by Booth, John
“Do not spare me my husband. It is your duty to me.”
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Afterwards we made love; without doubt the most passionate and tender love we have ever made.
After a cool bath, I got dressed and hopped to Jenny’s parents’. This was proving a tiring day and it was only early evening.
Jenny ran to me and gave me a hug.
“I knew you were safe and had the knife.”
Fluffy, of course. I was always forgetting the empathic link they shared.
Jenny turned coy on me, like a little girl. “It must have been awful for you with that woman. After what she did to you at the Conference.”
If Fluffy had talked I was going to strangle him with my bare hands. I tried to make my face as blank as possible.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
Jenny pulled me down and whispered in my ear. “I know she raped you. Retnor’s concern was so loud when he discovered you it was almost like he was speaking to me. And when you had to make a deal with her to get the knife back, Retnor was disgusted.”
Hmm, I could see how it might look that way.
“She didn’t know she was raping me at the Conference. That was the Progenitors fault.”
“Rape is rape, Jake. There are no excuses.”
“Anyway, I made an alliance with her people because it will be good for all of us. I don’t blame her for what happened at the Conference.”
“Then why was Retnor so disgusted?” Jenny’s indignance was palpable.
“He can hold a grudge.”
“I don’t ever want to meet her,” Jenny said firmly. “I will punch her in the face if I ever do.”
Fair enough. I had no intention of ever letting them meet in any case. I also thought it would be best if I was somewhere else for a while. To give Jenny time to cool down and to avoid any further questions about how we sealed the deal.
I looked at the clock and saw it was just past six. Maybe Mr. Griffith would still be at the Woodyard.
“I’ve just got to go and see Mr. Griffith. I’ll be back later.”
Before Jenny could object, I hopped.
Malcolm was putting on his coat and jumped on seeing me. Then he visibly relaxed and grinned at me.
“Hi Jake, Mr. Griffith is in his office.”
The last time Malcolm and I had spoken he was going out with his cousin. She had been his first girlfriend.
“How’s Sylvia?”
“Still living with me,” Malcolm grin grew broader. “She still can’t get over your wedding. It’s all she ever talks about.”
“Good for you. I’ll just drop in and see Mr. Griffith before he goes.”
“I’m off then. Don’t forget to bring those bolt cutters back sometime.”
Rats. I had left them in the palace and by now Salice probably had a cottage industry making copies of them. Well it was too late to do anything about that now. I knocked on the office door and walked in.
“Jake, it’s been over three months since we saw you. How are you?” Mr. Griffith had a beaming smile on his face. “Not counting that five seconds with the bolt cutters. I hope they proved useful.”
“Saved Anna’s life, thanks.”
Mr. Griffith had turned a handshake into a bear hug.
“Jake, you don’t know the news. Jean is three months pregnant. It’s a miracle.”
“Congratulations, you seem happy about it.”
“Can’t get the smile off my face.” Mr. Griffith wagged a finger at me. “I also can’t help think you had something to do with it.”
I put on a look of mock horror. “I can assure you I would never impugn Mrs. Griffith’s honor in that way.”
“Not like that,” he gave me a gentle thump. “Jean couldn’t have children. It was always a cloud over our lives. The doctors say the X-Rays must have been wrong, but I don’t believe that for a moment.”
“Jenny tells me I shouldn’t meddle in things that don’t concern me.”
“I’m glad you did. So is Jean.”
We sat and chatted for over an hour. Mr. Griffith wanted to know how the treasure trove case was going, but I couldn’t tell him. Locating a buried hoard of treasure had seemed like a sure way to make money at the time, but nobody had told me that government bureaucrats would take forever to give me the money. I resolved to ask Betty what was happening the next time I saw her.
I hopped back to my parent’s house, which was strangely dark and silent. They hadn’t mentioned going out and while they might just have gone to the local pub I found their absence worrying. I had a gut feeling similar to how I’d felt about Urda going to Barren.
I paced my room for five minutes before inspiration dawned. Going to Mam’s jewellery box I took a broach that she wore on special occasions. I was probably going to look like an idiot, but I would hop to my parents and prove to myself they were safe.
Sitting on my bed I considered throwing it down the hopscotch court I used to have hidden under the carpet. I didn’t need that kind of prop any more, but being at home made me feel nostalgic for those days.
I took a deep breath and hopped.
It was pitch black and the air was close to unbreathable. I heard someone crying in the darkness. I conjured light and filled the space with a gentle glow. I saw my mother and father lying down at the other end of what looked like a cave. I refreshed the air in the cave and breathed deeply. The oxygen had almost gone before I changed the carbon dioxide back to oxygen.
“Who brought you here?” I called as picked my way over the stony floor to get to them.
“Help your Dad,” Mam said urgently.
He had a nasty bump on his head and some bleeding in the brain. An easy heal by my standards. It took a couple of minutes.
“Who did this?”
“Bumped my head in the dark, son. We’ve been here for hours.” Dad sounded a little husky and I warmed the air around us. It was cold in here.
“We didn’t see them,” Mam said. “We don’t know who they are.”
Whoever they were they were going to pay. I would see to that.
“I’ll get you home. Hold my hands.”
I tried to hop us, but nothing happened. I searched the room for the magic that the Cult used. There was magic in the room all right, but it made the Cult trap look like the work of a amateur. The dense weave of magic looked impenetrable. I sank to the ground.
“Is something wrong, son?” Dad asked.
“We might be here for a little while, Dad. Let me warm the place up and create some furniture, maybe a nice cup of tea as well.”
28. Problems
Dad sat down in a perfect copy of his favorite chair and gave a sigh of relief.
“I can’t tell you how good this feels, son.”
Mam was less impressed. “We haven’t had those curtains for nearly a year.”
That was the trouble with magic; copies were only as good as your memory. I changed them to another pair.
“Those are even older,” she said and sniffed. “It doesn’t smell right either.” Nevertheless she sat down on the sofa and smiled at me.
“Leave the lad alone, Mandy. He’s doing his best.”
The room was a construct inside the cave, an exact match to the living room at home, except for the curtains and a few other minor details I’d forgotten. As it was going to take some time to find a way out I wanted my parents to feel comfortable while they waited. I magicked up a pot of tea and three cups.
“If you’re going to create things, why is this my best tea set and not one from Buckingham Palace,” Mam nagging at me again.
“Because, I know your tea set and the Queen hasn’t invited me round to hers for tea.”
“Any chance of some chocolate biscuits, son?” Dad asked eagerly.
“Food is trickier than flavored drinks, Dad. I’d rather not use so much magic now.” One of the limitations of magic was that you had to know the essence of a thing to copy it exactly. I knew tea, milk and sugar because I ha
d learnt their structures. Creating a ham sandwich would be impossible. Meat was complex and normally my magic would steal it rather than create it. With the barrier around us, that wasn’t an option.
Dad didn’t seem too fussed at the news and poured himself a cup of tea.
“Who did this to us, Jake?” Mam asked.
It was a good question and not one for which I had a good answer.
“We can rule out the Cult,” I said, thinking it out just before I said it. “They have the motive, but the magic holding me here is much more sophisticated than they can manage. They couldn’t have learned so much so quickly.”
“The Elves were your enemy a few weeks ago,” Dad chipped in.
“Not since the Conference started. In fact, all the people who were after me for going to the Conference can be ruled out.”
“You seem to have so many worlds who hate you,” Mam said.
“I have a pact with Malevon and the Valhallans, Mam. I’m getting better at inter-world politics.” I may have sounded a tad defensive.
“Who does that leave?” Dad asked.
“I think it’s the same people who made the bomb. That used sophisticated magic, just like this trap. They kidnapped a child and didn’t care who got killed along the way. You and Mam would have died from lack of oxygen if I hadn’t had a bad feeling about you and come looking.”
“And which of your remaining enemies does that fit?” Dad asked.
The Diamond Worlds hated me more than the others and it was possible they had the magical knowledge. They killed rogue wizards, but they used magic to do it. The problem was, they were obsessed with honor and chivalry while these were sneak attacks, which they would abhor. This left me with not a single viable suspect.
“None, Dad, none of them.”
Dad nodded, as if he wasn’t in the least surprised.
I used the door that should have led to the hall to get back to the cave outside. Then I put a shield across the outside of the room to protect it. Facing the wall of the cave I tried to magic a tunnel through the rock. The tunnel got about ten feet before the magic dissipated, a result of the same spell that was stopping me hopping to freedom. It seem to absorb anything magic thrown at it.
Okay, time to try a little magic, technology hybrid. I magicked up a small tunneling machine and powered the circular cutter using magic. The cutter rubbed against the stone and the blade overheated. The magic I used to make the blade super-hard faded against the shield and I lacked the knowledge to create a truly strong blade in its own right.
That was two to them and none to me.
After a couple of hours the score was thirty nil. I gave up and went inside for another cup of tea.
Dad and Mam were asleep, Mam on the sofa, Dad in his chair. I drank in silence and tried to work out a solution. The spell wrapped around us allowed magic in, but not out. It blocked the exit into hop space, probably by warping space around us so we were in a sort of separate universe, so nowhere in the multiverse was accessible, just like if I was in the Damaged Zone.
That was it. I could enter the transition space between the multiverse and the Damaged Zone. From there I could get back into hop space and be free.
Of course, it might not work. I decided not to wake my parents until I’d tried it.
The first few times I tried it didn’t work. In the end I imagined an invisible door linked to the two realities. I walked through the door and closed it behind me. Being in motion turned out to be the key.
The cave had vanished. Looking back I could see the wavy surface above me that was Hop Space when seen from below. Below me lay the maelstrom that was the Damaged Zone. Its surface roiled like an angry sea and the waves that broke from it lost bright white energy to the space I was in. That must be why it was shrinking. It didn’t have the coherence to hold itself together and was leaking energy across its surface.
Stunned by that knowledge and the savage beauty of the slow destruction of what used to be multiple universes below I stared at the waves and something became visible just below the waves. I was so fascinated I went for a closer look.
Three human looking lizards were trying to break out of the Damaged Zone. A circle of white light illuminated the three, who held hands and were concentrating with their eyes tightly closed. Most of their energy was dissipating on the interface between the Damaged Zone and wherever I was. However, the force of their magic had created a bump in the surface of the Damaged Zone. They didn’t seem to be making any significant progress in breaking through, but the energies involved were staggering. They were like a nuclear power station relative to my car battery. It was difficult to believe such power could be held within mere flesh.
I backed away, suddenly scared that they might open their eyes and see me. The last thing I wanted was for any of them to escape. They could destroy us all. I fled away to the point where I couldn’t detect them. Then I re-entered hop space and hopped from there back to the cave.
“Wake up.” I shook my Dad and he grumbled in his sleep. “We’re going home.”
Dad woke Mam and we went out into the cave and held hands in a circle. Like the lizard men had.
“Close your eyes. We’re going somewhere else before we get home and its best you don’t see it. Now I want you to walk with me.”
I shuffled them through the imaginary door and out of the multiverse before returning us to hop space and hopping them home.
Mam and Dad opened their eyes and smiled when they saw they were back home. However, I couldn’t stay with them until I had dealt with the trap.
“I have to go do something. Won’t be long.”
“Ring your Auntie May.”
Was Mam ever going to stop going on about that? I was busy.
I gave my parents a smile as I hopped back to the cave.
Creating a ham sandwich is difficult, but bizarrely, generating an explosion is relatively easy. I converted all the atoms in the cave to plutonium and stepped out of the pocket universe before it reached critical mass.
I didn’t see the explosion, but I imagine it must have been one hell of a big one.
“Where did you go?” Dad asked when I hopped back home.
“Nowhere, Dad. Well it’s nowhere now.”
29. Allied
I stumbled through the streets of Barren with a hood over my head and clothes similar to many of those on the street. Many were wearing colorful clothes and walked bareheaded. Barren was a city in flux. The city square was packed and hawkers shouted out their wares, creating a cacophony of sound.
I’d spent part of the night checking that all the immediate members of my family were safe. This included an uncomfortable few seconds in Betty’s bedroom where I found her pre-occupied with a man. He was so busy with what he was doing he didn’t notice, but Betty gave me a cheery wave.
I was tired, but determined. I was going to find out what had happened to Urda and Anna. I couldn’t stand the thought that they might be dead in a cave somewhere. That didn’t mean I was going to risk hopping to them, but a scout around Barren might put my mind at rest.
I squeezed my way through the crowd into a shop that looked like a cross between a tavern and a coffee shop.
A man wearing a goatee and a servile attitude led me to a small table.
“What does the master wish?”
“What have you?”
“The finest teas and sweetmeats from around the world. Procured from the fastest ships the moment they dock.”
“Tea and an assortment of sweetmeats, then.”
The Barren of old was far too busy getting witches and warlocks ready for their upcoming executions to bother with places as civilized as this. It was a change for the better. I stole an assortment of coins from others in the room as it was far less risky than trying to conjure up my own. Nobody would notice the odd coin missing from their purse, or so I hoped.
A large group sat around a much bigger table an arm’s length from me. One of the men, in similar garb to my own nodded
at me.
“Have you come to see the Goddess?”
“I disembarked this morning and I’m still getting my land legs. I haven’t heard any news.”
He gestured to me in a friendly way.
“Come and join us friend. We are all just-met on this table.”
I dragged my stool over and others shuffled round to give me room.
“Not yet succumbed to the latest fashions, I see?” A man dressed in gaily colored clothes asked.
“It was a long voyage. Barren has changed so much in the time I was away.”
A third man wearing a full beard spoke.
“Times change. It used to be kill the witches. Then it became kill those who killed them, and finally we have reached an accommodation of sorts with our magical brethren. The sea the Goddess blessed us with has ended the desire to blame our children for our poverty. There is far too much money to be made with willing young hands helping us. Children are no longer a curse but a blessing.”
Everybody laughed and I joined in.
“And is it safe to speak your mind in these enlightened days?”
That brought another wave of laughter and the man nearest me slapped my back in a friendly sort of way. Friendly if you happened to be built like as he was.
“The Cult care not one whit what you say, provided you say nothing to disparage the Goddess. They are busy being wizards and leave us to our own devices.”
Another man disagreed. “The Sheriffs are not so forgiving. Piss on the wrong wall and they will smite you with their discipline sticks. But the Cult weeds out any who take a bribe and those that remain are just.”
“I prefer a sheriff who can be bought,” another of the group grumbled and everybody laughed. It seemed this men laughed at just about anything.
My tea and sweetmeats arrived. Sweetmeats turned out to be fancy cakes. It can be tricky with magic learned languages to know exactly what everything is. I pulled the coins I’d magicked from the patrons of the house and spilled them on the table.
“These two will suffice,” the man who invited me over said, picking them up and giving them to the server. “You should be more careful with your money, friend. You cannot trust everyone you meet.”