by Eric Flint
“Ahem. The point, Kitten. You were talking about the energy planes.”
“Okay, Mom, okay. The ‘energy planes’ make up this universe, which Wilber says is a different universe from the universe he’s from. He says that they are passing through each other and for the longest time they barely touched each other at all, even as they passed through. But then something happened and they started interacting a lot more. That was about two years ago in that other universe. Back then, time moved differently in this universe. So I’m eight, almost nine. As old as Paul, even though I was only born a few weeks ago in that other universe’s time.”
Leona meowed in total confusion. Magic or not, this kitten was talking nonsense.
“We can worry about temporal distortions later,” Catvia said. “Go on about the energy planes.”
“Well, we’re on the middle one now. The energy plane about half way from the top of heaven to the bottom of hell. The part of it we’re in is called the Elysian Fields. It’s roughly analogous to England in the mortal world, and at about the same level, so to go from here to England is a step sideways, in a way. A special direction.”
“Is that where I’m from?” Leona asked.
“No. That’s why we had to use Pucorl to get here. He can go to his lands from anywhere in the mortal realm. Or, for that matter, from about any place in the netherworld. But we can’t . . . well, Mom can’t, and I’m not allowed to.”
“Why can’t Catvia?” Leona asked.
“Dryads are tied to the location of their tree,” Catvia said. “We can’t travel far from them without special help. When we are pulled into the mortal world, we are especially weak, only capable of manifesting in dreams, even with the veil ripped all asunder. We can only produce dreams. Most of us is our trees. So the farther from our trees we are, the weaker we are. I am freer to move about than most because Kitten’s father gave me the computer that is, in a sense, my body. But even so, when I go to the mortal realm with Pucorl, I prefer to stay as close to the van as possible to piggyback on Pucorl’s link to these lands and my tree.”
“Yeah, the only way our trees can move is if the land moves too,” Kitten said, then added, “like it has been my whole life. The grove has been shifting around to match the tree locations in the mortal realms. For the first time in eons, our trees will have mortal trees to match them.”
Leona looked over to Catvia for an explanation of this.
“Remember that we of the netherworld are without form unless we impose it on ourselves, or someone else imposes it on us. Having a matching thing from the mortal realm helps, makes it easier for us to maintain a form. The less of ourselves we are spending on that, the more we can spend on other things.”
“Except for me,” Kitten crowed. “I have a mortal father, so I have a defined body that grows, and I don’t have to work hardly at all to keep that shape.” Then she pouted. “But I can hardly change my shape at all.”
“Talk to Kitten,” Catvia told Leona. “I have to go to work.” Picking up the laptop, Catvia strolled over to a large tree near to Kitten’s tree, and walked right into the tree.
Leona looked at Kitten and then decided to have a nap. She climbed up on the girl’s lap, curled up in a ball, and went to sleep.
Chapter 2—How Are We Getting There?
Location: Pucorl’s Garage & Happytime Motel, Netherworld
Time: 8:50 PM, August 23, 1372
Roger McLean lifted the Sword of Themis from his back where it floated. It was five feet long with a foot and a half of hilt. It was also light as a feather in his hand. He laid it in the rack that Pucorl installed in his room, then sat on the bed to take off his boots. He opened Sun Tzu, his laptop, enchanted by a muse of war. “Sun Tzu, where are we?”
The map function came up. There was no GPS in the fourteenth century, but Pucorl could and did record each rotation of each of his wheels, giving them an accurate mile count. His internal systems also had a compass, adding direction to the mile count. That combined with some fairly primitive surveying equipment—made in Paris by local smiths to designs that were developed between Wilber, Annabelle Cooper-Smith, Jennifer Fairbanks and Jennifer’s physics textbook chapter on optics, gave them location data and allowed the mapping programs to fill in the gaps.
So Sun Tzu had a detailed map of where they had been and a basic map of the rest of the world. Well, it was fairly detailed for France, but not truly accurate in terms of fourteenth century roads and structures.
Still, the planned route to Constantinople was, in Roger’s opinion, stupid. Especially now that everything but Pucorl, the horses, and people could be stored here in Pucorl’s lands. It would be better even now to turn south to Marseille, and take ship from there. Surely there was a ship large enough to carry Pucorl. A galley, maybe. He used the touchpad to draw a route to southern France, then by sea around the boot of Italy and Greece, to the Bosporus Straits.
“It’s seventeen hundred miles,” Sun Tzu said in Chinese-accented English. “But the real issue is that we know that Pucorl can come here and return to the same point of land he left from. A boat moves all the time and at sea it will be miles away by the time Pucorl gets back to this world. Will he reappear over open ocean or on the boat? We don’t know. And Pucorl isn’t going to take the chance.”
“I know, but what about the Danube?” Roger asked, drawing lines on the screen with his finger. “We can hit the Danube at Donauworth in not more than five hundred miles. Then we buy or make a barge to carry Pucorl. After that we can stop once a day while Pucorl does his jump home for supplies and maybe drops us at the hotel to spend the night in comfort.”
“Time is still different in Pucorl’s lands when Pucorl is not in residence.”
“Not that different. A few minutes a day shorter or longer.”
“Yes, but that is without the distorting effect of mortals left here. Remember, time in our realm is somewhat subject to the will of the individual. And you humans have an unfortunate tendency to insist on a few more hours to sleep or study or play. When Pucorl is in residence, he keeps time fairly constant using his onboard clock and the pendulum clock we bought in Paris and shipped to Pucorl’s lands.”
Pendulum clocks were an invention of the seventeenth century, but that was before the twenty-firsters had arrived in Paris in February of 1372. They had all seen grandfather clocks, and between Annabelle, Jennifer, and the local craftsmen they managed to make pendulum-based clocks, one of which was bought by Pucorl and placed in the lobby of the Happytime Motel. Several others had been built and now resided in Paris. King Charles had three and there was a big one, recently finished, at the cathedral of Notre Dame.
They knew that because one of the phones and one of the computers, as well as an enchanted crystal radio set, had been left in Paris. Which, with Merlin’s place being located in the netherworld analogous to the Île de la Cité in Paris meant that they had an indirect radio connection. The network went from Pucorl’s van to Pucorl’s lands, to Merlin’s place, to the enchanted crystal set on the Île de la Cité, to the phone in the royal palace, or to the king’s computer that His Majesty had loaned to the University of Paris. In spite of being unofficially banished, they had friends in Paris.
“Besides,” Sun Tzu added, “you are neglecting the politics. You know that most of the religious contingent refuses to set foot in Pucorl’s lands.”
The excuse for getting them out of France was for the twenty-firsters to act as escorts for a papal mission to the Patriarch of Constantinople to consider the possibility of reuniting the Catholic church with the Eastern Orthodox church, in light of the introduction of the netherworld into the mortal world with its demons and old beliefs. That meant they had a cardinal from Avignon with three priests, not including Monsignor Giuseppe Savona, papal nuncio to the twenty-firsters. Monsignor Savona had a room in the Happytime, but didn’t welcome the dryads to his dreams. However, Cardinal Pierre de Monteruc refused to enter Pucorl’s lands, even refused to ride in Pucorl, an
d the three fathers that accompanied him followed his lead. Other than that, he wasn’t particularly belligerent. He would speak to Pucorl, Merlin, and the rest. He was simply unwilling to put himself in any way at their mercy.
That included Raphico, the “angel” that inhabited the phone that Monsignor Savona carried. It was not owned by Giuseppe Savona but, in theory, by God. Cardinal de Monteruc was not convinced that the being which owned the phone was literally the God of heaven and Earth, but instead suggested that it might be the god, or a god, of that other realm where the demons came from. In other words, not the one true God, only a being of great power and uncertain motivation.
“I know that, but that too argues for using the Danube. Get other river barges for the horses, men, and priests that are coming along.”
“Eighty men at arms, one hundred and twenty horses, ten wagons. That is a lot of barges.” Not all their gear was stowed in Pucorl’s lands. But most of it was.
“I know. But however we do this, it’s going to be a lot of something.” Roger looked at the computer on the screen. Sun Tzu, a small man with a fu manchu mustache and wings, sat in a chair looking at a three-dimensional map of their projected route. He was scratching at his chin. “What’s really bugging you, Tzu?”
“The river is a line, not an area. It will make us much easier to find and not everyone in the netherworld is on our side. It seems an invitation to be ambushed.”
“Sure,” Roger agreed, then countered with, “but on the river we will be moving twenty hours a day. On land we’re stopped sixteen to eighteen hours every day, and where we’re stopped is predictable to bandits who know the territory we’re traveling through.”
“Good point.”
“Call Bertrand,” Roger said, referring to Bertrand du Guesclin, the former Constable of France, who was in charge of the military contingent of their not-so-little caravan.
✽ ✽ ✽
The phone rang. It was new to Bertrand, and existed only in this place of Pucorl’s. The phones were from movies and books brought by the twenty-firsters, and the infrastructure that made the connections was completely magic. Tiphaine was in the shower, so he didn’t turn on the camera, but instead picked up the headset.
“Yes?”
“General, I think we should make for the Danube. It’s only five hundred miles from Paris to Donauworth and we’ve already covered two hundred. We could be there in another week, or perhaps a bit more. Then we stop, prepare barges and move downriver to the Black Sea, and from there to Constantinople. It’s a little farther that way, but we avoid the Alps, or at least most of them, and we can travel more than four hours a day.”
Bertrand considered. It was better than Roger’s notion of going by the Mediterranean Sea, but he wasn’t sure how much better. Then Tiphaine came out of the bathroom, wearing only a smile. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow, Roger.” He hung up.
Location: Kitten’s Tree, Dryad’s Grove, Netherworld
Time: Late Evening, August 23, 1372
Leona looked around the grove and wondered. Why humans did things was always a mystery, and here she was with a human. At least, a sort of human she could talk to. “Why were you in my village, Kitten?”
Kitten yawned and curled up next to the tree. “We were going from Paris to Constantinople. Your village was on the way.”
“And why are you going to Constantinople? Is there good hunting there?”
Kitten’s eyes opened, then she giggled. “No, silly. Humans don’t have to hunt to eat. We’re on a mission.”
Leona was offended by the “silly” comment, but she was also curious. And, as usual for her, the curiosity won. “What sort of mission?”
“We’re looking for the cause of the rifts in the veils.”
“What are the rifts in the veils, and why should you care?”
“Because Wilber and Dr. Delaflote say that if the veils aren’t fixed, both the mortal world and the netherworld could be destroyed.” She yawned again. “I’m sleepy, Leona.”
Leona let her sleep, but Leona wasn’t a sleepy kitten and this news was disturbing. She didn’t know exactly what it meant, but if the world was destroyed, her grove back next to the village and this grove with the magic would be destroyed too. She needed to find out what was going on.
Location: Farming Village, Lorraine, France
Time: Early Morning, August 24, 1372
Kitten was worried. Leona was missing. She had spent the night in Kitten’s tree and wandering the dryad’s grove, but this morning she was missing and there wasn’t time to find her. They transported back to the field next to the village, and then they were off. Kitten rode in Pucorl, since Paul had his horse now and rode it most days. Roger, Liane Boucher and Wilber were also riding horses, but Mrs. Grady, Lakshmi Rawal, Jennifer Fairbanks and Bill Howe were in the van, along with Tiphaine de Raguenel, her personal servant Jolie, Dr. Gabriel Delaflote, and Monsignor Savona. Kitten’s tail came up and over her shoulder while she nibbled on the tip.
“What’s wrong, Kitten?” asked Mrs. Grady. In the time since they started traveling, Mrs. Grady and Kitten’s mom, Catvia, had come to an understanding. Catvia watched out for Paul in the netherworld, keeping him from getting an advanced education from the dryads, and in the mortal realm, Mrs. Grady looked after Kitten, since her mother lived in a computer when they were in the mortal world.
“Nothing,” Kitten insisted, without much hope.
“Kitten, do you really want me to call your mom?” Mrs. Grady asked.
“It’s really nothing. It’s just, well, I can’t find Leona.”
“Leona? Wait. You mean the stray cat that visited us yesterday? Surely it’s back at the village.” Something must have shown in her face because after a moment Mrs. Grady continued. “Kitten, what did you do?”
“She wanted to visit the grove.”
“You know that animals go nuts in the netherworld.”
“Only in the bad bits. And you know that Pucorl’s lands are almost as civilized as Themis’ lands.” Themis was a titan, the goddess of proper behavior that Philip the Bold had forced into a sword and who Roger had freed to return to her own realm. Roger still had the sword and there was a pentagram in Pucorl’s garage that connected it to Themis as there was one that linked to Merlin’s lands. “She was doing fine when I went to sleep last night.”
“So she is still in the netherworld?”
Location: Forest of Dean, England
Time: Before Dawn, August 24, 1372
Leona felt the shift even here. She grabbed the fat field mouse by its broken neck and slipped through the gap in the veil back to Pucorl’s lands, arriving where she had left, in the grove of the dryads next to the babbling brook.
Location: Brook, Pucorl’s Lands, Netherworld
Time: Early Morning, August 24, 1372
Leona settled on the bank, eating her field mouse and chatting with the brook. It was the first time she had ever encountered a babbling brook, and she was finding it interesting and frustrating at the same time. She knew there were fish in the brook, but the brook babbled on about the dappled sunlight and how she had been forced to change her course when Pucorl moved in to the area. But the brook said not a word about where Leona should pounce if she wanted fish for lunch.
“Anyway, when Chevalier Pucorl’s lands floated up from the netherworld—”
“I thought this was the netherworld.”
“No, silly. This is the Elysian Fields, which reside between the netherworld and the crystal spheres. When Chevalier Pucorl got knight—”
Suddenly the whole place got weird. The hairs on Leona’s back stood up all on their own, nothing had changed, yet everything was different. “What?” Leona meowed.
“Oh, that. The chevalier is not in residence. Like I was saying, Chevalier Pucorl got knighted. These lands are him. The lord is the land and the land is the lord. Since Chevalier Pucorl got knighted, these lands are a part of him and he is a part of them. They respond to his presence or absenc
e. Did you know that Themis herself confirmed the Chevalier’s knighthood? That’s much better than being knighted by a mortal king. She also confirmed his eating Beslizoswian.”
“Wait a second. How can she confirm his eating this Beslizoswian? Either he did or he didn’t, right?”
“Well, no, silly. He defeated Beslizoswian, subsumed him, but Beslizoswian was a demon lord. Its lands were a monstrous cavern below Themis. I don’t care if he was in the body of a van and wearing a cold iron cow catcher, a puck doesn’t eat a demon lord. Beslizoswian would have re-formed in a few years from the stuff of the cavern, or Themis could have cut Pucorl open and pulled Beslizoswian out right then, like Zeus pulled Saturn and his other siblings out of Cronus. Instead, she confirmed Pucorl’s victory, so all the land that was Beslizoswian is now part of Pucorl. It’s still moving from under Themis to here. And it’s been pushing other parts of the Elysian Fields out of the way as it moves in. And land doesn’t like to move.”
“Never mind that. You demons eat each other?”
“Sure, fish and deer, foxes and cattle are drinking me all the time.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Not especially. In a few days I’ll be swallowed up by a river then the river will be swallowed by the sea. But it all comes back around. Go ahead, have a taste.”
Leona did. The water was cool and clear. It tasted of forest glades and fruit trees. Leona was almost used to the change in the land since Pucorl left, but the difference was still there. Not so much that the place was more magical, but more that the restrictions on that magic were loosened. This glade out behind Pucorl’s garage and next to the dryads’ grove was a tricksy kind of place, full of wonder, but not at all safe. She could feel it.
But she was more interested in the fact that demons ate other demons, and that she could drink a demon. At least, she could drink from a babbling brook and the brook didn’t get mad about it. It was a different way of thinking about the world than she was used to. It offered all sorts of possibilities, so for the next little while, she asked about how this whole demon eating demon thing worked. “So does a wiloklisp own the land like a demon lord?”