Worldshaper

by Edward Willett

  Except suddenly they weren’t far below. As they came into sight, perspectives altered. The black block of stone on which we stood suddenly seemed to shrink, back to the same size it had appeared when I first saw it. The stone benches of the amphitheater rose high all around us, once more vanishing into the mist, which hid the flags I had seen seconds below.

  And every seat in the amphitheater was filled.

  TWENTY-SIX

  SHADOWY, INDISTINCT SHAPES now occupied the terraced ranks of stone benches. I thought I could make out heads and faces and arms and legs, but the spectators’ forms kept changing. One moment they looked like a modern-day lacrosse crowd, the next like ancient Romans in togas, the next like Victorian ladies and gentlemen. They roared their approval as our pursuers advanced cautiously across the floor of the amphitheater.

  I froze, expecting them to see us and open fire on us. There was nowhere to take shelter, nowhere to run . . .

  But the four black-clad figures, all members of the Adversary’s cadre, I was certain, spread out across the granite floor as though oblivious to our presence atop the stone block, blind to the light pouring through the Portal from the next world, and unable to see the shadowy watchers in the stone seats.

  “What’s going on?” I said to Karl, whispering in case they could hear us, even though they apparently couldn’t see us.

  “I’m not sure,” Karl said.

  “Can we go through the Portal?”

  “No. It is not fully open.”

  “So how do we open it?”

  “Something else I am not sure about,” Karl said. “I have not encountered a situation like this before.”

  Well, that’s just great, I thought. So much for my omniscient guide to the multiverse. “They don’t seem to be able to see us.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “But why?”

  “I have no idea.”

  The screen of falling water suddenly stopped, and a metal portcullis clanked and rattled into place where it had been, sealing off the tunnel through which we and our pursuers had come. A moment later similar iron gates closed off every other exit from the amphitheater.

  Our pursuers spun around, weapons raised, but there was nothing to shoot at. Except us, but, fortunately, we still seemed to be invisible to them. Nor did they seem aware of the strange observers in the amphitheater’s seats, who at the moment looked like extras from a zombie movie.

  A voice spoke out of midair, a heavy, booming, male voice, like Darth Vader with the bass cranked up to eleven. “You have come to the Place Between. Blood must spill.”

  The fighters below heard that. They looked around, weapons swinging. “Who’s speaking?” shouted one of the men. He was huge, broad-shouldered, black-skinned, and easily six and a half feet tall. In fact, his voice boomed almost as deep and loud as that of the hidden announcer.

  “Blood must spill,” Darth Vader on steroids repeated. “You are the leader. You must fight.”

  “Fight who?” the man shouted, but suddenly he wasn’t standing where he was. He was standing on the other side of us, and he was naked. His three companions rushed to him, but came up comically short, bouncing off of what was clearly a barrier of some kind, though there was nothing to be seen.

  “Choose your champion,” the voice said, but now it was softer, closer, as though the owner of the voice stood on the platform with us and was speaking just loud enough for the two of us to hear.

  “We have to fight that guy?” I was staring down at the man who had spoken. Even unclothed, maybe especially unclothed, which showed off his muscles (and other attributes) to great effect, he looked like he could break the back of either of us like a twig. “Naked?” (I’m not ashamed to admit my voice squeaked a little on that last word.)

  “They are limited to their own devices,” Karl said. “We are not.”

  I stared at him. “What does that mean?”

  “Remember the troll.”

  “I didn’t form that thing,” I said. “I was just trying to collapse the tunnel.”

  “The effect was the same,” Karl said. “Try. Shape something to defeat him, using the power this island has provided you.”

  I looked down at the naked giant, who was feeling out the dimensions of the mysterious barrier. It seemed to be about fifteen yards on a side. The guy was seriously built, and I was reminded again of Michelangelo’s David . . .

  And suddenly, there he was. Michelangelo’s David, in all his nude white marble glory, but animated and alive. He stood almost three times as tall as the man, who stared up at the statue in sudden slack-jawed astonishment.

  David bent over and smashed him to the granite floor, like someone slamming his fist down on an overripe watermelon, with much the same squirting, splattering effect.

  The moving statue vanished again in the next instant, but the mess of shattered bone and pulped organs on the smooth stone remained. The crowd roared approval. They seemed more solid than a moment before, and even more ghoulish.

  My gorge rose. I swallowed hard to keep from throwing up. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “‘Blood must spill,’” Karl shouted, not to me, but to the air. “Our champion is victorious. Open the way!”

  “Your champion has earned you the right to open the path between the worlds,” the voice said. “But blood spilled below counts for naught. Blood must spill on the altar. Make the sacrifice, or the way will be barred forever.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, still feeling sick. One of the man’s comrades, the only woman, was kneeling beside his broken body, weeping. The two remaining men stood guard, their eyes flicking around the amphitheater, but never looking up at us. “Who’s talking? Who made these rules?”

  “I have never seen anything like this.” Karl sounded grim. “But I think . . . I think this island, Shaped subconsciously both by you and by the Shaper of the world on the other side of this Portal, has developed its own reality. The figures in the stands, and the man who speaks to us, are its residents. Ghosts would be as good a word as any, or spirits: insubstantial, but powerful within their own realm.” He turned to look at the Portal, the sunlight from the next world lighting his face. “Powerful enough to keep this Portal closed to me unless we meet their arbitrary rules.”

  “Blood must spill . . . on the altar, he means.”

  He nodded.

  “Human blood?”

  He nodded again. Then he pulled out his knife, and before I could say anything else, sliced his palm open with a single swipe. Grimacing, he held his hand out over the altar. Blood dripped from the wound onto the black stone.

  I stared at the Portal. It didn’t change. The world beyond remained blurred and indistinct.

  “Blood cannot be freely given,” the voice said. It sounded . . . amused. “It must be taken.”

  I gulped. Then I held out my hand. “If you cut me—”

  “Blood cannot be freely given,” the voice repeated.

  “Clearly that will not work, either,” Karl said. “You cannot volunteer your blood.” He clenched his hand, scarlet seeping between his fingers. He looked down at the fighters below. “It will have to be one of them.”

  “If we go down there, they’ll kill us.”

  “I do not believe they will kill me,” Karl said.

  “What?” I stared at him. “How can you be sure?”

  “I am not sure,” he said. “I said I do not believe they will kill me. That belief could be in error. But I think it highly unlikely. The Adversary cannot open a Portal. He wants to capture me. He needs the tool, the technology I carry within me. He will have issued commands to his cadre accordingly.” He stared down at the fighters again. “Stay where you are. Once they see me, they will follow me. I will lead them up here. And then . . . blood must spill.”

  I swallowed. “You want me to . . .”

&nbs
p; “No, I will do what must be done. You stand ready to pass through the Portal.” He put a hand on the altar. “Climb up here.”

  “Uh . . . all right. Be careful.”

  He gave me what I think is usually called a withering look, then started down the steps.

  Following orders, I climbed up onto the altar. As I did so, I inadvertently put my hand in Karl’s blood, thickly splattered across the black table. I felt a jolt, as though I’d touched a live wire, and then a burning sensation. I hurriedly wiped my hand on my jeans, but my gore-stained fingers still tingled strangely as I reached out tentatively toward that astonishing doorway in the air.

  An invisible barrier stopped me. It felt like . . . vibrating glass. My fingers tingled even more as I pulled them back, and I wiped them again, to no avail.

  I turned my back to the Portal, and peered down. Karl had just stepped onto the amphitheater’s polished granite floor, out of sight of the three remaining fighters on the other side of the stone block.

  Only three. There had been six in the hallway where the troll had appeared; I suspected there’d been more than that when they’d first entered the cavern. I wondered what had happened to the others. Nothing good, I was willing to bet, though not quite willing to hope. I didn’t wish death on any of them; I regretted the death of the man below. I just wished to avoid my own.

  Karl rounded the corner of the stone block. “Are you looking for me?” he called. Three heads jerked around, three rifles came up, and then the remaining fighters exploded into motion, one man running toward him, one man running the other way, presumably to stop Karl should he try to dash around to the other side of the block. The woman who had been kneeling by their dead companion stayed where she was, but on her feet now, weapon ready, her gaze and aim flicking around the arena, alert for any new threats. At one point she looked up, but she still didn’t seem to see me or the incipient Portal.

  A good thing: she probably would have shot me.

  Karl came pounding back up the steps toward me. The man who had run straight toward him started up after him. The second man, rounding the corner of the stone block, skidded to a halt. He looked around in bewilderment, but even though he stared up at the block, he was clearly unable to see the rest of us.

  Karl leaped up the last two steps onto the top of the block, then turned to face his pursuer, but the man had caught up and charged into him. Karl fell backward and slammed to the stone, and I suddenly saw the weakness in our plan.

  Karl was tough and tall and wiry, but the man who had chased him up the steps, though not as big as the naked behemoth David had crushed, was tougher, and taller, and must have outweighed him by forty pounds. He held Karl in place by the simple expedient of sitting on him, rifle pressed hard against Karl’s chest with both hands. “Where is she?” the man shouted. And then he blinked, as though he had just registered the sunshine from the next world illuminating Karl.

  He looked up . . .

  . . . and, finally, saw me.

  He lifted and shifted his grip on the rifle in an instant. The barrel swung toward me, but Karl, his arms now free, straight-armed the weapon. It flew up and out of the man’s grasp, hit the edge of the stone block, and plunged out of sight.

  The man backhanded Karl across the face, then jumped up and kicked him in the ribs, sending Karl rolling toward the edge. But he didn’t follow up the attack: instead, he jerked a knife from his belt, spun toward me, and leaped up onto the altar beside me. I tried to shove him off, but he ducked under my arms and came up, knife in hand, to drive it into my—

  From behind, Karl grabbed his ankles and pulled.

  The man slammed belly-down onto the altar and released the knife, which skittered away across the black stone table. Karl scrambled up onto the altar as my assailant, half-winded, got to his hands and knees. Both reached for the knife. Both had it. They struggled. “Stay where you are! Be ready!” Karl shouted at me.

  Somehow, the fighter heaved his body upright, dragging Karl with him. Both on their feet, they faced each other, locked in an intimate embrace. Karl had the knife, but his opponent had his wrist. He squeezed. Karl’s hand opened.

  Ignoring Karl’s orders, I threw myself forward, grabbed the knife as it hit the top of the altar, raised it—and drove it with all my strength into the top of the fighter’s booted foot. He yelled in mingled pain and fury, and as blood from the wound poured onto the altar, kicked me hard in the side, the knife dislodging and vanishing from my sight as he did so.

  My breath whooshed out. I felt myself lifting, flying backward. The air seemed to thicken around me, buzzing like a swarm of bees. My skin vibrated. Inside my head, I felt something tear loose, as though a deeply embedded gland had been excised with one brutal slash of a scalpel.

  For an instant, I seemed to be in two places. Hot sunshine warmed my skin at the same time as cold fog chilled it. A crowd roared, while birds sang. A man shouted, while wind sighed quietly through leaves.

  My world, the world I had Shaped, the world I’d once thought was the only world there was, faded from my senses. The last I saw of it was Karl rolling away from me, falling from the altar onto the stone block. The man I had stabbed reached for me . . . but his fingers bounced off of empty air, off the same barrier that had stopped my hand earlier.

  One sacrifice per customer, I thought.

  And then the Portal, and my world, vanished.

  I lay flat on my back on green grass, my side hurting where I’d been kicked, my right hand still tingling from touching Karl’s blood on the altar, staring up at a blue sky studded with fluffy white clouds. Air, warm and sweet and still, enveloped me. The birds had fallen silent, but slowly their song resumed, liquid, trilling.

  I was in a new world.

  I was hurting.

  And I was alone.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  KARL CAUGHT HIMSELF at the edge of the stone, just before he would have plummeted to a neck-breaking impact on the granite far below . . . exactly how far below, it was hard to tell, with the variable size of everything in this strange realm. He felt the Portal close: not just close, but disappear, taking even the possibility of its existence with it.

  Shawna Keys had left her world without him. She would be trapped in the next world, alone, unprepared for what she might find there, until he could join her—and to do that, he would have to travel again, an unknown distance, to wherever the two worlds were touching now that this connection had been broken.

  He felt a tremor in the stone. He thought he knew what it meant, and knew he had little time.

  The knife Shawna had stabbed into his attacker’s foot had fallen from the altar when the man kicked her. Karl rolled over and, on his hands and knees, scurried for it, seized it. The wounded fighter, befuddled and infuriated by the loss of his prey through the now-vanished Portal, turned and saw him moving, roared, and jumped down—but his wounded foot gave way, throwing him off balance, and in that moment, Karl drove the knife into the man’s stomach and pulled it upward, ripping him open. Guts and gore poured from the wound, and the fighter fell backward, and off the block of stone, hitting the floor a moment later with a wet, crunching thud.

  The stone block shuddered again. Karl, covered in blood, his ears ringing and side aching from his attacker’s earlier blows, crawled to the edge and looked down. His two remaining adversaries stood staring down at the body of their fellow: just as well, since, with blood spilled on the altar and the Portal gone, he doubted he was still invisible to them.

  An instant later their attention was seized by the sudden appearance, out of thin air, of the Adversary. Karl gasped, and rolled to the base of the altar, out of sight of the floor below.

  * * *

  The Adversary, 30,000 feet in the air aboard a military transport, felt the Portal open . . . and felt the moment when Shawna Keys passed out of her world. He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath as at l
ast the hokhmah of her world became solely his, and an enormous surge of power flooded into him, going some way—though not nearly far enough—toward replacing what he had lost with the destruction of the Portal leading back to the Shakespearean world he had stolen, and to his own Shaped world beyond.

  Then he gathered his wits and his new power, and completed his journey to the Portal in an instant: under most circumstances a waste of Shaping energy which, even now, was not unlimited, but in this case, he thought, warranted.

  He stood in an amphitheater, empty and crumbling, its granite floor worn and chipped, its stone seats losing form, beginning to slump into rubble. At the center of the arena stood a massive block of black stone: what purpose it served, he could not tell.

  Two members of his cadre, man and woman, stood beside the crumpled remains of another. Farther back, a smear of blood and bone and skin and internal organs must be all that remained of a fourth. Only these two, and the two he had left aboard the transport, remained of the twelve loyal, trained fighters who had accompanied him from his home world, empowered by the links he had forged to each of them through his Shaping power and the nanomites within his blood to survive, alone among all Shaped beings, the transition to worlds not their own. He would have to take the time to prepare more, in this world, before he went to the next . . .

  If he could get there. This was where the Portal had opened, but it wasn’t open now. Nor was it simply closed, like the ones he had reopened after Karl Yatsar had sealed them behind himself. Like the one through which he had entered this world, the Portal that had opened here was not just closed, but gone. Vanished as though it had never been.

  Along with Shawna Keys. And Karl Yatsar . . . ?

  He strode to the two remaining cadre members. The granite beneath his feet felt very odd, quaking and somehow porous, as if it were metamorphosing into volcanic tuff. “Report.”

  Tersely and efficiently, the remaining man did so. The eight members of his cadre had landed with two Marines and followed Yatsar and Keys into a cave. They had lost a Marine when they were attacked by a giant furred monster with wolflike characteristics. With two possible routes to follow, they had split, six cadre members taking one path, the remaining Marine and two cadre taking the other. The six had seen and fired at Shawna and Yatsar, but had then been attacked by a humanoid made of stone. Two more cadre members had been killed before they destroyed the creature with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher one of the dead had been carrying. The remaining four members of the cadre had entered the amphitheater. The three who had taken the alternate route had never appeared.