“Of the murders,” he clarified.
My mouth formed an “O” shape; then, “Not in the least.”
“Do you know who committed them?”
“No. I have a few ideas, though.” I gave him a tight, closed-mouthed smile. “Anxious to get back to working on that.”
“Yes?”
“Feverishly anxious, yes.”
“There, you see?” Arendal favored Turmborne with an actual smile.
Turmborne rolled his eyes. “This is asinine.”
“Where did you learn that word?” I asked.
This time the big man only sighed.
“We’d best be moving along,” Arendal said then.
I blinked. “We?”
“I intend to accompany you.”
I considered this for a few seconds, while Turmborne seemed to be getting worked up again.
“Can you get us back to Earth?” Cassidy demanded, getting to his feet. The others quickly stood as well.
“Eventually,” Arendal replied, “but we have more pressing concerns at the moment. In fact, Lucian, I would suggest—“ He was interrupted as Turmborne grasped a crate and hurled it at him. Before anyone else could react, Arendal brought his silver cane up. White lightning flared and the crate shattered in midair, sending wood chips flying and clumps of food splattering everywhere.
Turmborne hesitated, perhaps surprised by the effectiveness of Arendal’s defenses. In that split-second of doubt, Arendal hurled his walking stick. The smooth, rounded grip end of the silver shaft caught the big god in the temple and he fell limply to the ground.
“Nice,” I said, having scattered another set of my spheres during the action. “It definitely needed doing, anyway.”
Ignoring me, Arendal retrieved his stick and then knelt down, checking Turmborne’s vital signs. Satisfied, he held his cane out, parallel to his body, and bowed his head. White lightning danced up and down the silver shaft, racing up his arms and surrounding his entire body in a halo of sparkling energy.
With a loud exclamation, Arendal directed the accumulated energy outward. Thunder cracked and reality split apart, revealing a silver-rimmed portal, wreathed in white flames. Without hesitation, he grasped the big god under the arms and dragged him through the gateway, then came back through, alone, closing it after himself.
“That should keep him occupied for a while,” he said. “It’ll take him at least a week to figure out where he is and how to get back here.” He paused. “Wait—we’re talking about Turmborne here.” He grinned. “Two weeks.”
“Impressive,” I observed. And it was. Arendal had just ripped through multiple dimensional barriers, all at once, by sheer brute force. He had used raw power to forge a direct route to his objective—a plane several layers removed from the one we currently occupied. Most of us could do it if we had to, though only through a very few layers, and at tremendous cost in terms of personal health and safety. It would merely drain most of our reserves, if we were lucky; if not, it would leave us in a coma, or perhaps as a vegetable, on the other side. Baranak had once claimed to have bulled his way through five levels in one jump, and to have walked away, perfectly healthy, on the other side. I had no idea how many barriers Arendal had ripped through, and, truth be told, I did not much want to find out.
“Time to go,” he said, summoning up the Power once more.
“To where?” I asked.
He ignored me, his fingers reaching out to describe a circular motion in the air. White lightning flared in front of him, slowly spreading to form a widening circle, perpendicular to the ground.
“To where?” I repeated.
“Come on,” he said.
The portal blazed a blinding white, fully formed. I tried to peer through it, but the light was too bright to make out anything on the other side.
“Not just yet,” I said then.
“Why?”
“Because I trust you less even than I do Turmborne. Maybe even less than Barnak. At least both of them are straightforward and honest.”
Arendal actually looked hurt. He frowned. “That’s a pity,” he said, “because—“
He was interrupted by a sudden humming sound, as my scattered blue spheres floated up from the grass en masse and began to spin around him. He watched them with thinly veiled interest, one eyebrow rising slightly behind his little round glasses, but made no other move in reaction. The speed of the spheres increased even as they constricted in towards him. Within a few seconds they had flattened out, blending into one another, forming a sort of disk, orbiting him like the rings of Saturn.
“Aesthetically pleasing,” he noted, otherwise unperturbed. “I can’t wait to see what they do next.”
The rings stretched up and down vertically, blending together to form a sort of tube, spinning round and round him, from the ground to up beyond the top of his head.
“Pretty,” he observed from within, his voice muffled and echoing. “Let me know when I’m supposed to be concerned, Lucian.”
Quickly I traced a circle on the ground between us with the toe of my boot. It glowed a faint blue in a pencil-thin line.
“I would be happy to accept your surrender at any time,” I replied.
He laughed. A silver shape emerged through the wall of the cylinder—the head of his cane. The spinning tube warped at its touch like clay on a pottery wheel. With a slashing motion, he shattered the tube, my blue energy dissipating instantly.
“If you are finished with your brave resistance,” he said, “perhaps now we can be on our way.”
“Come make me,” I said.
Sighing, he stepped forward—and dropped through the grass, through my blue circle, vanishing. Flames roared up though the gateway, filling the space he had occupied.
Nodding in satisfaction, I snapped my fingers, closing the portal I had just set up.
“You always underestimate me, always look for the obvious from me,” I said, though he was no longer there to hear. “I mean, come on—I am the deceiver, the bad guy, for crying out loud. Get a clue.” I smiled. “And enjoy the barbecue.”
The humans looked on wide-eyed. I think they actually might have been impressed with me.
“Let’s go,” I said to them. “That will occupy him for five minutes, at most, and he won’t be happy when he gets out. We need to be away from here.”
“You really are a master of winning friends and creating good impressions, aren’t you?” Evelyn observed.
I executed a small bow to her.
“Where now?” Cassidy’s voice was tired; he seemed almost resigned to his fate.
“I knew the road to your plane was dangerous,” I said, “but I had no idea just how dangerous every other place had become. I am not going any further until I have armed myself properly.”
The humans all frowned.
“Armed?” Evelyn shook her head. “I had sort of assumed you and your kind were beyond being hurt by weapons.”
“It depends upon the weapons,” I replied.
Reaching out with both hands, I felt for the shape of reality as it was woven about us. In a sense, the threads that formed the fabric of that particular space and time flowed through my fingers, and I examined them, getting my bearings. After a few seconds, I felt confident that I knew where we were—that I understood the relative flow of time there, the locations of the borders with adjacent planes, and so on. Nodding then, I sketched in the air before us with my right hand, blue lightning dancing from my fingertips and lingering there in the shape of a tall circle. I motioned towards it.
As I followed the humans out of Turmborne’s game preserve and through the portal, I thought I glimpsed a white light flashing into existence behind me. I did not linger, but leapt through and slammed the gateway closed behind us, afterward to fall along with my human passengers down like cascading raindrops onto the sands of gold.
CHAPTER FIVE
Warm waves slurping wetly against my skull like the tongue of some giant and extremely friendly do
g. An orange sun beating down, nearly blinding me. The cry of seabirds as they wheeled overhead. All seemed entirely appropriate, given the destination I had been aiming for. No, wait—the waves on the head part—that did not seem quite right. The head?
I realized then that I rested on my back on golden sands, my head slightly lower than my feet. As I struggled to make sense of this, a particularly large wave crashed over my face. Choking salty water, I pulled myself to my feet, my senses forcibly brought back online. Groggily I looked around.
My island. Yes. And the three humans lay nearby. A quick visual inspection revealed them to be apparently intact. Making my way over to Evelyn, I knelt in the sand beside her and lifted her hand, checking her pulse.
Cassidy had just awoken and was sitting up. He squinted and looked around curiously, then saw the rest of us and started his feet.
Evelyn groaned and opened her eyes. Kim, lying nearby, did so as well, though I scarcely noticed.
“It seems,” I said, “that in my haste, I may have misjudged the precise location of the exit portal. Since you all seem to have survived, I will assume the drop was not too precipitous or harmful.” I ran my hands through the sand. “At least we had something soft to break our falls.”
“’Soft’ may be stretching it,” Cassidy said, rubbing a knot on the back of his head. “You need to work on your landings, I think.” He surveyed the sandscape once more. “Where are we?”
“My tropical paradise,” I announced, grinning. “Well, actually, one of my secret refuges, from before the war.”
The humans looked around. They saw the surrounding blue sea stretching to the horizon in every direction. They saw the slight rise of the island behind me, with its small cluster of palm trees at the summit. They saw… well, there was not much else to see, actually. They turned to me and laughed, every one of them.
“What?”
“Lucian…” Evelyn shook her head in amusement. “This… this is like a cartoon of a tropical island. It…” She laughed again. “It doesn’t seem real.”
“It is real enough,” I said defensively. “Besides, you have not seen all of it.”
“I think we have,” she replied, still laughing, “and that’s pretty much the problem.”
“Not at all,” I said. “Follow me.”
Up the sandy hillside we trudged, Kim limping slightly. The gulls called again, and I idly wondered where they had come from, since I did not recall seeing them on previous visits.
Reaching the top, I led the humans into the grove of palm trees and then into a circular clearing, about fifty yards wide, that lay at the very center of the grove, and of the island itself.
“It just gets more and more impressive,” Evelyn said.
I noted that Kim had said nothing in quite a while, and filed that somewhat troubling fact away.
Walking in a tight circle, I inspected each of the trees, looking for the telltale mark. It was not there. Frowning, I walked back to the center of the clearing and, hands on hips, kicked at the sand.
“I’m not quite sure what you’re up to,” Cassidy remarked then, “but it doesn’t seem to be helping us a great deal.”
Ignoring him, I began to walk in an expanding spiral pattern, studying the sand at my feet. I had traveled about half a lap around the clearing when I saw a small, gray shape visible within a low point in the dunes. Kicking at the sand, I uncovered perhaps nine square feet of a larger, flat, metallic panel.
The others came over, looking down at it.
“Get back,” I said.
As they moved away, blue lightning flashed from my fingertips, striking the panel with sufficient force to blow much of the sand away.
I had revealed what was clearly a hatch, a doorway in the sand. Folding my arms across my chest, I eyed the others.
“Now you have me intrigued,” Cassidy said. He knelt beside the door, running his fingers along the edge. “So—what’s under it?”
Smiling, I grasped the side and lifted up. It exhibited unexpected resistance, and I had to exert considerable strength before it came free of the remaining sand and swung upward.
The hole that was revealed contained naught but darkness. I grew more concerned; this lack of lighting, along with the lack of a guide marker among the trees, constituted two bad signs too many.
Creating a small globe of blue light, I released it over the hole, and it floated slowly down into the blackness. What it revealed—or failed to reveal—drove a wedge of fear through my heart: A sizeable chamber, enclosed by bare concrete walls, and filled with row after row of shelves and racks and tables. Very empty shelves and racks and tables.
Cassidy squinted at what had been revealed, then squinted at me.
“So,” he said. “You’ve been operating some sort of used furniture warehouse, then?”
“And this is supposed to help us how?” Kim growled.
“No,” I whispered. “No no no no no.” Grasping the edge of the opening, I swung over and down, dangling by my fingertips for a second before releasing and dropping down to the hard slab floor.
The empty racks and shelves seemed to mock me with their pale, reflected glow. I sighed deeply. It was gone. All of it.
“What’s that?” Evelyn called down, some moments later, and I turned to see where she was pointing.
On a table in the corner rested a small, smooth, black pistol. I recognized its design. It could easily be one of my favorites from my arsenal; perhaps even the one I had carried that day in the City when I had been defeated—though I had believed that one destroyed by Baranak. Why such a valuable item had been left behind when everything else here had been cleaned out, I could not fathom.
I picked it up, slid the cover back. It was loaded, so to speak. A single, small, red gem glinted inside, held in place by two metal pins. As I slid the chamber closed again, a golden glow radiated from the weapon, solidifying into burning letters floating in the air before me.
Do us all a favor.
A second later the flaming letters dissolved and vanished as if they had never been. I stood there for several seconds, grinding my teeth.
“Oh, I shall,” I whispered finally.
I picked up the gun and tucked it securely into my belt, where my long coat covered it.
A couple of minutes of further searching turned up none of my beloved weapons of mass destruction. Drawing upon the Power, I spent an additional ten minutes of intense concentration in the construction of a tight grid of tiny lines of force, covering every surface of the storeroom, designed to reveal any residual energies that might indicate who had been in there since my last visit. This effort as well yielded no results. Frustrated, I sought my ladder, found it, and positioned it against the edge of the doorway above. “Someone want to secure that?” I called up.
No answer.
“Hello?” I squinted up toward the bright blue square of sky overhead, waiting. No one replied.
Growing concerned, I braced the ladder as best I could and climbed out of the storeroom, emerging back into the clearing between the palms.
The humans were not there.
Cursing their stupidity for deciding to go hiking or swimming at a time like this—and, whatever time it might have been, a good time for recreation it most assuredly was not—I trudged angrily through the trees and back onto the portion of the gently sloping beach where we had arrived.
There, in a comfortable-looking beach chair, under a large, striped umbrella, wearing sunglasses and holding a tropical drink, sat Alaria.
Alaria, she of the pale skin and the multicolored eyes and the combs of pearl and silver.
Alaria, one of my former jailers.
Alaria, who had freed me and given me the opportunity to prove my innocence.
Needless to say, I was taken aback.
“Why, hello, my lady,” I called to her as I hiked down the beach in her direction.
She waved, her smile the color of the breaking waves, her long, deep-red hair flickering in the ocean b
reeze like a dark flame.
“Hello,” she said. “Nice place you have here.”
“Thanks. What did you do with my stuff?”
She slid her black-rimmed sunglasses down to the tip of her nose and gazed up at me with those remarkable rainbow eyes.
“Stuff?”
I frowned.
“Yes. My stuff. My—”
I hesitated, as her expression revealed nothing but puzzlement.
“Never mind.”
I looked around, but saw no signs of my mortal charges. “How about the humans?”
“What about them?”
She sipped at her drink, her eyes never leaving mine.
Pursing my lips, I turned, searching all around. Nothing.
“Have you misplaced your companions?” she asked.
“I don’t know if that’s the term I would use for them,” I replied absently, still looking around. “But you will forgive me if I ask you about them, seeing as how you and I seem to be the only ones currently occupying this island—or this universe.”
She shrugged.
“I have not seen them, I assure you. I merely came here on the off chance you might stop by. Little did I know you were already here.”
Something—some nagging voice deep in my subconscious—told me to doubt her on that score. But I did not pursue it.
“So,” she said, “how are you faring with your investigation?”
I laughed.
“There hasn’t been much of an investigation, so far.”
In response to her questioning look, I explained, “From the moment the humans and I left the dungeons, we have been mostly on the run. Very little time for much beyond staying a step ahead of the posse. Not to mention all the others who would like to see me caught and convicted on general principles.”
“Ah.” She nodded once. Then she bit her lip, her prismatic eyes sparkling even more vividly than usual. “Perhaps I can be of assistance in that area. I shall see what I can do.”
I bowed. “Much appreciated.”
She smiled a very faint smile then, for only a second. Then, “Baranak travels all the wrong roads in search of you. As I thought he would.”
Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming (The Above Book 1) Page 8