Nightlord: Orb

by Garon Whited

  “What is it?”

  “Power.”

  “Power solves problems,” I pointed out.

  “It can, yes.” She wrapped her hair in the towel. “Give me a minute. I’m trying to think of how to phrase something I’m not sure I understand. It’s only a thought. I haven’t really nailed it down, yet.”

  “I’ll go finish dressing.”

  “Okay.”

  She still wasn’t ready to talk about it when she finished dressing. I sorted more ideograms in the pigeonhole room while she talked with Firebrand. A little later, I knew she was talking with Bronze—well, trying to communicate with her. Firebrand is telepathic in the sense it can send what seem to be words. Bronze is more empathic in the sense she can communicate a meaning without words. I didn’t know she could do it with anyone else, though. Maybe Mary’s extrasensory abilities make it possible. I should probably ask.

  Much later, close to midnight, Mary came into the glyph room. I had the vocabulary for a gate already printed out; I was getting the pile of ideograms ready for assembly.

  “I think I’ve got it,” she told me, hesitantly.

  “Shoot.”

  “You said power solves problems, right?”

  “Yes. At least, whenever I’ve had a problem, it was useful to have the power to do something about it.”

  “But power causes problems, too.”

  “Only if you use it irresponsibly,” I argued, and gestured for her to precede me. We left the glyph room and went to the empty bedroom where I kept my worktable. I started laying out glyphs on the table so I wouldn’t have to rummage around in a box for them, like dumping jigsaw puzzle pieces out before assembly.

  “That can happen, yes,” she admitted. “Simply having power can be the problem.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Look at it this way,” she went on. “You’re the equivalent of an Atlantean vampire. You’re not one, I know, but everyone else thinks you are and you give a bowel-loosening good impression of it. This means you have immense power—power the Elders fear and the younglings want. Potentially, power to upset the entirety of the culture of the undead.

  “As far as the wackos in the magi are concerned, you’re the lion to be hunted, also because of that power.

  “The rest of the magi apparently don’t have your spells for gathering magic, and those spells represent power—power they want.

  “You may have the ability—as far as they know—to find a cure for vampirism. That’s power, too, and it affects both the vampires and the magi. It draws their attention and makes them think about you, how you affect them, and how they can use you.

  “Having so much power is what causes your problems,” she finished.

  “I still don’t see it,” I admitted, putting down the box of symbols.

  “Grr.” She spread a hand across her forehead and squeezed her temples. Finally, she dropped her hand and regarded me. “I keep forgetting you’re an alien; you don’t see things like I do. How about this… If you were Joe Average, living in your farmhouse and playing with concrete checkerboards, would you be having these problems?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Here’s another one. Would any of these idiots come knocking at your door for your legendary skills with carpentry? Or would you be relentlessly hunted because of your inhuman talent with pastries? Would they be trying to capture and torture you for your secret recipe for the World’s Greatest Lemonade?”

  “I’m starting to see it now,” I admitted.

  “Power causes problems,” she said, simply.

  “Then why do people keep chasing after it? Politicians, businessmen—wealth is a form of power—all the way down to kids on the playground.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a desire to feel more secure. I think, though, as we get more power, we get more problems. Ever hear about the frog in the kettle?”

  “It rings a bell, but no, I don’t remember it,” I admitted.

  “There’s a special way to cook a frog and it seems relevant. The frog is dumped into a pot of warm water. He’s a frog; he’s okay with that. He sits there, fat and happy, while the cook gradually turns up the heat. The frog still doesn’t mind; he’s warm and the slow rise in heat feels good. He adapts to it as quickly as it rises. Then, once it reaches a certain point, the cook suddenly turns up the heat to full power and brings the water to a sudden boil, killing and cooking the frog.”

  “So, power is like that?” I asked. “People gradually get more power and more problems, but they don’t notice because their problems are growing with their power. Then they run into a problem that’s attracted to their power and they get eaten?”

  “Not always; some people go their whole lives without the cook turning up the heat. Of course, you’re immortal, so, statistically, it’s only a matter of time.”

  “I get it. Now, how does this explain my present situation?”

  “You didn’t grow up here; you’re an alien. You dropped out of the sky with a nuke in your pocket and parked your spaceship in the back yard. If you’d bought parts and built the thing over the course of years, no one would have noticed. As it is, the rocket exhaust caught their attention.”

  I put my elbows on the worktable and put my chin in my hands, thinking. She definitely had a point, and a sharp one. It pinked me to the quick.

  Did I goof by trying to impress? I thought appearing mighty would cause the supernatural creatures of the world to steer clear of me. Instead, it seems to have attracted them. This is not an ideal outcome.

  The front gate chimed as someone started up the walk. Almost immediately, the front door started chiming repeatedly as someone jabbed the button.

  Gary, Boss. He’s pretty worked up.

  Thanks.

  I went to answer the door and Mary came with me. Gary burst in, panting, the moment I opened it.

  “Dad! It’s Dad! They got him! They’ve got my Dad!”

  “Whoa, slow down,” I advised, going to a knee and holding him by the shoulders. “Who’s got your Dad? What happened?”

  “They came into the house and they got him!”

  Firebrand?

  Working on it, Boss. Keep him talking.

  I asked Gary more questions, trying to get more details out of him. Firebrand listened to Gary, picking up on what Gary was trying to say.

  Three men came to Mark’s house. They came in through the back door, went through the house, grabbed Mark, and smacked Gary pretty hard to get him out of the way. They left through the front door, loaded Mark into a van, and drove away. A simple kidnapping.

  Mary stayed home, especially since the authorities were about to become involved. I took Gary to his house, walking the length of our street. As we walked along, it occurred to me he ran the whole way, passing a dozen houses, to pound on my door.

  Sure enough, the back door to Mark’s house had been forced. There was a fair amount of disarray, consistent with the struggles of a man still in therapy for a brain injury—that is, not much. I didn’t see anything to lead me to the kidnappers, but I did have things that would lead me to Mark. I pocketed hair from his hairbrush again for later; people always leave it lying around. It’s like they don’t expect anyone to use it.

  Then I called the police and waited with Gary while they arrived. They asked me some questions, but there wasn’t much for me. I was merely the neighbor who showed up after the fact. Gary was the witness and he wasn’t too helpful. Men in dark clothes and ski masks, wearing gloves. Not terribly descriptive.

  They let me go home when they took Gary down to the station. Gary wanted me to go with him, but I hugged him and told him to help the nice officers… and whispered that I would be busy looking for his Dad. He must have believed me because he nodded and seemed relieved.

  Why do children trust me? What is it? Do I exude an aura that turns little people into suckers? Or do I just have one of those faces? It’s a good thing I have no desire to use this power for evil, that’s for sure! Imagine what I
could do with a Saturday-morning children’s show.

  Once home, I told Mary what happened. She seemed interested.

  “You’re going to find Mark?”

  “I hope so.”

  “And you’re going to get him back?”

  “I plan to.”

  “Why do you like this guy so much?”

  “I don’t,” I admitted. “I actually rather dislike him. He takes out his frustrations by beating his son. It makes me want to do to him exactly what he does to Gary. Despite this, I do respect him. He has guts, I’m sorry to say, and he understands loyalty and friendship. And, once you remind him of the important things, he even has the courage to change everything about his life.”

  “Do I get to hear that story, too?”

  “You know most of it.” I filled her in. “Now I’ve got to figure out why someone would snatch him rather than kill him.”

  “The obvious answer is it’s a trap.”

  “Okay, that’s obvious to you. It’s only a suspicion to me. I want more information.”

  “Scientist,” she accused.

  “Thief,” I replied. She grinned.

  “So, how do we do this?”

  I pulled a tuft of hair from one pocket.

  “Want to learn how to use a scrying mirror?”

  “Oh, I thought you’d never ask!” she squealed, clapping her hands together in mock-delight. “What’s a scrying mirror?”

  We used the mirror mounted on the inside of the master bedroom door. I drew on the door and mirror with a grease pencil, taking my time to cast the scrying spell. I took the extra time to cast my version, the one with the movement controls. Looking at Mark, as through a window, probably wouldn’t allow us to find him. I would have to pan and scan to look for clues.

  Which left me with the more pressing problem of finding him in the first place. I didn’t have a handy magical compass. What I did have was a locator spell. Those send out a radar-like pulse, tuned to detect whatever you’ve defined. Mark’s hair defined him pretty well. I didn’t have enough power to send out an omnidirectional pulse, though. Still, a narrow-beam pulse would have the range we needed; we would just have to change the direction slightly each time.

  I connected it to the mirror’s scrying spell. With Mark’s hair taped to the corners of the frame, the initial locator spell should be able to ping him. In theory, the scrying point would open nearby. Then I could take over and look around for location clues.

  The locator spell sent out a pulse in about a one-degree arc, aimed northeast. I figured it would probably be wise to pan our pulses over the city, first, then scan elsewhere. The first pulse didn’t get a hit, so it shifted one degree to the right and pulsed again. The process repeated until we got a ping. The scrying spell engaged, tracked down the locator line to the ping, and focused.

  Mark was sitting in a brightly-lit room. Fluorescent lights hung overhead, reflecting off an ugly, pale-green tile. He was handcuffed to a heavy table. A microphone was on the table, aimed at him. Across the table, a pleasant-looking man in a business suit had a clipboard out and was flipping through pages, making notes.

  Behind Mark, a much nastier piece of work was cleaning a large nail. That nail’s twin was keeping one of Mark’s hands flat on the table.

  That smarts. I know.

  “Does this thing get sound?” Mary asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Transmission of electromagnetic radiation through an etheric channel is relatively simple. Sound involves the transfer of kinetic energy and is much more difficult, because of the matter-based effect of a transfer of momentum across an intervening distance.”

  “Is that English?” Mary asked, skeptically.

  “Light goes through it like a window. For sound, I’d have to open up an actual hole.”

  “That’s all you had to say.”

  “Actually, it wouldn’t be that hard. Thing is, if I want to talk to someone, they’re normally using a mirror, too. That sets up a more robust connection and the psychic component of the spells allows for two-way—”

  “Will this be on the test, professor?”

  “Sorry.”

  I panned the viewpoint around the room. It had no windows. I thought it was a disused gym shower room; several old shower stalls marched down one side. Mark’s jailers were both in the room.

  Moving out through the closed door, there were another two men seated at a folding table and playing cards for pretzel sticks. The room was indeed a locker room.

  Exploring farther, the place was a large gym structure. Some exercise equipment was still in place—pull-up bars bolted to the wall, that sort of thing—but anything portable had been taken away. I examined the outside of the place, read the sign, and Mary checked the listings. We had an address.

  “What’s the plan?” Mary asked. “Go in and grab him?”

  “It may not be elegant, but it has the advantage of being practical.”

  “Do we do it again when they grab him again?”

  “What?” I asked, startled.

  “You mean you were literally going to grab him?”

  “Well,” I added, defensively, “I did plan to kill everybody in the building.”

  Mary sighed and shook her head sadly.

  “You’re sweet. Sometimes you’re incredibly naïve, but sweet. Look,” she explained, “you don’t know who they are or why they have him. You have to know, at minimum, what they want.”

  “What for?”

  “Here’s a thought. They grabbed him for a reason. If they didn’t do it for the hell of it, then someone wants something from this Mark guy. If they don’t get it, they’ll keep coming back until they do.”

  “Ah. But I’ve been trying to establish the idea that touching him is a bad idea. That whole ‘I am the Dark’ thing, and the idea of a guardian demon. Stuff like that.”

  “How’s that working out?” she asked, nodding toward the mirror.

  I grudgingly admitted there might be a flaw somewhere in my plan.

  “So,” I continued, “what do you suggest? Ask nicely?”

  “Sort of. You’ve made too many waves; too many people know his name, now. What you need to do—what we need to do—is start recruiting people.”

  “Start a secret society?”

  “Only in a manner of speaking. First, we find out what these jokers want with him. Then we figure out a way to make them want to leave him alone, and want to make other people leave him alone. Repeat as needed until everyone is convinced leaving him alone is good for their business, whatever their business is.”

  “I have to admit,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck, “that sounds more practical than my ideas.”

  “Don’t feel bad about it,” she advised. “Scientists don’t have to think like that.”

  “Kings do. I used to be a king.”

  “And now you’re a retired king. You’re allowed to be more concerned about your lawn.”

  “Thanks. Let’s go ask some people about their motivations.”

  “Whee! I’ll get the first-aid kit!”

  The gym was, of course, closed. We walked around it and Mary picked our point of entry. She also picked the lock; her feathery tendril worked the tumblers like magic. Handy trick, that. I’d have snapped the bolt, myself.

  We did our sneaking thing into the locker room. Mary basically appeared out of nowhere and said hello. The guys at the card table both stood up and faced her, reaching for guns. With her as a distraction, and with my plus-twenty Amulet of Sneaking, I slipped behind them and cracked their skulls together.

  I was careful not to crush them. We might want to ask them questions.

  Mary then knocked on the door to the showers, two sharp raps. A moment later, the tough guy answered the door. She kicked the door, tearing it down and staggering the tough guy back. Mary followed the door and the tough guy. When he swept the door to one side, Mary was on him, taking him down, then sitting on him with a knifepoint in hi
s mouth. She smiled at him and put a finger to her lips to shush him. He shushed.

  I went in as soon as she cleared the door. I picked up Mister Business Suit and pinned him to the back wall. He looked me in the face and promptly lost bladder control.

  “Tell me what I want to know,” I whispered, “and I won’t—” my voice shifted smoothly to a deep, growling thing, “—kill you.”

  It took a little bit before he calmed down enough to say more than “Nghfgnaagk!” and similar inconsequentials. Mary was the one who calmed him down. I put him in a shower stall and we traded prisoners. The tough guy wasn’t a problem. Mary hadn’t completely sucked him dry, but what was left would require a vacuum system or the equivalent. I let the rest of his blood work its way out.

  The suit sat in a disused shower stall while she crouched beside him, holding his hand and soothing him. He was downright talkative.

  Once the tough guy was empty, I pulled the nails out of Mark’s hands—they’d finished fastening him to the table—and applied both medication and healing magic.

  “Who are you?” he asked, slurring slightly. I picked up the microphone and examined it. It wasn’t connected to anything. It was a digital gadget for taking notes. I fiddled with it, erased it, and pocketed it.

  “I’m the Dark. That’s the Shadow.” I nodded toward Mary. “What did they want with you?”

  Mark shut up and put on his stubborn expression.

  “I’m not asking for the details,” I reasoned. “I’m asking why they wanted details. And I did take the nails out,” I added. He thought about that for a second. It obviously earned me points.

  “I used to work for someone. They want to know about his operations.”

  “Competitors?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who is the competitor?”

  “Carlo.”

  I sighed.

  “Have you ever considered moving to another state? Or another country?”

  “No. Besides, I can’t afford it. They’d find me by looking for people in physiotherapy, anyway.”

  “We’ll see about that. How are you feeling?”

  “Like shit.”

  “Wait right here.”

  I went over to Mary and crouched next to her, facing her victim. His gaze locked on to me. I think he stopped blinking.