As near as she could estimate (she kept losing the thread of “The Raven” because of noises from the room at the end of the tunnel) it was a half-hour before she heard Antryg call softly to her, “Joanna?” Glancing automatically at her wrist, she saw that her watch had started again.
Started at 11:17, not the blinking 00:00 of a re-set.
The dead meppeth – the dead men and women who had been sent by House Kamog to kill the rightful heir to the Scepter, and those who had been killed fighting at their command – Ross Ventura among them – all those were gone. The only blood on the floor was the fake gore spilled so copiously in the rightful heir’s terrific battle with the minions of the Golden Scorpion.
Outside, it was dark, the overcast broken to show cold silver-blue moonlight, and a star-blanketed desert sky.
The little company of students, actresses, and cinematographers didn’t return to mental focus for nearly three hours. During the long walk to the cars – the charred ruin of the second van was missing, too – they seemed to be moving in a dream, responding if spoken to but volunteering nothing in the way of movement or action. Only when they’d settled into a large corner booth – and ordered – at the Denny’s in San Bernardino did Ed look suddenly across at Angel and say, “When did I lend you my shirt?” He himself had been provided with Bill’s spare sweatshirt out of the back of the van, and the rips and holes in Angel’s attire inadequately covered by a shawl that Sherry had left in the trunk of Shane’s Caddy.
Daryl pointed to Antryg and asked, “What’d you do to your hand?” His gaze went to Bill and his dark eyes widened. “And your arm?”
Bill – in a spare dojo t-shirt – moved his arm, winced, and regarded the fresh field-dressing with shocked confusion.
Selena – suffering the effects of a punishing hangover – whispered “What… What happened?”
And none of them knew.
They realized it was three o’clock on Sunday morning, the fifteenth of May (Joanna had surreptitiously checked the newspaper as they’d come in from the parking lot) – all their stopped watches had started up again reading the same – correct – time. None of them remembered anything after about five the previous afternoon, when they’d been packing up to leave the Devil’s Fortress.
Sherry had the impression that there’d been a quarrel of some kind and that Ross Ventura, Wally Bickle, and Rob Tarvell – who had recently broken up with his girlfriend and was known to be at something of a loose end in his life – had headed off to Vegas in the second van. She had a dim memory of Shane threatening somebody with his shotgun – which, when later checked, proved to have been fired and not cleaned. Beyond that, nobody had any recollection of actually leaving the Devil’s Fortress, or of the drive back to I-40… or of what had transpired in the eight hours between those two points. They were baffled, awed, uneasy…
And, as the enormity of the event sank in, thrilled to death.
Joanna ate her hot fudge sundae in silence.
Thinking about what those hungry for power would probably do with whatever friends of Prince Arion they could get their hands on – drag back through the Void as hostages – Joanna understood that this was for the best.
But she still felt angry, and sad.
*
In the ensuing month, the police interviewed Bill, Ed, Dana Kim, Shane, and Sherry about the events of that weekend – Rob’s ex-wife and Ross Ventura’s agent had both filed Missing Person reports – so the Dragon Fist Thirteen (as Spacecookie persisted in referring to them) agreed to back Sherry’s recollection of the events leading to the disappearance of the three men. But Angel showed Bill scratches on her arms and chest that couldn’t be accounted for – not to speak of Bill’s gashed arm and Ed Ashmead’s shredded Hawaiian shirt – and Shane pointed out to everyone in the dojo the small acid burn on his wrist and the queer, slobbery streaks where acid had eaten through the twenty-four coats of hand-rubbed lacquer on the Titanic’s emerald flanks.
“Something happened out there in the desert,” he said portentously. “Something we can’t remember…”
Spacecookie’s VW also had acid streaks, though they were less easy to distinguish given the general state of the rest of the filthy and rust-pocked paint-job. He, too, pointed them out with pride, and claimed to remember: The green lights in the sky, the way everyone’s watches had stopped, the childlike gray-skinned aliens, the brilliant interior of the spaceship, the intensive questioning and the invasive medical procedures. He was eventually interviewed on the Hour 25 Science Fiction Radio show on the strength of it.
The only thing Spacecookie did not seem to recall was rescuing the half-undressed Angel Valentine from the claws of the meppeth, or carrying her to safety in his arms. (“Which,” Antryg sighed, after the fiftieth time of hearing Spacecookie relate his saga at a dojo party, “is probably just as well.”)
Joanna never heard what actually became of Prince Arion: whether he succeeded in defending his people against the jemylath, whether he and Hesayn managed to defeat his vile cousin and House Kamog. She hoped that wherever he was, he was happy… or as happy as he could be in the circumstances.
Did they Veil HIS mind?
She wondered if he ever dreamed of Los Angeles. Or woke sobbing in his sleep.
Antryg, she knew, had traced most of those who’d known Wally Bickle in LA, and quietly kept an eye on them. Evidently the veil spells of Hesayn’s wizards had their effect, for nothing untoward happened to any of them. Joanna could only hope that meant that Nemlyth and his dust-mages had come to a bad end.
And the following year, Bill Podmore wrote, produced, and directed the low-budget cult classic film, Karate Masters Versus the Invaders From Outer Space, starring Angel Valentine.
Based, said the ads, Upon True Events.
*See: “And Pretty Maids All In A Row”
About the Author
Since her first published fantasy in 1982 – The Time of the Dark – Barbara Hambly has touched most of the bases in genre fiction. She has written mysteries, horror, mainstream historicals, graphic novels, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, romances, and Saturday Morning Cartoons. She currently concentrates on horror (a vampire series) and historical whodunnits, the well-reviewed Benjamin January novels, but the various fantasy series she wrote in the 1980s and 1990s for Del Rey still hold a strong place in her heart.
For this reason, in 2009 Barbara started writing the “Further Adventures” series – short tales about the further adventures of the characters from her Del Rey fantasy series: the Darwath series centering on the Keep of Dare, the Unschooled Wizard stories about the former mighty-thewed barbarian mercenary Sun Wolf who finds himself unexpectedly endowed with wizardly powers, the Winterlands tales about the scholarly dragonslayer John Aversin and his mageborn partner Jenny Waynest, the Windrose Chronicles which recount the adventures of exiled archmage Antryg Windrose trying to make his way – with the assistance of his computer-programmer partner Joanna – in Los Angeles in the 1980s. To these have been added short stories about the characters from the Benjamin January historical mystery series, set in New Orleans before the Civil War; the stories that she has written for various Sherlock Holmes anthologies; and a couple of entertaining stand-alones.
She very much hopes you will enjoy these stories.
Professor Hambly also teaches History part-time, paints, dances, and trains in martial arts. Follow her on Facebook, and on her blog at livejournal.com.
Now a widow, she shares a house in Los Angeles with several small carnivores.
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