by Garon Whited
“I see two potential problems with your plan.”
“Name them.”
“My transformation takes a while, on the order of half an hour, give or take. Sunsets don’t take that long, but I do. Will this be a problem?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Second, the opening of a nexus isn’t something I can do at the drop of a hat. It takes time—I don’t know how fast I can do it, but the first one I did cautiously. Like a surgeon drilling into someone’s skull, I kept drilling a little deeper, in shorter and shorter bursts, the closer I got to the nexus power-center. Overall, it took about an hour, once I got my spells together. I can do it faster, I’m sure, but I don’t know how much faster. How well can you conceal all the nexus points from scrutiny while I’m working?”
“I don’t know. I’ll consult with the others.”
“Oh, good. Keep me posted.”
“I will. Be ready to come with me on a moment’s notice.”
“And bring me something to wear when we leave, would you?”
“Of course.” Was that a blush? I thought so.
“Thanks. And one last thing.”
“Yes?”
“What are my chances of getting a chamber pot or magical equivalent? I really need to pee.”
For future reference, if you ever have a chance to pee into a magical, miniature whirlwind, don’t. No, I don’t want to explain.
The rest of the day was another exercise in waiting. At least I wasn’t being zapped continuously. I stepped into my headspace and reviewed my nexus-opening process. I could see some refinements I wanted—more surge protection, for one thing. There was no telling how much power would come blasting out if they wanted a major nexus opened. The one I opened was a piddling little thing, about as small as a nexus can get. A major nexus might be a bit more dangerous.
With the preliminary spell design done, I went back over some of my new, untried spells—inertia-damping, variable traction for Bronze, that sort of thing. Without testing them, there wasn’t much to change, but I did catch a couple of minor bugs. Proofreading your code is important.
As a test, I also tried to cast a spell on myself, from within my headspace. It worked fine in the simulation, strictly inside my headspace. As expected, however, once the spell started working on my body it grounded out through the chains. I found this insultingly frustrating. What was this stuff? How did magi work with it? It didn’t have a spell on it; it was a property of the substance, I felt sure. But if you have something virtually immune to magic, how do you make anything out of it? Hire a blacksmith and do it the old-fashioned way?
While I muttered and grumbled, I also wondered about Rethven and Karvalen. What was going on there? If I had a candle, I might be able to ask, but the palace prison cell was illuminated by some soft, sourceless glow. Were Mary and Lissette discussing with Amber and Tianna on how to find me? Lacking Tort or T’yl, was Thomen included in the discussion? Was he willing to be included? Could I expect a rescue attempt? If so, when?
I spend more time getting rescued than I like—almost as much time as I spend involuntarily naked. The universes don’t like my taste in clothes, that’s all there is to it. If they ever make a movie of my life, it’ll need some careful camera work or a cautionary rating. Maybe I should go live in a nudist camp and be done with it.
About sunset—I couldn’t see it, but the tingling was a clear giveaway—Juliet appeared. She brought along a pair of battery-powered angle grinders. I sat down and she gave me one. Since time was obviously a factor—she went to the trouble to bring two, after all—we both started working on ankle manacles.
“Why not cut the chains?” I asked, over the shrieking of the cutting wheels.
“The manacles will still be on you,” she replied. “I can’t teleport you while you’re wearing them.”
“Good reason,” I shouted back, and focused on my work.
Once we had the ankle fetters off—it helped I wasn’t too concerned about grazes and cuts—I set up my angle grinder on the floor and held it in place with my knees. This let me work on my right wrist manacle while she worked on the left one. It was awkward for me, but I made some progress on the right before she finished with the left; she finished what I started and I was free.
“Ready?” she asked. “It takes a few tries to get used to teleportation.”
“I’ll manage,” I promised.
The room blinked. It was faster than switching windows on a computer. It literally seemed to happen in a blink.
We were in a bright place with an Art Deco feel to it. A fireplace burned cheerily behind me, a coffee table stood in front of me, and two other people regarded me from one chair and a sofa. They all wore helmet-like masks and full robes; I couldn’t even tell if they were men or women. Juliet took the other chair. I stood there and tried to wear my dignity.
“We understand you can open a nexus,” began one voice, distorted by the mask.
“Yes, but I’d rather not do so without pants.”
Juliet was startled at my request. Until then, I don’t think she even considered I might want to be dressed.
She waved her hands in my direction and I felt the surge of forces around me. Without the magic-draining manacles, I could much more clearly sense the play of energies about me. Clothing formed on my body, not out of magical force, but out of matter shaped and altered into the form desired. It was interesting to watch and somewhat disconcerting to experience. On the other hand, it wasn’t actually all that complicated. Could I do it? In this environment, maybe. Back in Rethven? Yes, but only technically—it would take days of preparation. Juliet did it with a wave of her hand.
That spoke of truly ridiculous power. What had I started by opening a nexus? A resurgence of the Atlantean Age? It made me wonder about the powers contained within the ley lines, and the fall of Atlantis. The house of magi that sought immortality supposedly used up the majority of the world’s magical energies in creating vampirism among their ranks. If they knew their fellow magi would disapprove of their form of immortality… Could it be they somehow closed the nexus points deliberately to limit magical interference from their colleagues? Or was it a natural phenomenon concurrent with the sudden decrease in ambient power? Did they automatically close to avoid being completely drained?
What if their immortality spell went awry? If the nexus points had closed unexpectedly, then they might have miscalculated. If they had drained all the magic in the world, would they have still needed to feed on life energy and blood? Or would they have become some sort of immortals on the order of elves?
Ancient history, perhaps, but interesting questions.
I examined my outfit. I wore a black, velvety garment of an Hellenic sort—a chiton, I believe—a knee-length garment belted at the waist, clasped over one shoulder. I could probably have walked down a street in ancient Athens and drawn no more attention than any other well-dressed individual.
“Much better. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“Where am I, anyway?”
“Grandfather conjured up a palace over the nexus you opened. It has expanded somewhat during the following months.”
“Months? I didn’t think I’d been gone that long.”
“You were in another world,” she pointed out. “Does time run the same there?”
“No,” I admitted, “but I thought it was a constant differential. If it’s a variable, then I may need to—”
“If we might get to business?” interjected the original speaker. “We don’t have all night.”
“Yes,” Juliet agreed. “Vladimir?”
“Of course.”
It bothered me, though, to realize time might not run at a constant speed. Maybe it was part of the calculations the Hand made in their own inter-universal gate project. Could time run faster and slower, depending on the cycles of the worlds involved? Like the motion of Mars? Viewed from Earth, Mars’ movement through the sky varied on where the two were in their
orbits. At certain times, the two seemed almost to be in sync, like two balls swung on a single string. Other times, Mars could be gaining, falling behind, or even going backwards.
Could other-dimensional movements account for the variations in gate energy between worlds? More energy required to go to worlds with a drastically different time differential? And what happened to a time differential when a gate made a connection? Did it temporarily force them into synchronization? Or was synchronizing the time rate part of the adjustment process?
More interesting, could I go to a world with a negative time differential and return before I left? Could this be a way around relativity and a viable method of time travel?
On that elusive Someday, I will find out. That’s going to be a hell of a good day, Someday. I’ll master magical gates, learn to fly, reconcile with those I’ve wronged, and Snow White will get her Prince. Assuming the universe I’m in doesn’t collapse in on itself and crush everything out of existence first.
“Vladimir, I’m told you need time to open a nexus. How much time?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It will certainly take less than an hour, but more than a few minutes. I won’t be able to tell until I try one. There are too many variables—magical environment, size of the nexus, whether I’m tired or hungry, and so on. It could also be dangerous, and I’d like a chance to cast some spells to lessen the danger.”
“So we need to hide you from Grandfather for at least half an hour?”
“A half hour should do it, but I can’t swear to it. I’m confident it will be less, though.”
“We can do it, but we’ll need you to be as quick as you can. Is there anything we can do to help you?”
“Once I get there and start working, no. I assume you don’t want a lesson in how to do it yourselves?”
“Could we do it ourselves?”
“If we weren’t in a time crunch, I could go slow and demonstrate each step. As it is…”
“I see. We’ll revisit this some other time. Right now, I can feel a—”
And, dammit, I was suddenly standing at the bottom of a deep pit. It was about ten feet in diameter. The walls were black and smooth as glass. I wasn’t sure if they were metal or stone.
“I see you made a good effort at escape,” echoed down the shaft. I tried to see who spoke, but the light was directly above the pit and shining into my eyes. Obligingly, it dimmed. Johann stood at the edge, sixty or seventy feet above me.
“I thought so,” I called up to him. “I see you had better alarms and location spells than I thought.”
“No doubt. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
“Of course. I’ll wait here.”
“No, no,” he chuckled. “I meant for this.”
And the sound started. It echoed and re-echoed, a throbbing hum that vibrated and shook within the pit and all through me. It shifted up and down the scale, then settled into a few harmonic notes. Disastrously unpleasant ones, for me. I could feel internal organs vibrating to the sound waves, bones rattling against each other, my teeth aching as though about to split.
Agonized, I tried to leap out of the pit. I didn’t even make it halfway to the lip.
And the sound got louder. My eardrums gave way with a sick, tearing sound, but that didn’t stop my ability to hear; my whole head throbbed with the harmonics as though to turn my brain to jelly.
Maybe it did. I don’t remember anything but the pain.
Upon awakening, my first thought was, Oh, ye gods and gremlins, how I hurt.
My second thought involved Johann, his mother, and their Oedipal relationship.
My third thought was about how hungry I was. I don’t usually have this problem. Normally, I don’t suffer much damage from people who want to die, one way or the other, so I stay ahead of the hunger curve.
It’s been a rough couple of nights.
I tried to sit up and found I was chained down, shackled at every major joint. Again, with the golden-bronze-colored stuff. This time the chains were much shorter, and I was therefore forced to remain reclined on some large, metallic grating. Various unpleasant and specialized implements on the wall hinted I would not enjoy my stay.
A clear barrier of some sort divided the room. It wasn’t totally clear; there was a slight translucency and a little distortion, as through thick glass. Beyond it, I could see Johann—even make out his sad expression—while he had an earnest talk with his wayward granddaughter, Juliet. Juliet was naked, hung by a chain from the ceiling by her ankles. Her hands were bound together and chained to a bolt in the floor. She couldn’t even swing back and forth. Her hair was a mess, too, hanging down almost to her wrists.
Where did he get all this anti-magic stuff, anyway? Mail order? Or a custom job at some foundry? And why in the world would he bother to have it? To contain vampires, maybe? That would certainly account for having it, but why so much of it? And why not use it in Mexico when I was the guest of the Mendoza family? Was he conducting research into vampires on the sly before the nexus opened?
Johann shook his head mournfully and applied an electronic gadget, causing Juliet to convulse and scream soundlessly. I couldn’t hear a bit of it through the barrier, but I could see the smoke from the contact with her skin.
I reached out with tendrils and got the shock of my life. Literally. There was some sort of magical barrier surrounding my rack. The moment my tendrils reached far enough to touch the surrounding spell, it shocked them. It was like reaching into sunlight, but without the sunlight. Weird, and a painful, not-at-all-good weird to boot.
My estimate climbed to eighty percent in favor of wadding him into a crushed, bloodless ball.
After watching Johann play with Juliet for a while—much the same way a cat will play with a mouse it has cornered—Johann lost interest. He left Juliet hanging there and disappeared, only to reappear in my half of the torture chamber.
Interesting. There was a perceptible length of time between disappearance and reappearance. The transfer wasn’t instantaneous. It was on the close order of a tenth of a second. Was distance a factor? Mass? And could that help me in some way, later? Probably not, but it’s always good to know the little things. You can never tell.
“Well, I see you’ve recovered nicely.”
“I’d like to think so.”
“Good, good. Now, suppose we discuss something.”
“Fire away.”
“You know my granddaughter, Juliet?”
“I think I’ve seen her before, yes.”
“No doubt,” he replied, smirking. I wanted to punch his smirk out the back of his well-barbered head. “I presume you’ve also met others of my descendants.”
“Doubtless.”
“Good! Please describe them.”
“I can’t do that.”
The grating was apparently there so an updraft of flames could go through it whenever he felt like it. He felt like it. My hair burned away, creating an awful stench. My beard survived the earlier electrical discharge fairly well, more’s the pity, and my body shielded the remainder of it from the flames. The skin of my back crackled, bubbled, cracked. I screamed.
Johann was both shocked and pained; he clapped his hands over his ears and clutched at the sides of his head. The flames died as he did so. A moment later, I ran out of air for screaming. He scowled up at me, hands still plastered over his ears, and I saw something deadly, murderous in his gaze. But also something afraid. I’d hurt him with the inhuman volume of my scream. I’d hurt him in a way he hadn’t anticipated. There might be other ways, and the thought frightened him.
He vanished.
I lay there, regenerated, and thought about ways to kill him. It kept my mind off my stomach.
Johann rejoined me shortly. He seemed less than amused; his façade of kindly host was gone.
“Now,” he began, “you are going to tell me who else is planning my overthrow.”
“Some of your kids and grandkids. That’s all I know.”
“I d
o not believe you.”
That’s when the real pain started.
I’ll say this for Johann: he’s not at all shy about going all-out for what he wants. He wanted me to tell him who was plotting against him. He didn’t believe me when I told him I didn’t know. He did one damn fine job of trying to wring it out of me.
I think I’m going to leave it at that. I didn’t enjoy any part of it at any time nor in any way. True, losing a limb—or other appendages, or organs—is traumatic and painful, especially given his methods, but the knowledge it will all grow back takes most of the sting out of it. It still hurts, sharply and deeply. It didn’t help when he traded off between my side and Juliet’s side. She got to watch me suffer and I got to watch her suffer. It wasn’t exactly my cup of tea.
Let me put it this way. If I’d known who they were, I’d have told him.
Yeah, it was a bad night.
Captivity, Second Dawn
It was a bad day.
It was a bad night.
Captivity, Third Dawn
One happy ray of cheer I found was Johann’s knowledge of the care and feeding of undead prisoners. He didn’t bother with giving me a victim to consume. Instead, when I reached the point of being too hungry to answer questions, he had blood poured over me. Occasionally, to restore lost bits for fresh tortures, he dunked me in a tub of the stuff until they grew back. I didn’t ask where he got it and he didn’t offer the information.
Did you know sawing through the lowest rib to remove it is extremely painful? And that was one of the milder treatments. He was really, really fond of needles, though. Neat, tiny, penetrating wounds, and lots of them, generally administered at slow rates—an inch per second to an inch per minute.
Like I said, I don’t want to talk about it. Forgive me if a few examples bubble to the surface anyway. They tend to be a bit intrusive. Remembering them is even less pleasant than relating them.
No doubt he could have inflicted much more interesting and engaging pain if I wasn’t fastened down with magical grounding metal. Spells wouldn’t affect me directly, but he could conjure up heat, cold, electricity, or other forms of energy and focus them on me. Summoned servants could manipulate purely physical tools. That sort of thing.