by T J Trapp
“You’ve got to understand. Alder doesn’t like the idea of being turned into a drone. Neither do I. Neither would you. He has been trying to figure out a way to defend the Earth. With our technology, we understand some things about dark energy better than the orb Elders. Your mathematics opened the door to figure out how to link our world with a zero-point world, which would provide us with an adequate background of dark energy. That is what Alder was trying to do. He hired you because he eventually wanted to use your mathematics to calculate the effects of linking Earth with a zero-point world. Until you were cleared to learn of the orb, he couldn’t tell you any of this.”
“So Alder is trying to save the world. Earth.”
“Yes.”
“Um, okay. What is a ‘zero-point world’?”
“A place where dark energy is strongest. The orb Elders told us of this world, ‘Nevia,’ or ‘the Land of the Five Moons.’ Nevia is a valuable world and is what they call a ‘zero-point world.’ Nevia has a focal point for maximum dark energy, called a ‘zero-point.’ Alder plans to link Nevia and Earth. He has calculated that the link has to be made at the focal point, the zero-point. If it works, it will allow Earth to resist the elves.”
“Are the … ‘Elders’ … going to tell him how to do this?”
“The Elders are not scientists and are not able to figure this out. They want to make use of the high level of technology we have on Earth. They’re sort of like parasites,” she sighed. “Even though both elves and the orb Elders treat technology-worlds like the plague, they need us. Orbs count on finding rogue high-tech worlds like ours and then using us to make stuff for them in exchange for valuable knowledge. That’s why they sent a scouting party to Earth, twenty years ago when Alder was just starting his research. But technology always creates run-away worlds. If technology gets beyond the level that you see here on this world, it goes unstable and destroys civilization. It’s happened untold times and will happen on our Earth eventually.”
“So they consider this – this medieval society where people go around hacking up each other with swords – to be the ideal world?” Alec blurted. “There is no technology here! Don’t they want high-tech things? Don’t they see the value?”
“The elves dislike technology, but they often use the technology that benefits them. With the right technology, dark energy can be used to transport people and things between worlds and even between universes. Over time, with the use of orb- and drone-developed technology, the elves have expanded across the multiverse. They use their high-tech tools to control people, as well as use it for ordinary things. The elves use negative dark energy to mentally control orbs and their drones.
“The elves can manipulate negative dark energy – you know, anti-dark-energy – but cannot use positive dark energy. Orbs can manipulate positive dark energy, but not negative dark energy. Negative dark energy is what allows cross-breeds – like your girlfriend – to sense emotions, among other things.”
She’s in pain, and beginning to ramble, thought Alec. I’m losing the flow of feeding dark energy into her. He tried to reach for higher levels of dark energy; tried to feel the ‘rightness’ of the energy entering her body.
“Tell me more,” Alec said. If I can keep her talking, maybe I can keep her mind off her pain.
“Like I said, the elves have some kind of things that they use to control their ‘orb herds.’ The Elders told us about them – some kind of finger ring and some kind of neck collar that they make the drones wear. The Elders also showed Alder a medallion, and how to make them. The Elders said that the elf rings and medallions were invented a million years ago on high-tech worlds.
“The elves have many weapons that were invented on high-tech worlds. They dislike the weapons but will use them when they need them. The drone collars came from a high-tech world only a hundred thousand years ago. For a while, the orb thought it would be a weapon that would turn the war against them. Then another high-tech world showed them how it had a flaw and was straightforward for captives to negate. Since then, the war has returned to a stalemate. It is mostly a low-tech war with extremely high-tech medallions, rings, collars, and other things fought across millions of semi-feudal worlds.”
Alec interrupted Sarah’s rambling as a thought occurred to him. “I did calculations about linked worlds in graduate school.”
“You never published your information or told anyone?” asked Sarah, surprised.
“I never told anyone because the calculations never produced anything useful,” said Alec. “They create an unbalanced solution and always result in a singularity. It’s as if some missing forces should balance and produce a stable solution. Otherwise, your ‘multiverse’ couldn’t exist. Anyways, a link like you described would create a black hole. It would suck everything into itself.”
“You mean Alder is in the process of creating a black hole?”
“That’s correct,” said Alec.
“You must stop him!” For the first time, Sarah began to cry. “For my Celeste!”
“Celeste?”
“I have a child at home. My Celeste. I want my daughter to grow up, and have a chance to live, even if the elves may eventually take over our civilization.”
“What is Alder trying to do?” asked Alec.
“Alder intends to set up a dipole. At this end the dipole needs to be on the actual zero point, somewhere over in that second mountain chain. Alder thinks an elf outpost might be at the site. He suspects that this bunch of elves may also have gone rogue, and that they may also have lost contact with the multiverse. The orb scouts felt like elves were dangerous vipers that should be avoided at all costs, but Alder thinks he could handle elves with high-tech weapons. The transfer point he opened on this world is behind me, back on those grassy plains. Alder needs to capture the actual zero-point site and move some equipment there. It is hard to move things from Earth to here because we must collect so much dark energy before each move. At first, he thought we could move a few tanks into this world and dominate it. That turned out to be too difficult, so he settled for trying to conquer everything with the use of a few rifles as weapons. You foiled that.
“Alder can’t come himself because he can’t be away from Earth for very long. He didn’t trust sending anyone else because he feared they would go rogue and establish their own little kingdom instead of doing his bidding. So, he sent me. He is taking care of my Celeste, and he knows that while he has my daughter, I’ll do what he wants. He also sent along a few weak medallions so that I could recruit and train some locals to help run the portals at the transfer site.” Sarah closed her eyes and winced. It was getting harder for her to breathe.
“You know, you made all this possible,” she continued, again looking at his face. “Alder would have failed that night if you hadn’t been there and done whatever you did to help him. Alder first created a gate – transporter – to this world about ten years ago. The gate was unstable and very unreliable. He still doesn’t understand what you did, but it stabilized the gate. The gate will stay open and stable as long as your medallion is in this world. If you send your medallion back, the gate will close. It was a lucky accident that allowed him to find this world. I don’t know if he would ever be able to find it again.” She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth; pain was overcoming her resolve.
“If he knew about it, Alder would never believe your math – your theory about creating a black hole – and he will never quit on his own, so we must stop him. Let’s go to the gate and send your medallion back and close it. Then Celeste would have a world to live in. We would still have my medallion so that we could rule the world. I would let you use one of the other weak medallions. You know my new medallion is stronger than the old ones and individually coded so only I can use it. Your medallion would be a lot weaker than mine, but at least you would have a medallion. I have missed you. We could rule together.”
Alec shook his head. “One problem with your plan is your medallion was destroyed in our fight,
” he said. Alec did not mention the fact that his original medallion was lost in the Grasslands or that he had figured out how to make additional medallions.
“It can’t be. I can feel dark energy flowing through me,” Sara protested.
“I am doing that,” said Alec. “I am giving you strength. Let me try to heal you.”
She felt her chest with her good hand – the gory mess and the ragged hole. She could feel her heart beating weakly. She could feel that there was no medallion on her being.
“No, no,” she said. “Leave me alone and let me die. I’m nothing without my medallion.” She rolled away from him, her breath increasingly ragged.
“Please Alec,” she whispered. “Save my child. Celeste was born eight months after you left, and might be your daughter. Alder thinks she is his child, but I feel that she is not. Please save her. If you promise to save my daughter, I will tell you one more important thing.”
“I will try,” he said.
“The elves have a dark energy concentrator near the zero point. I think it masks the location of this planet from the orb. Somehow it was set up so that it even masks Nevia from the other elf planets. The elf concentrator is going out of phase. Alder told me his transfer point might have accelerated the shift out of phase. If it isn’t put back in phase, it will go high-order unstable and destroy all of the elf kingdom on Nevia as well as all the surrounding land. If you manage to avoid the blast and don’t fix the concentrator, both elves and orbs in the multiverse will quickly notice a new zero-point world. They both loathe cross-breeds – they will move quickly to terminate any cross-breeds, and then fight each other for dominance of this world – Nevia. If you want your girlfriend, or her children, to live, someone needs to stabilize the concentrator. The elves probably can’t fix it, or they already would have.
“Please, don’t let my daughter die. Please Alec.”
He squeezed her hand; he could feel that the life-force was ebbing from her limbs.
“Oh, there are passwords at the transfer point that I can use to get in. The answer to the password questions are ‘diamonds’ and ‘pfzzz …’”
“What? I didn’t understand the second word,” Alec said, but knew he was too late.
Sarah’s jaw dropped open, her head slumped back, and her eyes went glassy. Alec could feel his dark energy wilt.
“She’s gone,” he said softly. “Sarah, I loved you.”
Erin had heard the exchange between them. She came to Alec, still kneeling by Sarah’s body, wrapped her arms around him and held him. After a long time, she spoke.
“I could sense that about half of what the Lady Wizard said was true; the rest was partially true but filled with self-serving deceptions.”
“What about … what about the part when she said she had a child?”
“That was truth, my Dear Wizard.”
“And … that it … that she … could be my child.”
“Truth.”
He let this sink in, still staring at Sarah’s body.
“I am with you, my Great Wizard,” Erin said. “I know you loved her.” She kissed the top of his head as a tear rolled slowly down his cheek and into his red beard.
24 – Decisions
Alec and Erin slowly and silently walked, hand in hand, back to their trogus and rode away from the battlefield. Although the battle was won, they could see a few skirmishes continuing along the margins of the victory; the Alder troops were clearly in a rout. They rode back towards the main Gott camp, crossing the pass. Alec pondered the multitude of things that Sara had told him – wars across the millennia, human orbs, Dr. Alder’s ability to create interplanetary travel, and the uncertain role of Alder’s men. And the potential of having a daughter on earth was almost unfathomable.
But, all in all, the day was a victory. The allied Gott forces had won the battle and regained Raner Pass, and the Alder were driven back to the Grasslands to regroup. Ferd arrived at their camp shortly after they did, and Ferd, Thom, and the other riders crowded around, wanting to hear about the unusual battle, the rings of fire, and the Black Wizard.
Having secured the pass, the next morning General Mawn sent an infantry company to attack the main Alder camp on the Grasslands. Unfortunately, the Gott allies were soundly defeated by a reinvigorated Alder force that used death rods to augment their troops. That evening at the General’s council, the excitement was muted and feelings were mixed. Gott and her allies had removed the Alder force from Raner Pass and had developed tactics for reducing the threats from the death rods. However, the large Alder army on the Grasslands could be re-equipped with death rods and resupplied, thereby continuing to pose a threat to the Gott forces. Because the open Grasslands were an ideal setting for the death rods, it would be very difficult to successfully attack the Alder forces as long as they remained at that location.
General Mawn directed Erin to resume her previous mission of harassing the Alder supply caravans while the General reinforced the pass based on his new understanding of how death rods could be circumvented. That assignment fit well with Alec’s and Erin’s plans, and she readily agreed.
✽✽✽
The next morning, Major Voy unexpectedly arrived at the Theland camp breakfast tent, unannounced.
“A messenger arrived early this morning. He rode through the night with an urgent message for you, Princess.”
“A messenger?”
A weary man was ushered to their table. Spattered with mud and smelling of trogus, it was evident that he had ridden long and hard.
“A message for Her Highness, Princess Erin of Theland,” the man intoned.
“I am Princess Erin,” she replied, and the messenger gave her the capsule and retreated respectfully. Erin opened the pouch and read the message. “Oh no,” she gasped, and her eyes immediately filled with tears.
“What is it?” Alec asked.
“My Mother!” Erin began to sob. “My Mother has died! My Mother, our Queen!” The Theland riders eating nearby overheard, and immediately all breakfast chatter stopped. “But she couldn’t have died! I would have known when she died. I would have felt her death.”
Erin turned to the messenger, “Are you sure of this?”
“The story was all over Freeland City when I left, that the Queen was dead. I am sorry to be the one to bring the news.”
“My Mother has died, and …” She swallowed hard as she continued to read. “And now Amelia has claimed the throne!” There was a ripple of surprised gasps.
“But, My Lady, should not the throne of Theland descend to you?” one of the riders asked. Erin looked at her. This was not the time to cause a disturbance within her fighting force.
“The Council has decided to invest the Queenship on Amelia,” Erin said, trying to regain her composure, although she wanted to scream. Then, turning from her riders, she said: “Please excuse me.” Clutching the message tightly to her chest, she quickly left the tent.
“Thank you, my dear man, for your kind service and expeditious delivery,” Alec said to the messenger, trying to remember the words that Erin always used to thank, and dismiss, couriers. He marked the messenger’s slate, signifying that the message had been received and read. Then he followed Erin to their wagon, not surprised to find her sobbing.
“Brun,” Erin choked out. “Brun did this.” Alec could only nod in agreement and watch his princess cry.
✽✽✽
General Mawn understood Erin’s wish to delay her mission. “I must give my Mother, the Queen, a proper departure ceremony,” Erin said, certain that Brun would not honor his consort in the traditional custom.
Even though they did not have the Queen’s body, Erin took a day to go through the ancient ritual, Alec by her side and the Theland riders in attendance. By the end of the ritual, Erin had regained her composure, and Alec could sense an unwavering determination to avenge the wrongs that Brun and Amelia had vested upon her mother.
The next day they were off, following General Mawn’s orders. E
rin would continue to mourn the loss of her mother, but she was a true rider. There would be time for additional mourning, but now she needed to lead her people. Erin took her entire force with her, as well as a few supply wagons. Their progress would be slower, but they would be better able to support themselves. The trip through Raner Pass and onto the Grasslands was uneventful. Once on the Grasslands, they found that the Alder caravans were much more heavily guarded than before; the first caravan they encountered required more fighting to subdue than earlier ones.
They planned to take their riders evening-ward. Alec knew that the war between Alder and Gott would not end until either the transfer gate to the other world was closed, or they lost.
“Sarah told us how to close the gate, once we find it,” Alec said, explaining the intricacies of the matter to Erin. “The first step is to try to find my lost medallion, while we are out here on the Grasslands carrying out General Mawn’s mission.”
“We must tread carefully,” Erin cautioned. “These Grasslands are dotted with bands of Alder scouts, just waiting to find us. And if they do find us, they will tail us, out of our sight, until they can bring together enough of their soldiers to attack us.”
Under Ferd’s able guidance, they were able to avoid the Alder scouts and their nomad spies. After two weeks of traversing the Grasslands and destroying caravans, they recognized a small village as the place where they had broken free of the Alder slavers many months before. They saw no need to stop, but now they had their bearings. The next step was to retrace their path and attempt to find the area where they had been captured. It took them three days to find the small village where Alec had rescued Ilave. Alec wanted to see how Ilave had fared, but they had to wait for most of a day to avoid an Alder scout patrol that Erin had sensed.
They approached the village cautiously. The village had been re-populated in the year since Alec had last seen it, and the gates and fortifications along the outer wall had been repaired. But as soon as the village sentries saw their force, the residents pulled the gates closed and moved inside the walls. Alec didn’t blame them. A large trogus force on the plains in times of war did not bode well for a small village. Erin directed her riders to make camp for the night half an el from the gate. Only Erin, Alec and a few riders approached the gate.