by Eric Nylund
He crossed to me in five great strides, yanked me off the rock, and shook me by the shoulders—not too hard, but hard enough to make my teeth clack.
“This is no game, Hektor!” He released me and straightened my tunic. “I am sorry.”
I wasn’t a crybaby. Dad had shaken me plenty of times. No big deal. But that’s as far as he ever went—that, and his withering stare that even made our donkeys flinch.
This time was different, though, like he wasn’t so much mad at me as he was mad at himself. I wasn’t sure why.
“No one saw me sneak up here,” I whispered. “Just you. I’m sure.”
His features clouded, and he stared at something a thousand leagues distant.
“It’s just at the Laughing Basilisk Inn last week,” he said, “when we performed Hamlet… I think someone realized I did a small pass, not mere sleight of hand. Maybe.” He sighed. “My vanity, alas. You must do better and keep our secrets secret, eh?”
I’d seen it, but such a tiny thing, it was hardly worth mentioning.
Dad had wowed that audience when he’d pulled poor Yorick’s skull from thin air. They’d loved the trick as much as his soliloquy.
I never understood why Dad insisted—no, demanded—that we keep the hand magic an absolute secret, even from my stepmom, and especially from my many brothers, sisters, and cousins.
Every time we practiced, he made me swear an oath, as his father had made him, and so on back seven generations.
His hazel gaze turned to me and his smile returned. “Are you ready for a lesson?”
“I’ve been ready for the last six weeks!”
I loved our lessons. It was something just between Dad and me and none of my other siblings or half-siblings. When we were together like this, I felt special—not because of the magic, but because I knew I was special to Dad.
I raised my hand and recited: “I swear by the three wandering gods, and may the shadow places of the earth swallow me up if ever I reveal the magic of the hand to any other… uh, and may all my teeth rot out—”
Dad held up a hand. “That’s good enough. Today we’ll practice the small pass.”
He waved his hand and a dull copper coin appeared from nowhere… which, in fact, it hadn’t. I could tell this was ordinary sleight of hand or “close” magic as we called it in the trade. Just trickery and misdirection, a warm-up for the real thing.
Dad took the copper coin and held it between his index finger and thumb. He inhaled and held his breath. His eyes narrowed to slits of concentration. He squeezed.
The coin vanished.
“Check your pockets.”
I did, and even though I knew what I’d find, I still laughed with delight as I found the coin there.
“Perfect technique.” I made to give it back.
“No, that’s yours now. For good luck.”
I turned the slightly warmed coin over and over. On one side was the profile of a majestic bearded king; on the other side were two ears of durum wheat.
“Now, it’s your turn. Just like we practiced.”
My blood cooled. Suddenly my fingers were leaden.
“You know how, Hektor. Go ahead.”
I shook out my arms, flexed my fingers, and held the coin like Dad had.
What he’d done that last time was not sleight of hand. Heck, anyone could have done that.
No, he’d moved the coin from one spot to another—a “small pass” from here to there—traversing the space between without moving through it.
“Look deeper,” he breathed, “past the illusions of the surface world.”
I focused… and trembled.
I knew how to do this. I’d practiced (although always with Dad’s help). This was in my blood: the seventh offspring of the seventh offspring from a line of Hand Mages that stretched back to antiquity.
So many things could go wrong, though. A fraction of an inch off… and it wouldn’t just be the coin to make a small pass, but my fingertips.
And then there were Dad’s many warnings that if I lost focus, I could “break the world.” He wouldn’t explain what that meant… but Balaster Saint wasn’t the type to exaggerate (outside the confines of a barter, that is).
I concentrated. My vision tunneled, my heartbeat thundered… stopped, and power surged through my blood.
The mountains, trees, even the sun blurred; colors faded as I pierced the surface of this world—and plunged beneath, through… beyond.
The underlying structure of the universe then came into focus: the ley lines.
They crisscrossed my field of vision—brilliant gold, smoldering crimson, pulsing emerald green, and colors in-between that I knew were there but my eyes slid around unable to comprehend—all stretched between the very atoms to the outer-most reaches of reality.
No beginning. No end. They just were.
They sang to me, groaning like glacier ice straining, countless voices in a choir of antediluvian tones that were more than would fit in my tiny mind.
Dad had told me they brought magic into the world, and that they’d been here long before anything else.
The lines blurred and slipped away.
No. Idiot! I couldn’t let my thoughts wander.
I squinted and bit my lip until I tasted blood.
The lines returned.
My astral form reached for a nearby silky gold filament. Dad had taught me the gold ones were the most basic of the lines, the ones that determined the “space” of things. I didn’t quite get what he meant by that, but I knew what they did: each of these threads wove a cloth, or map if you will, of where things were in the world. Manipulate a line; you could change where a thing was.
As my hand neared, the line of shimmering sunshine moved toward me as if it were a piece of lodestone and I iron. We met and it felt like when you made that perfect catch of a tossed ball—that satisfying “smack” in your palm.
I smelled ancient stone freshly cracked and tasted metal and sparks in my mouth.
I took a moment and let the cascade of sensations fade.
I then drew the line closer and made a tiny loop of it. I ever-so-carefully brought that loop to the coin, and like a ghost, I pushed it through the solid disc held in my fingers, so the loop protruded on the other side of the coin.
With a gentle tug, I pulled the loop farther out and then encircled it about the copper. I then pulled the loop tight and the ley line caught something “solid” about the coin’s circumference.
Okay. That was one of the harder parts to a small pass. I’d had to practice making the thread ethereal, and then not, a hundred times before I’d gotten it right.
For the next part, I ran up the golden ley line, gathered a second loop, and pulled that to a spot between me and my dad.
Then slowly… very, very slowly I pulled the first loop around the coin tighter.
This action made both the first loop and the coin within shrink.
At the same time, a brilliant point appeared inside the second loop that hung in the air between Dad and me. This point grew larger and dimmed to a mere glimmer until it was a circle of dull copper.
Meanwhile, the coin in the first loop between my fingers continued to shrink, smaller, smaller, until it vanished.
The original copper coin then existed—translocated, but without being moved through the space between—where no coin had been a moment ago.
Before I lost my nerve, I released my focus.
The ley lines vanished.
My thumb and index finger snapped shut on thin air.
The coin suspended between Dad and me—fell.
I caught it.
“Excellent!” Dad whispered and his eyes sparkled with delight. “Just take it slow. There’s no need to go so fast just yet. Perfect the technique. Then we can move from the gold lines to—”
Eagles screeched, lots of them, almost as if they were commenting on my performance… only the sound continued and echoed off the cliff faces.
Dad paled. He turn
ed toward camp and shielded his eyes.
I squinted and saw our camp and many-colored wagons—patches of checkers and stripes and paisley silk—cooking fires smoldering… but wait, one wagon was on fire! Another burst into flames, exploded, and people tumbled out on fire as well.
Not eagles—my people were screaming.
“What’s—”
“Shh, Hektor.” He pulled me behind the rock I’d stood upon. “Someone did see me at the Laughing Basilisk.” The delight I’d seen in his eyes a moment ago was gone, replaced with something I’d never seen in Balaster Saint’s gaze: Fear.
I wriggled from his grasp and peered over the rock.
There were soldiers. Had they been following us? Why? Crossbowmen among their ranks fired. Many of my brothers and sisters fell.
Rage boiled my blood. I would kill these murderers!
I reached for my dagger.
This time Dad practically yanked me off my feet onto the ground next to him.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered. “They will kill us all to make sure every trace of our bloodline is erased.”
Tears blurred my vision as I stared at him—not tears of pain, tears of outrage. Why was he talking when we needed to get down there?
Another explosion—and more cries of agony and desperate pleading, that were then cut short.
Tears streamed down his cheeks now as well. “By all the wandering gods, why did I risk it?” He held out his hands and examined them as if the answers were writ upon his palms. “For a bit more applause? A few silver coins? Vanity!”
I shook him by the shoulders. “We have to help them! We’ve fought bandits before…”
“No!” His gaze locked onto mine. “These are no bandits. They are royal marksmen and wizards—hunters of the practitioners of our secret art. They will show no mercy. We must run… No.” A bit of the man I knew then seemed to return. “You must run, Hektor. They saw only me.”
Before I could say another word, he tapped the center of my forehead with his fingertip.
There was an electrical crack and I felt a weave of ley lines wrap about my mind.
I couldn’t move, think.
“I bind what you know, my beautiful son,” he whispered as he blinked away his tears. “Even if they find you later, torture you, probe your thoughts with magic and psi… they will never find our secrets. But the magic will always be there, waiting for the right time to be remembered.”
I…
I… blinked and sat up from where I’d been napping on a bed of pine needles.
The sun had shifted. In fact, it had set, and the western sky was fading.
Dad was gone.
Had this been a nightmare? Serve me right for coming up here and taking a nap.
Wait. Why was I here?
I searched my thoughts. Ah, yes, firewood.
My hand was closed in a fist. I opened it and found an odd copper coin.
An unfamiliar voice came far down the slope. “He was up here. Canvass the region. Shoot anything that moves.”
These are no bandits. They are royal marksmen and wizards—hunters of the practitioners of our secret art. You must run, Hektor.
Boots scrambled over rocks just a dozen paces from me.
I remembered—just flashes: Dad. Fire. Death.
Death was coming for me.
Undiluted panic spiked my heart and it beat jackrabbit fast.
I couldn’t help myself. Even if I had wanted to fight, or hide—none of that mattered because my legs were already pumping and propelling me forward.
I was in a full sprint before I understood I was not in full control of myself.
…Dad.
Crossbow bolts whistled past me; one nicked my ear.
I didn’t look back and made for the tree line, plunged into the forest—kept running until every muscle screamed, my lungs burned—and somehow found the strength to keep going until long after dark.
This world’s silver moon hung before me, just enough light for my elven eyes to pick out faint game trails… then a man-made path that angled higher up the Mendrinic Mountains.
I finally fell over, unable to move another inch, every muscle cramping, done.
And yet, I was still under the compulsion to escape. So I crawled until even that was too much.
The moon-lit world dimmed and went black.
The last thing I felt was my hand clenched tight about my dad’s final gift to me: the copper coin.
CHAPTER 10
“Mister Saint-Savage? Hello? Are you all right?”
I blinked. No more mountains or fire. Or blood.
Instead, a rather concerned Miss Lillian Carat-Bringer peered at me. Behind her, I noticed a green pushcart holding cloth bundles, boxes, and small treasure chests.
“I’m great,” I said. “It’s just… been a long night.”
She set a tiny hand on my arm. “I know,” she whispered. “You’re worried about the people who were in the Bloody Rooster. Me too. I—I know what it’s like to lose friends.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Thanks.”
What the hell had just happened?
Obviously, a huge chunk of recollections had been crammed into my mind to account for my new class.
But this was very different than previous times.
It had happened. Perhaps it was the memory of some other Hektor Saint-Savage in a far-flung parallel universe—but it was real for me now too.
God, I was grieving for my parents all over again.
Definitely not cool, Game Master.
I wanted to curl into a ball and rock back and forth. The pain of losing him, them, was so fresh.
An interface window hovered before me, and a shimmer of light played over its alabaster frame as if to say, Hey, don’t forget me!
Congratulations on selecting a new class
MAGE OF THE LINE
You must pick two beginning abilities.
Choose wisely, for these will not be offered again.
Future spell/skill branches will be opened (or sealed) based on these choices.
A line of icons appeared and seemed to vibrate in anticipation of being selected.
With a thought, I closed the window.
No way. Later. Much later.
Like after I’d a chance to recover from the hammering of my hypothalamus.
Damn, I missed them all so much. My older brothers, sisters, my many cousins, even my stepmother… gods, and no please, please not Dad too.
I gazed into the cup cradled in my trembling hand.
“Say, you wouldn’t happen to have, you know, something stronger than coffee?”
“Of course, sir. Might I suggest a fine cognac?”
“Perfect. Thanks, and please bring the whole bottle.”
“I’ll just be a moment.” She curtseyed and vanished through the curtains.
This was seriously messed up. Why couldn’t I shake the pain of that memory?
What had Hector’s brother Bill told me? “Over here you start becoming the character, start forgetting you’re a player.”
Now I know what he meant.
Maybe that was part of the reason Bill was such a bastard. If I played an anti-paladin, I might be just as evil. On the other hand, what kind of psycho picks the anti-paladin class in the first place?
Miss Carat-Bringer returned and presented a mahogany box to me.
Inside was a brandy snifter and three bottles.
One bottle was a slender flask with a stopper of hollow green glass blown into the shape of a tree. In a spider-fine white script, the label read: Hardy Le Printemps.
The next was a fat canteen-shaped hunk of crystal, and etched upon it was: Rémy Martin Louis XIII Grande Champagne Très Vieille Age Inconnu.
The last was a half-melted bottle. I could barely read the dusty label: 1762 Gautier Cognac de me. Ah, we had a winner.
“You have exquisite taste, sir,” she breathed, looking longingly at the bottle. “Rather than spring water,
they use dragon tears. Very difficult to obtain.”
(Actually, I’d just picked the least pretentious-looking one).
She unstoppered the bottle and made to pour a few fingers into the brandy snifter.
“May I?” I asked and reached halfway for the bottle.
She handed it to me.
I poured two generous glugs into my coffee.
Miss Carat-Bringer’s mouth dropped open (just for a moment), then she shut it.
Combining such a rare cognac with coffee had to be an act of mixological sacrilege. Yes, I am a barbarian, so what? I sipped.
The liquor slid into my thoughts—smoke and whispers from lost loves and the fading light of a perfect sunset.
I let out a sigh. “That’ll do.”
After another cup, and then another, I’d recovered enough to look over the goods Lillian had brought me.
First, the weapons.
There were a dozen swords of various breeds, a punch dagger, a pair of axes that were on fire, some glowing sickles, assorted polearms (pulled from extra-dimensional cases), billy clubs, staves, throwing stars, darts, even a six-foot-long blowgun.
“If you are interested in the history of a particular piece,” she said, “its documented magical powers, or its estimated value, please ask.”
I nodded but thought it best to first look over the items’ description via the game interface.
I focused on the whole lot.
All their description windows appeared at once, overlapping each other.
Carefully considering every choice here would take too long. I waved away the windows.
There had to be a faster way.
Okay, what did I really need? A weapon that could attack at range, and one for close combat. Bonus for something I could conceal. That eliminated the polearms (extra-dimensional cases or not, their hafts still protruded four feet), other larger items, and as much as I liked the novelty of the thing, the blowgun too.
Ah, this looked promising: a set of brass knuckles, only more knuckle, less brass because they were actual bones, blackened and fused.
CESTUS (RIGHT HAND)
Malinbus, Fist of the Devil God-King
(Tier-VI magical weapon, unique, one of a set of two)
DESCRIPTION: Crafted by the blind monks of Dolodroom Tower in the seventh ring of Hell. Made from the knucklebones of a now-forgotten demigod. It has the color and weight of lead. Fully articulated as to not impede manipulation skills or inhibit “soft” or open-handed martial art techniques.
