort would have found a way. She wouldn’t stick me with the guilt of surviving after she died to save me. Which means she’s alive. Which means I need to go find her. She engineered rescuing me. Returning the favor is a requirement.
Besides, I’m her angel. I promised to always come back. And I will.
So. Since her death is uncertain and not something I can tolerate, I must assume she is alive and I will find her. There. A goal in life.
I’m good at rationalizing.
I need to get back to Karvalen and talk to T’yl without getting a church and some faction of the Wizards’ Guild on my undead derrière merely for being present. I’ll have to work on that as soon as I figure out
how. I’m in a low-magic, post-apocalyptic world with carnivorous ivy, giant omnivorous ants, lousy weather, and a distinct lack of humans to eat.
This does not bode well for Plan A: Waste time.
I have to give the people in Rethven time to calm down, find out the truth about the Evil Twin, all that stuff. Maybe I don’t need to wait as long as a generation or two—after all, I’m supposedly still popular in Karvalen and Mochara. But I do need to let things calm down a bit before going back. Or, for that matter, trying to call anyone over there. T’yl destroyed the gate in my gate room to keep people from following me. It would really suck if they traced my call and decided to re-open the Hand’s Vampire Purge Project.
Thing is… I’m not sure I can wait that long.
Sometimes, it seems as though I’m in more of a hurry ever since I became immortal. Is that irony?
So, Plan B.
As soon as I come up with a Plan B, I’ll let you know.
Sunday, August 9th
Once the sun hit the sky, I worked with the local magic.
This place is a magical desert. Not a literal magical desert, with sand-creatures and djinn, but a metaphorical desert. The magical potential of the place is low enough that even the simplest spells require far more effort.
In Karvalen, I could charm a cup to fill itself by drawing water out of the air. Here, I had to draw symbols on the ground and focus on the spell to put enough power into it to get it to work. Even in the early-morning air, it was an exercise to draw water into a handkerchief and wring it out to drink.
On the other hand, I had magical items actually on my person. What were these rings and the amulet for? It doesn’t take much power to examine an existing enchantment, just time and attention.
The magical rings were simple bands of gold, without gems, but adorned with a peculiar script. Rather than gold lettering in some harder material, the gold bands had lettering carved in it and another metal, bluish-silver, filling it in. I didn’t recognize the metal, but the lettering on the rings was part of the enchantments.
One ring could raise a deflection spell almost instantly—much more quickly than someone could cast it—but would then need some time to recharge. Around here, quite a long time, unless I gathered power and pushed it into the ring to help charge it.
The other ring was enchanted with a healing spell. It could be activated by an act of will, but the important part was the automatic feature. Spells went off if the wearer went unconscious. The spells focused mainly on stopping blood loss, minimizing shock, and on stimulating the central nervous system. The stimulant was presumably to help the wearer wake up and do something to save himself.
I could see why my alter ego wanted them. No doubt I would have gotten around to having something like them made for me, too, eventually.
The amulet was more subtle and complicated than either of those. The chain was unexceptional—I could replace it with a string, or simply carry the amulet in a pocket. The amulet was circular and about two inches across. The structure of it was some sort of silver wire, twisted around and through itself. Looking at it straight on, it gave the impression of a sphere. Looked at from the side, it was only a quarter-inch thick or so. It was a nice optical illusion.
The primary enchantment acted as a cloaking device against locator spells, cycling gradually through a series of settings. Getting a bearing on the wearer would require extraordinary measures, not merely a simple seeking spell.
A secondary enchantment played with light and shadow, moving them subtly, altering their texture and density. Someone wearing the thing could move through a dark or shadowy area and blend in like eggs in cake batter.
Naturally, both enchantments were in constant operation, although the blending-in function was only effective when it had dark or shadowed areas to work with. I wondered how well—and how long—it would operate in this environment.
Nothing he wore would do anything to help disguise the latest nighttime effects of my undead state—the charcoal-dark skin, the featureless black eyes, the ever-so-slightly pointed ears, the sharp-edged teeth, all that stuff. I can only assume he either cast disguise spells on himself or regarded them as unimportant.
I came out of the inner lair into a hot, sunshine-laden morning. I sneezed three times in rapid succession and started wondering about toxic pollen from mutant plants. For all I knew, I had hostile organisms sprouting in my sinuses already.
I hate that. I’ve never actually had it happen, but there’s something about the very idea that offends me.
Bronze diligently kept her strength up by trimming low-hanging branches. She paused long enough to put her head over my shoulder and assure me she felt my pain. I hugged her neck and didn’t say anything, didn’t need to say anything. Tort was far more important to me than I had ever dreamed. Bronze missed her, too.
This. This pain is exactly why I have problems admitting I care about someone. This pain, right here, the twisting, gnawing thing that sinks fangs of ice into my heart, freezes it with its frosty breath, and then squeezes, causing my heart to make those cracking noises polar explorers hear right before they vanish forever into eternal cold and dark.
Damn.
Bronze went back to grazing on branches and I gathered deadwood for a fire. Breakfast wasn’t going to cook itself. It doesn’t take the place of a fresh corpse, but it helps. Eating, as a mortal, delays the inevitable hunger of the undead. Until I found something close enough to human to serve as food, I needed to delay the onset of vampire blood-hunger as long as possible.
I didn’t really want breakfast. It was important to get into the habit, regardless. You have to carry on as though you intend to carry on. The alternative is to curl up in a ball and never move again.
Sometimes it’s tempting.
Firebrand didn’t say anything when I touched its point to the wood; for a wonder, it respected my silence and my pain. The wood blazed up without fanfare and started to burn on its own. I laid the blade in the flames and it psychically sighed in contentment.
As for breakfast, there were a number of birds in the trees. One by one, I charmed a few to land on my hand. Bird brains don’t take much to override. I wrung their necks and roasted them.
“Hello?”
I froze for about a second before I slowly turned to look. The guy was about five-seven or so with a battered, almost shapeless hat. He had an equally well-worn knapsack, two days’ worth of beard, and a hungry look.
“Hello,” I replied. It would have been rude not to. I saw Bronze holding perfectly still, statue-like. Probably a good idea, that. None of us had any idea how this guy would react to a giant, metal horse.
Do they even have horses in this world?
Wherever this was, it wasn’t the post-apocalyptic future I found the first time I went hunting for my home world. My unexpected visitor should have been, at best, a ragged descendant of the survivors of nuclear holocaust. He did not look the part. He resembled a down-on-his-luck hitchhiker.
T’yl! What have you done? Where the hell did you put me!? First, I lose Tort, and now I’m lost! I’m not sure I can take this!
“I smelled the cooking and I was hoping, maybe, you might have some extra?” he ventured. I looked at the birds. The way I eat, it was a light snack. For a human being, though…
A wave of weariness swept over me.
“Yeah, sure,” I called. “Careful with the fence.”
He tossed the knapsack over and demonstrated considerable agility in climbing after it. I suspected he might have some practical experience going over fences, but it would have been impolite to mention it. Besides, he was my only source of information. I gestured him to a sunny rock and handed him a spitted sparrow. It might have been sparrow. He didn’t ask what it was. He ate it quickly while I gnawed one of my own.
I saw him looking at the fire, the birds, and Firebrand. Especially Firebrand. He didn’t say a word about it, which showed great restraint.
“Help yourself,” I suggested
. He took another bird from the fire. He finished it as I took a second snack from the cooking spit. I nodded to the last one and he needed no other urging.
Afterward, he wiped his hands on his shirt—it didn’t improve them much, nor the shirt—and stuck out his right.
“I’m Bill,” he offered.
First names only, hmm? I thought.
He thinks he’s being polite, Boss, Firebrand told me. No last names. It limits what you can tell anyone.
Other places, other customs. I shook his hand.
“Call me Eric.”
“Thanks for the nosh, Eric.” He eyed my clothes. “You… ah, you don’t look like a man living rough.”
“Meaning I’m not dressed for it?” I asked. He nodded. “Ever heard of a renaissance fair?”
“Sure. That’s where folks get all dressed up and… oh, I see. You work for one of them places?”
“No, but I go to them. They’re terrific places to party and get drunk.” I tried to look sheepish. “I, ah… do that, probably more often than I should.”
“Man’s got a right to drown his troubles,” Bill agreed. Something about his demeanor made me think he didn’t believe me. It was nice of him to pretend, though.
“You should have seen two years ago,” I lied, “when I woke up in a rowboat out on a lake.” I pretended to be thoughtful. “Say, just in case… where am I this time?”
“The old Paws-N-Claws zoo, east of Hamlin.”
“Pennsylvania?” I asked. Bill stared at me.
“Get really drunk, do you?”
“The rowboat was on Lake Superior,” I told him. “I couldn’t see the shore.” He whistled.
“Yeah, all right. It’s Penn state.”
“Scranton off west, Lake Wallenpaupack to the east?”
“That’s it. Thought it was Lake Wallapopapack, though.”
Maybe T’yl didn’t land me that far off after all. Or, maybe I missed when I tried for home with an inter-universal gate. So far, the place seems pretty similar to home… but I know I’m right about the lake.
Oh, my stars and garters. Could T’yl have hit the right world, a century or ten earlier? Could I have stepped through a gate to the right world, but at a different time?