Nightlord: Orb

by Garon Whited

  On the other hand, I know I shouldn’t let myself succumb to indecision simply because some courses of action might have bad consequences. All I can do is my best; if that’s not good enough, I’ll have to live with it. Or not, of course.

  We’ll be heading through Cajon Pass tonight. If I wanted to ambush someone, that would be a good place to do it. We’ll see if they think so. If they don’t, I think I’ll have words with someone. Otherwise, they may be following us all the way into Los Angeles.

  Mary drove, wearing her midnight go-to-thieving clothes. I had my armored underwear on with some camouflage fatigues over it. I sat in back with Firebrand and the rest of the weapons. We were locked and loaded, ready for lions and tigers and bears and rutting musk ox. We went through Cajon Pass without stopping.

  All that preparation and there wasn’t so much as an annoying driver. Not even a falling rock. The only unusual thing was a succession of vehicles behind us, which was starting to border on normality by now.

  Firebrand was disappointed. Mary and Bronze were, too. I might have been. A little.

  “We’re coming out of the mountains,” Mary noted. “I still don’t see anything.” I went forward, settled into the passenger seat, spun it to face front. The moon was new and the night was about as dark as it ever gets; everything in front of us was black, white, or a shade of grey. I searched it all, trying to find something out of place. A spike strip on the road. A hunting blind for the sniper. Two cars parked on opposite shoulders with a suspicious number of people inside. A landmine. Anything.

  “I hate to say it, but maybe they aren’t really trying to catch us,” I offered.

  “Could be. If I were in their boots, I wouldn’t be willing to come to grips with you after the fiasco at the farm.”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “They lost a few people and we scared the rest. I doubt the Elders will back off and pretend it didn’t happen. They’ve been made to lose face. I’m told face is important.”

  “That’s criminals,” Mary corrected. “The Elders don’t seem to care. They’re the eldest and most powerful. They know it. Everyone knows it. They don’t need to prove it.”

  “They don’t?” I asked. “Have you ever met them?”

  “Well… no.”

  “But you take it as fact they’re immensely old and powerful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Everyone says so. People considerably older than I.”

  “How do they know?”

  Mary opened her mouth to say something, paused, closed her mouth and thought.

  “Maybe,” I began, “I’m not the only person who’s asking that question. How many younger vampires are wondering it? How many mid-level vampires get asked by their kids about the Elders and start to wonder?” I shook my head. “If they aren’t concerned with appearances, they’re stupid, and you don’t get to be old by being stupid.”

  “You make a good argument,” Mary conceded. “That’s why you’re sure we’re going to have problems?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure what kind of problems we’re having at this particular moment, though.”

  “It’s not an ambush,” she stated. “I don’t see anything ahead of us. Everything behind us is still behind us. Do you see anything new and unusual?”

  “No, I don’t.” Then I had a bad moment of realization. Nothing ahead, nothing behind… I swiveled around and moved to open the sunroof. Was there anything above us?

  Most drones are multi-rotor things, kind of like helicopters. They also make flying-wing versions in various sizes. They can’t hover, but they have much greater speed and range. Some of them can even carry cargo. One of these paced us, about a thousand feet up. There was no way to tell if it carried any cargo, but it was certainly large enough. With my vision, I could easily see a camera array on it, presumably looking at us.

  I sat down in the seat again and pondered. It hadn’t commenced a bombing run. It paced us, presumably to watch us. Why? There were enough people behind us to track a basketball team through a circus. Just in case? Or was someone else—another group—watching us? Possibly multiple factions of vampires? Thessaloniki and Phrygians sending employees and slaves to do their work while the Constantines had someone with amped-up reflexes flying a reconnaissance drone? Vampire-hunting magi using technology when their spells failed?

  Important note. When trying to keep a low profile, avoid Vegas.

  So, how do you lose physical pursuers, at least one of which flies faster than you can drive? Answer: go somewhere they can’t. If possible. Could we? Maybe. Gates from point to point are orders of magnitude easier than gates from world to world.

  “Keep us moving,” I told Mary. “I need to do some research.” I went back and told Diogenes to fire up the wireless cybernet. What I needed was a tunnel. We were in the mountains. Surely there was a tunnel somewhere. In short order, Diogenes found two fairly close by. One of them was part of a hiking trail—something called the Road to Nowhere. I doubted we could drive the RV up a hiking trail.

  The other was along Mount Baldy Road and somewhat closer. Late at night, we might have it all to ourselves for a while. Then I needed another tunnel… somewhere else. Actually, there was a tunnel I’d seen not all that long ago. It was to an underground parking garage in Atlantic City. That would probably do quite well.

  I gave Mary directions and she pushed us up to the speed limit. I disconnected our wireless and fired up the miniature printer; I had glyphs to prepare.

  As we went up Mount Baldy Road, twisting a bit along the mountainside track, we passed several pull-offs on the right, places to park and enjoy the view during the day. We had the road almost to ourselves in the after-midnight hours. That was ideal, provided we could get our tails to stop wagging for a bit.

  “Mary? How good a shot are you?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Good enough to shoot down a drone a thousand feet up?”

  “Give me a rifle and a stable shooting platform, sure,” she agreed.

  “Um. What about with a handgun and a moving vehicle?”

  “I’ve got as much chance as you do.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “What part of ‘handgun’ and ‘moving vehicle’ did I misinterpret? You might as well throw rocks.”

  “Fair enough.”

  If I had a bow, I could cheat and guide the arrow with tendrils. If it was closer, I could grab it with tendrils in the first place. My ability to exert physical force—or drain life energy—drops off directly with distance.

  Then again, I have a new talent. That multi-tendril tentacle thing. It takes effort to use it, but it exerts far more force than individual tendrils. It seemed to have a synergistic effect, where the combination of all my tendrils became something stronger than the sum of the individual parts. But, although stronger, did it also have more reach? I could stretch with a tendril and touch things a hundred yards away—a third of the necessary distance to reach the drone. How far can I reach with the other thing? Enough to swat a drone out of the sky?

  There was only one way to find out. I’d need to be able to gesture; the tentacle effect wasn’t something I felt confident I could do casually. It was usually an unintentional thing, reflexive. To do it consciously, I would need to focus on it and focus on my target, preferably without worrying about slapping the roof or hanging on over the bumps.

  “Next pull-off, pull off,” I told her. “I have a drone to swat. Then we’ll discourage people from following us.”

  “Do I get to know in advance? Or is it a surprise?”

  “I’m going to open a local gate,” I told her. “It’s easier than going from universe to universe. We’ll drive down the tunnel, I’ll set up at the far end and we’ll drive through the mouth of the tunnel when the gate opens. That will cause us to drive out of a parking garage tunnel in Atlantic City.”

  “You do know Atlantic City is on the East Coast?” she asked.

  “Yes. But I don’t hav
e enough power stored up to get us to Karvalen.”

  “We’re going through a magic portal to the East Coast,” she confirmed, half-questioning, half-skeptical.

  “Sure. Unless you have somewhere else you want to be.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Wizard,” I reminded her.

  “I know, I know. It’s a long way from conjuring lights or starting fires. Never mind. Here’s a pull-off.” I felt us start to slow and I picked up Firebrand. When we came to a halt, I stepped out the side door and looked up. The drone circled us at about the same altitude.

  I crouched, held out a hand, and ran tendrils down that arm. I whipped the arm and the tendrils back and forth, building up to what I was about to do, watching them writhe together and form a long, thick limb of living night.

  With a sharp jerk, I straightened, almost jumped, and lashed my arm/tentacle upward, whipping it like a psychic thunderbolt. The line of writhing darkness snapped like a whip of death, cracking invisibly through the air.

  I missed.

  While the drone circled and I grumbled, I tried again. It’s not like they could see what I was doing, aside from waving one hand around and jumping. For all they knew, I was being attacked by a rabid wasp. Assuming, of course, the drone’s camera could see me in the first place; I don’t show up well—if at all—on electronic surveillance at night.

  It took me four more tries and a little luck. It was good practice. I did get it, though, snapping my tentacle like a whip into the sky. It struck the drone on the port-side wing, breaking it. I barely had time to register the impact and start to feel accomplished before it exploded.

  The fireball lit up the canyon for several seconds. At that altitude, nothing was hurt, not even the windows. It certainly made an impression on everyone watching, including myself. I stepped inside the RV again and Mary got us moving without waiting to be told—almost without waiting for me.

  We made it to the tunnel with no problems and no one following us. I wondered what our tails thought of the explosion. It was possible they were calling home to report and get instructions. I didn’t know how long we might be undisturbed, so we stopped just inside the tunnel mouth.

  I put a spell on the mouth of the tunnel—a fairly simple spell; a spectrum-shifter. It would move all the visible light into the infrared, making headlights useless. The mouth of the tunnel would look like a wall of darkness and would remain pitch-dark even if they drove into it. Since this wasn’t an autodrive road, whoever was doing the driving would almost certainly hit the brakes. Best of all, it was a cheap spell to cast.

  The other end of the tunnel was a lovely arch. It almost made me homesick for my gate room in Rethven. I used some tacky putty to place symbols around the arch. Bronze helped by standing exactly where I wanted her and letting me stand on her. I traced some lines along the concrete and stones, humming in tune with the resonating power I used. It seemed to help.

  While I worked, Mary kept watch back the way we came. No one emerged from the area of darkness. I thought for sure we would have people crawling up our collective rear in no time. Maybe the explosion made them cautious about accidentally drawing more attention. Maybe they were concerned about anti-aircraft fire. Or they were being cautious about finding out if I had another fireball spell in prepared. Whatever the reason, we were left alone for longer than I thought we would be. That was fine by me; it took longer to rig the spell than I anticipated.

  When I did finish, Bronze climbed up into her trailer and I got into the passenger seat. I still held several strands of the spell structure, preparatory to connecting them and activating the spell sequence. Mary, standing by her door, fired three shots down the tunnel; I heard people scream, but no squealing brakes. She jumped into the RV and buckled up.

  “Warning shots,” she informed me. “They walked through the darkness.”

  “Why the screams?”

  “I shot low and ricocheted bullet fragments into their legs. They seem adequately warned.”

  “No doubt. Get ready to stomp the brakes once we’re through,” I warned. “Hit it.”

  Mary stomped the accelerator and I activated the sequence. The mouth of the tunnel swam, rippled, and spiraled away as though flushed. The spiral seemed to wind tighter and tighter until a pinpoint of light appeared in the center. It expanded, like a camera zooming in. It rushed toward us, snapped into place, and the tunnel mouth was simply an entrance to a parking garage.

  We went through at forty miles an hour and Mary didn’t take her foot off the floor or her eyes off the side mirror until the trailer was through. Then she tromped on the brakes and started a gentle swing toward the outside of the upcoming turn, maximizing the distance for braking. We slowed enough that we made the turn at the end without hitting anything and without blowing a tire. We slowed further, down to garage speeds, and started looking for the exit.

  Behind us, the moment the rear bumper of the trailer passed through the gate, the gate collapsed; I had a spell trigger on it for that. It dissolved like tissue in acid rain, ripping and rippling as it fell apart. I caught glimpses of the flames and sparks on the far side as my lines and symbols caught fire. Then all was as it should be—a ramp leading from the parking garage to the street, nothing else.

  We still had to pay to get out, though. I didn’t mind. Compared to the power we just wasted, a few dollars for using the parking garage seemed cheap.

  Mary pulled us onto the road, got us going on the Atlantic City Expressway, and winked at me in the rear-view mirror.

  “We were outside Los Angeles, right? Now we’re in the heart of Atlantic City. Boom. Just like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you do it again?”

  “Not right now. Like I said, moving from point to point is cheaper than universe to universe, but the bigger the opening, the more power it takes. The tunnel was a really big opening—the largest gate I’ve ever opened, anywhere—even larger than the Great Arch in Zirafel. Someday,” I added, “when we go visit Karvalen, we’ll do something much like what we just did, but on Bronze and at a dead run. That’s so the gate will be relatively small and will only need to be open for a moment.”

  “We’re not taking the RV?”

  “Doubt it. No powered roads.”

  “It’ll run on internal power for at least a thousand miles. These camping vehicles always have a larger battery, and we’ve got a spare, remember? Plus, the roof is coated in solar panel material.”

  “Those will take days to fully recharge us,” I pointed out. “Plus, opening a gate that big will be ridiculously draining. If we have to keep be-bopping across the continent, I’m not sure how we’ll ever get enough power together to get us through to Karvalen, much less something the size of an RV.”

  “So, when hopping between universes, we have to travel light.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And when we pop from one edge of the continent to the other, we can bring everything. Okay. Where to now, Boss?”

  Hey! Firebrand snapped.

  “Yes?” Mary asked, surprised.

  That’s what I call him! Find your own pet name, Firebrand demanded. Mary shrugged.

  “Oh. Sorry.” To me, she asked, “So, where to now, Honey Bunches of Yummy?”

  Much better.

  I reserved my opinion.

  “We still don’t have a destination. Right now, we’re trying to perfect the art of keeping a low profile while living like modern-day nomads.”

  “How about Karvalen? You said we could visit. You did say!”

  “It’s dangerous there, too.”

  “Is there anywhere it isn’t?” she countered.

  “Good question. I’ll start searching through unknown universes. Maybe I can find someplace.”

  “That’s fair, I sup—what?” she gasped.

  “I thought it was obvious. All the work I’ve been doing on the symbols and the tube and whatnot?”

  “To you, maybe!”

  “Oh. I’m s
orry; I should have been more explicit. I keep forgetting what I’ve told you and what I haven’t.”

  “Maybe you could try telling me everything?” she suggested.

  “That’ll take a while.”

  “In my office.”

  “Oh. All right. I’ll try, but I keep forgetting things in the press of other matters.”

  “As long as you try,” she allowed, mollified. “Now, you’re trying to do what with whom to where?”

  “Universes. There are, potentially, an infinite number of them. Parallel realities which may or may not share the same or similar physical laws as the space we occupy.”

  “Is this like alternate timelines? I’ve seen that sort of thing on video.”

  “Sort of. An alternate timeline is, for this discussion, the same universe. If we went to one, we would be encountering the same universe along a different line of the time plane.”

  “Okay, now you’ve lost me. Want to try again?”

  “Um. You go back in time and change something. The universe proceeds as usual, but with the difference making more changes and accumulating. Potentially, the change is minor enough it damps out rather than escalating, but for this discussion, assume it’s a material change to the history of the world. When you reach your original chronological point, lots of things are different, but the universe hasn’t changed, only the events within it.”

  “I meant about the time plane. Time is a plane?”

  “Well, no… but it helps to… when you visualize… let me think a second.” I ordered my thoughts. “Okay, you think of time as a line. One second follows another in sequence. Now, when you get to alter the past, you pick a particular second. At that second, you change something and your time line branches off from the first one. Do this several times and you have lots of branches off your original line, all advancing in the same direction. All drawn on the same sheet of paper, or on the same geometrical plane.”

  “Okay, that makes more sense. But why a plane? Why not a three-dimensional thing?”