by Lyndon Hardy
As they fell, the speed of their descent quickened. Hands thrust out to the side for balance rapidly were withdrawn. They were moving too fast. Bare flesh could not withstand the friction. Even their pant legs were beginning to fray and tatter.
“Don’t try to sit up,” Jake cried over the racket of the tumbling stones. “You will go head over heels.”
Briana did not answer. She heard another sound — the start of a truck engine from where the Mafioso had camped on the slope above. Their escape had been discovered. The thugs were going to race down the road and meet them where the ground again became level.
She tried to relay this to Jake, but now the noise was too loud, the speed too terrifyingly swift. Like runaway luges, the pair plummeted faster and faster.
Then as abruptly as it had started, the rush of momentum stopped. The ground leveled. They skidded to a halt. Reflexively, they both stood, trying to push out of their minds what it was going to feel like when the numbness of the scraped away flesh wore off.
But no time for that now, Briana’s thoughts raced. The Mafioso were still coming after them. The growl of the truck’s engine protesting the descent in a low gear grew louder and louder. She looked upwards again. There was a shadow overhead.
“The gondola car. It is parked right here. Maybe they won’t think to look.”
Jake nodded, and the two climbed the staircase zigging back and forth from the ground to the gondola.
“Your remote,” Briana said as they caught their breaths and sagged to the floor, then abruptly stood again as exposed flesh touched the bare metal. “Use it. Start the car. Turn on the headlights.”
Jake nodded, dug the key fob out of his pocket, and pointed it farther down slope to the retreat’s parking lot.
“I hope this thing has sufficient range to — ”
His words were caught short by the deep growl of the Maserati starting up. Peering over the rim of the gondola’s side panel, they held hands and hoped as their pursuers pulled up next to the rental car, their flashlights swinging back and forth across the lot, looking for the prisoners who had escaped them.
“Now the phone,” Briana said. “Connect to Ashley. Tell her to zero in on us. Send the portal right away. Right up next to this gondola’s door.”
She hurt everywhere but ignored the pain. She looked about one last time. “We are getting away but did not stop anything. Let’s hope that Maurice and Fig have done better.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Jake whispered. “If we had not gotten away, I would have….
“The portal!” Briana commanded. “The portal. Now!
Words of the Master
MAURICE STARED back at the shaman. His entire body ached from the effort to lug the gas cylinders to this camp high in the central ridge of mountains running the length of Bougainville Island. His shoulders and back bled from blisters and cracked calluses caused by the chafe of the harness. Hazy smoke rose from Mount Bagana in the distance, polluting an otherwise crystal blue sky with a low haze like a mistake made by a beginning painter. The crater was still too far off to be seen, but in another day and they would be at its rim.
The remains of an evening meal campfire sputtered between Maurice and the one who squinted in the quickening dusk to examine him. The medicine man was wrinkled head to toe as if he were a prune left in the sun far too long. His eyes were rheumy as if fed from hidden springs within his skull. Fig and most of the others around the fire were already asleep.
“Which tribe?” the shaman said in English.
“I have no tribe. What do you mean?”
“You are not like the others.” The old man pointed at Fig curled in a ball nearby. “Not like that one or the other whites who come from the biggest of all islands. ‘Mediating peace,’ they say. ‘We are here to help’. But they are not. None of us believes that. Their purpose is to reopen the copper mine. To make their own pockets bulge. Nothing for us, the ones who are the rightful owners.”
“The bottles are not empty,” Maurice said. “They contain sulfurhexa… bad air. Harmful air. It will make all of your land hot and sick. It will be as if Bagana’s rivers of fire had covered everything.”
“If we do not feed the long, empty tubes to Bagana, then we will not get the rest of the rifles we are promised — even if I speak the words as I have been told.”
“Words? What words?”
The shaman reached into the shirt he had stuffed into trousers two sizes too small. He fumbled for a moment and withdrew a sheaf of papers, all wrinkled and creased. “Here,” he said. “I do not understand any of them. Tell me. What do they say?”
Maurice took the top sheet from the offered pile, bent forward to get nearer the fire and began mouthing the words. “I do not understand them either.” He shook his head.
The healer grunted. “Performing labor in exchange for goods, I do understand,” he said. “But saying strange words without knowing their meaning is not a good thing to do.
“Tomorrow, we are to go to Bagana’s rim and send back word by runner that we have arrived. Then when we get a reply, I am to speak the words into the crater and report back that I have done so. Speak all the words except for the very last three. Those I deliver when a second message comes several days later.”
Maurice felt a sudden flash of hope. “I think they are the words of a powerful spell. They are the ones that will cause the disaster to happen.” He considered what he should say next. “You have been given a great responsibility, and you must choose wisely.”
“And what choice is that?”
“Whether or not to dump the… the long hollow tubes into the volcano, to chant any spell when that has been done.”
“Simple enough tasks for twenty more rifles.”
“No. A wise follower of the Buddha has said ‘If you can, help others; if you cannot, at least do them no harm.’“
The shaman peered more closely at Maurice. “Is your name Buddha? Are you the leader of your tribe?”
Maurice shook his head. “Not me. Buddha says ‘No man is a leader until his appointment is ratified in the hearts and minds of his men.’“
“Then what else? What else does this Buddha say?”
“Many things.” Maurice’s thoughts raced. Was there a possibility he could convince this shaman not to act as he intended? “You will not be punished for your anger. You will be punished by your anger’;’Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts’; ‘What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.’“
“Enough! Stop! Your words seem deep, but I think they must be pondered a great while before one acts according to them.”
“Exactly so. It is not easy. I have been struggling myself for… well, for years.”
“All of these words, how many are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nevertheless, I see your fervor. I judge you do speak from the heart.”
“Then you will not feed the volcano or say the evil words?”
“Oh, no. We will continue on that path. Twenty rifles are worth far more than even thousands of words.”
Maurice slumped. Of course. He was not the master of a temple. He did not have the skill to convince others. Doubts cluttered his own path every step of the way. The shaman must see the defeat in my eyes.
“I will fetch paper and pencil,” the old man said. “Write down all of the sayings your Buddha expounds so I can study them. The world changes. Even a shaman must keep abreast of the new.”
“Why should I — ”
The medicine man held up his hand for Maurice to stop. “Do as I say, and I will then let you and your companion go free — back into your world to seek truth along paths of your own.”
No More Waiting
ASHLEY TURNED her head from Briana’s glare. The rescue of Jake and the younger woman had been successful, but from Briana’s attitude, one would never guess it.
“We can’t wait any longer
for Fig and Maurice,” Briana said. “We have been overtaken by events. We have to act now. At least two of the volcanoes have been seeded. Maybe even all three. The man in the hoodie could very well be our last hope.” She paced back and forth in small circles across the street from the warehouse in Hilo. Like a primitive thermostat, she spent as much time in the sun as in the shade.
Ashley fingered the heavy and uncomfortable Kevlar vest she wore. It reminded her of a girdle she had once tried on years ago when the pounds had first started to accumulate. The miner’s lamp from the surplus store felt uneasy on her head. But she did not complain. None of the others, similarly clad, were not.
Jake took a few tentative swings with the sword Briana had directed him to procure. Purchased as a trio from a pawnshop with his new credit card. The charges from Etna had not triggered an alarm.
But makeshift armor? Ashley asked herself. And after only a few hours of Briana’s sketchy training? The younger woman put on a good air about her expertise, but it was clear what she knew had been learned by watching, not real use.
Ashley shook her head. But then neither was Briana a coward. That was very clear, too. The daughter of an archimage was driven by some inner force, and whatever it was, it was infectious.
“There are the four thuglings on the loading dock,” Ashley tried to temporize. “We are not sure if there is more than one hoodie-wearer inside. I don’t see how we could force one of them to tell us where the seven hundred exiles are.”
“It’s our only option now.” Briana stopped her next circuit into the sun. “The SF6 has been deployed. We have to figure out who is slated to intone the incantation that starts the catalytic reaction.”
“Yes, but — ” Ashley began.
“Let me finish,” Briana snapped. “Normally, the energy of the volcanoes fuels gentle venting and small lava flows. Once the spell is completed, however, the trapped power is bound only to the SF6 creation and nothing else. Any not used accumulates — no place to go, no way to dissipate. This is mere thaumaturgy we are talking about here, not intricate magic rituals. And when the release happens, there will be eruptions, tremendous ones, spewing the SF6 into the air.”
“Calm down a bit, Briana,” Jake said. “We get it. Really, both of us do. But as Ashley has argued, until we can locate the seven hundred or so exiles, they always will be the threat. Probably any one of them could work the charm. We have to find out where they all are.”
“Incantation, not charm,” Briana snapped again. She frowned. “Oh, sorry. That doesn’t make any difference, does it?” She tugged at her hair. “So, we crash the building. Do something like, I don’t know, lock the loading dock door so the thuglings remain outside. Force hoodie-man to tell us where the exiles are.”
“How? Torture?” Ashley asked.
“No. Not that, of course!” Briana’s eyes widened in shock. She was silent for a moment and then spoke more calmly. “Well, I guess, yes, it might require brutal force.” A faraway look came over her face. “Although, I don’t remember any of the sagas talking about the use of such a thing.”
Jake’s phone rang.
“Hello? Yes, Maurice. Where are you?” He waited for a second and then echoed what he was hearing for Briana and Ashley. “Back in Port Moresby. Both you and Fig? Great! But no hordes of white-swathed mummies. The SF6 will be dropped into Mount Bagana soon.”
“Tell him to go to the very spot at which we dropped him off,” Briana said. “The portal door will appear right away. And when the two of them join us, we will go ahead and attack.” She pulled the setter out of her pack and began entering the settings.
A few moments later, the portal door opened right on the sidewalk where they stood. Fig stepped out and smiled. Briana shut the opening, and the four waited for Maurice to pop through as soon as he realized the lock on his end had disengaged.
A minute passed and then another, but Maurice did not appear. Jake punched Maurice’s number. “Hey, buddy, what’s the hang-up? Come on through. We don’t want the door on your end to start attracting attention.”
“Something must have gone wrong,” Maurice’s voice came out of Jake’s phone. “You are outside of the warehouse in Hilo, right?”
“Yeah. Fig just came through.”
“I’m here in Hawaii, too,” Maurice said. “But not with you guys. It looks like I’m standing right outside of what Briana described as Oscar’s shack.”
Briana stabbed at the setter, re-entering their location and set the countdown to only a few seconds.
“The display,” she said in a puzzled voice as she pressed the keys. “All of a sudden, it’s frozen.”
“Maurice! Maurice!” Jake shouted into the phone. “Where are you again?”
Interplanetary Stowaway
MAURICE CAUTIOUSLY approached the door of the shack, put his ear to it, and then drew back from the surprising heat. He looked up toward the sun. It was partially hidden by the lush green overgrowth arching over the small structure. Not the sun then. The heat was coming from the inside.
The Buddhist knocked tentatively and then with more force, but there was no answer. His last blows pushed the door inward from the jamb, and he entered. A blast of hot air jogged his memory. Papers littered the floor, and in one corner was a coiled pile at his feet brilliant white cloth. Yes, definitely Oscar’s shack, he thought. This is how Briana had described it. Somehow the portal must have slipped a cog and arrived at a previous destination.
He was about to call back to the others again when through the open door he saw some movement up the trail. More swathing! Someone was coming. Maurice pushed the door shut again and raced to one of the grime-encrusted windows. Peering through a small spot less fogged than the rest, he watched the figure lumber closer and closer. Could it be? Was he watching the approach of one of the aliens Briana wanted to find?
Maurice sprang up, raced into the kitchen, and began pulling open drawers. There was a paring knife in one, but nothing more substantial. It would have to do. He grabbed it and returned to his crouch by the door. The figure continued laboriously coming nearer, close enough that Maurice could tell the being was unarmed — at least on the outside of his covering.
The Buddhist eyed the doorframe. The hinges were on the side nearest him. When it opened and the creature entered, it would not see him waiting there. But should he strike? And if so, where? Hold the blade of the knife against where the neck might be? Push it inward until he could feel the resistance of…
Maurice stopped the train of his thoughts. What was he thinking? This was not the teaching of Siddhartha. The beast, if that indeed what he was watching, continued past the shack’s door and opened the one to the portal standing nearby. It shut itself inside, and the door shimmered for a moment immediately after.
Back along the trail, a second swathed alien appeared. A third trailed a short distance behind. The Buddhist phoned Briana and began whispering rapidly. “I have found them. I have found the ones you are looking for. They are coming out of the underground, and then, one by one, going into the portal.”
“It can only transport a single person at a time,” Briana said over the phone. “Keep watching. There may be more. When I can get my setter working again, I will let you know.”
“Right,” Maurice said. He settled on the floor, crossed his legs, and made himself comfortable. It was like meditation — no, more like an inverted glove. He had to keep focused outward rather than into the depths of his own mind.
The second exile entered the portal and shortly thereafter the third. On the trail, four or five more appeared. Maurice rummaged through the papers on the floor, found a pencil, and began marking the number that passed. Briana had said there were about seven hundred, he remembered. Could they all have been nearby the entire time?
“SEVEN HUNDRED twenty-seven,” Maurice mumbled aloud when the procession stopped several hours later. It was true. They had been here, all of them. But now they had gone to…
Maurice could
not speculate. It was so outside of his experience. He phoned Briana with a final update and was preparing to ask her what to do next when one more swathed figure appeared on the path. This one walked slower than the rest. Unlike the others, he was bent over like an old man and appeared to be gesturing to something on the ground in front of him. The Buddhist stood on tiptoe as the being came closer and peered out of another spot near the top of the window. It was a hole! A hole in the ground that somehow moved along the path in pace with the exile.
This last being stopped before the portal, just as had the others. But rather than pull open the door, it remained still, shrouded head tilted downward and peering into the hollow. Maurice blinked. He heard voices. The alien was talking to someone… something… in the opening.
“I am giving you your freedom,” the swathed being said. “Go! Be off! Feel the freedom of doing what you will. I am no longer trying to dominate you.”
English? The being was speaking in English!
“Well, it is not quite that simple, Boss.” Another voice answered from the cavity. “You see, it gets pretty boring down here without something to do. And as wizards go, aren’t too bad. Except for the business of trading with the air imps, you never gave us a distasteful task. No dabbling in world domination — that kind of stuff.”
The being laughed. “But I am, Littlebutt. I am. Not on this world but another. And if there were a way to take you there with me — ”
“But there is, Boss. There is! All you need to do is find a big enough boulder, and, one by one, we drift inside it. Then you roll the rock into the doorway thingy and have someone else roll it out wherever it is you are going. The limitation of one at a time does not apply to us since it is the demon realm that the portal loops through. It would be a piece of quartz, as we say.”
“I am the last one, Littlebutt. The others have already gone. Well, all except for Dinton. My stubborn elder brother elected to remain until the climate here changes even though his own mate has elected to return. And I alone have insufficient strength to push around large rocks as you suggest.”