Rune Warrior

by Frank Morin

  It also mattered who made the changes. Gregorios and Eirene were the only ones who could alter major details of the memoryscape, but the others were not completely helpless. They could make small changes, particularly personal things like their outfits or weapons. But the effect of Sarah summoning a pistol was more severe than if Gregorios summoned it for her.

  As Sarah ran up a cobbled street between shops overflowing with bright-colored fabrics, she suddenly felt like she was being watched. She slowed and looked around. The street was busy and most of the locals who passed close to her scowled, but the feeling was coming from something else.

  After a moment’s consideration, she oriented on a man sitting on a nearby bench. A wide-brimmed hat that did not quite fit with the styles of the day, covered his face. Sarah slowly approached, despite a growing feeling of unease. Something was definitely off about this man. As she approached, he slowly raised his head. In a moment she would get a glimpse of his face, but suddenly she didn’t want to.

  Alter raced around a nearby corner, startling her out of the momentary lapse.

  “Need to move faster than that to keep ahead of me, Sarah!” A weighted net appeared in his hands and he threw it.

  Sarah leaped straight up to a nearby roof, frustrated and relieved at the same time by the interruption. Alter leaped after her, so she imagined a large brick in the air just above his head.

  Alter crashed into the brick and the impact knocked him out of the air. He tumbled to the pavement just as Tomas appeared around the next corner.

  Tomas charged, a baseball bat appearing in his hands. He caught Alter in the chest with the first swing, and the blow swept Alter off his feet. He flew right through a nearby window.

  Several locals jumped Tomas from behind.

  He fought them off and shouted, “Go, Sarah! We don’t have much more time.”

  She raced north across the rooftops but glanced back to the spot where the strange man had sat. He was gone. Sarah chided herself for worrying about it.

  She exulted in the experience of racing across the tiled roofs toward the towering Duomo, and bent her thoughts to figuring out where Eirene would have hidden the flag. Only one location made sense, so she launched off the end of the last roof and soared across the piazza to the Campanile di Giotto, the square, free-standing tower that stood adjacent to the basilica. It reared almost three hundred feet above the stone-paved piazza and was the fastest route up. Hiding the flag on the roof would be just like Eirene.

  So was waiting a hundred feet up the side of the tower in ambush.

  As Sarah ascended the outside of the tower by leaping up the side from one precarious handhold to another, Eirene dropped from her concealed perch above. Sarah barely registered movement out of the corner of her eye before Eirene’s weight ripped her from her perch and the two of them fell toward the cobbled piazza fifty feet below.

  “Nice try dear,” Eirene said with a wink.

  Air rushed past and Sarah braced for the brutal impact. Before they hit, a huge airbag inflated underneath them, like those used by stunt men in movies. They landed on the cushion and Sarah pushed away from Eirene before she could land the required three strikes. She rolled off the edge of the air cushion just before it vanished. Eirene had rolled off the far side and stood twenty feet away. She paused to dispatch a bat-like creature, and Sarah seized on the moment of distraction.

  She could never fight past Eirene. She needed a smarter strategy. As she ran for the basilica, she got an idea and threw all her focus into making it reality.

  A bright red jetpack materialized directly in front of her. It sounded like a hundred weed whackers had been bottled inside the central canister that stood six feet tall and two feet in diameter. Two turbines were mounted on either side of the central unit, with the pilot’s framework on the front. The entire machine stood on two flat runners.

  Sarah settled into the pilot harness and glanced back at Eirene. The facetaker had paused to stare, just as she had hoped. Eirene had been unincorporated during most of the recent technological revolution. She was catching up fast, but Sarah doubted she’d ever seen anything like the jetpack. Sarah had gotten a chance to try one out the year before during a swanky event thrown by Alterego. It could fly her to the top of the Duomo in seconds.

  She forgot about the monsters.

  The ground directly under Sarah’s feet began to buckle, then fall into a dark pit that yawned open just beneath the jetpack. Sarah gunned the motor, and the whine of the machine turned into a scream as the turbines sped up. It lifted off the ground just before the entire section of the piazza fell away into a widening hole.

  An actual minotaur leaped up from the pit and grasped at Sarah with its clawed hands.

  In that second, the same strange ethereal feeling she had felt while fighting Mai Luan rippled through Sarah. The claws passed right through. It was as if she was becoming intangible. All through the memory duel, she’d been trying to figure out how to trigger that feeling.

  She didn’t have time to figure out how it worked. The monster’s claws might have passed through her, but they caught the framework of the jetpack. The extra weight slowed her ascent even though Sarah maxed the throttle.

  The minotaur bellowed right in her face. Its head was like a demonic bull and its breath smelled like rotten meat. It slammed its horned skull forward.

  She was no longer insubstantial.

  Sarah had no idea how to control the change and, strapped into the jetpack, she could do nothing to defend herself.

  The horned head pounded into her with the force of a battering ram. All that saved her sternum from rupturing was the same steel framework that prevented her from trying to escape. The metal bars bent under the impact, absorbing the lion’s share of the hit. The fraction of the blow that she felt drove the breath from her lungs. It crushed her back with such force that she nearly blacked out.

  Her hand slipped off the controls and the jetpack dropped out of the air. One skid landed on solid ground while the other fell into the hole. Together Sarah and the monster tumbled into the pit.

  She screamed as they fell ten feet before crashing into solid rock. The minotaur landed under the machine and took the brunt of the fall. It bellowed again and threw her and the heavy jetpack off. The machine tumbled several times before bouncing off the wall of the cave.

  Sarah tried to extricate herself, but she was still having trouble breathing and her head was spinning from the wild tumble.

  The minotaur put its head down and charged.

  No way she could escape.

  Tomas dropped into the hole and landed right in front of the monster, a six-foot spear in his hands. He planted the spear against the ground and angled it toward the beast. The minotaur impaled itself before it could stop, driving the shaft deep into its chest.

  It fell in a heap with Tomas. Despite the terrible injury, it clawed and bit at him. Instead of trying to escape, Tomas beat on the monster with unrestrained fury. Hammers with spiked heads appeared in his hands and he pounded at the creature, shouting like a berserker.

  Alter and Eirene dropped into the pit. While Alter rushed to Sarah, Eirene leaped into the fray, slender daggers already slashing.

  “Help Tomas,” Sarah cried as Alter worked to pull her from the twisted wreckage of the machine.

  “I am.”

  “What are you talking about? The monster’s over there.”

  “It’s not the monster that’s important.”

  With his help, Sarah slipped free of the jetpack. She tried to run to help Tomas and Eirene, but Alter grabbed her by the waist and threw her up out of the hole.

  Gregorios caught her.

  “Let me go! I have to help.”

  “Settle down,” he said, restraining her. “And look before you leap.”

  She leaned over the hole, his arm gripping her tight. Alter had joined the others and hacked at the monster with the axe he favored. Together, they overwhelmed the monster and beat it to dust.
/>   When he vaulted out of the hole, Tomas was covered in blood, but she couldn’t tell how much of it was his.

  He threw his arms around her. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine. What about you?”

  Alter scowled, “What were you thinking? A jetpack? Here?”

  “Just pushing the limits,” Sarah snapped, still angry that he hadn’t trusted her to help them. “Isn’t that the excuse you used for that machine gun?”

  “Drop it, kids,” Eirene said. “Time to go.”

  Only then did Sarah notice the square was packed with an angry mob. Scowling locals, led by several well-dressed lords shouting for justice were fast working themselves into a frenzy.

  Gregorios held up the crimson piece of cloth that was Eirene’s flag. “Perfect timing.”

  “How’d you get that?”

  He winked. Then he closed his eyes and spoke loudly, “All right, Bastien. Take us home.”

  The shattered piazza faded from view as the angry mob surged toward them. The last thing Sarah noticed was the still figure of a man standing behind the crowd, face concealed by a wide-brimmed hat.

  Chapter Eight

  It is rare that the mortal world can produce delicacies fit for a palate refined over so many lifetimes. When I do, I salute, and I savor the moment.

  ~ John, facetaker council member, while drinking a bottle of 1811 Château d’Yquem

  Sarah waited impatiently for Francesca to slide the faceplate open so she could remove the helmet. She rubbed at her aching jawline, but her fingers came away clean. No blood.

  When she stood, she noticed Francesca looked exhausted. The other facetakers looked little better.

  “Are you all right?” Sarah asked Bastien, who had powered the Sotrun machine.

  “I will be if you allow me to enjoy that chair of yours, yes?”

  Sarah scurried out of the way for him.

  Harriett dropped into Alter’s chair with a sigh when he rose. “What were you doing in there? The drain was a lot worse than we expected.”

  “We were testing the limits,” Gregorios said.

  “And what of our limits?” Bastien asked. “Another minute and we might have lacked the strength to draw you out.”

  “Nearly crisped our crust,” Harriett added with a tired shake of her head.

  “Another minute and there might not have been much of us left to pull out,” Tomas said. “The locals were getting angry.”

  “Can you blame them?” Sarah asked. “With you and Alter shooting up the Neptune statue and throwing grenades?”

  “They probably weren’t happy when we toppled the David,” Tomas said.

  “Hey, I told you to leave that one alone!”

  He pointed at Alter. “His fault.”

  She rounded on him, but he cut her off. “Who was it that called a jetpack into the Middle Ages?”

  Gregorios interrupted. “Did any of you experience anything weird in there?”

  “You mean weirder than running battles through the streets of medieval Florence?” Tomas asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Sarah thoughts back to the strange figure in the wide-brimmed hat. “You’re worried someone else is still walking the memories, aren’t you?”

  “It is a possibility.”

  “I doubt it,” Alter said. “We have the only working machines.”

  “The only ones we’re aware of,” Gregorios said. “We haven’t captured Mai Luan’s heka cell yet so we have no confirmation there weren’t more.”

  “We’ll get them,” Tomas assured him.

  “Until we do, keep your eyes open,” Gregorios said. “The risk is small, but I don’t like surprises.”

  “Well not those kind of surprises,” Eirene said with a slow smile.

  Sarah opened her mouth to tell them about the strange hat man, but the vault door swung inward and an angry old man strode inside. He was tall, with salt-and-pepper hair that might have made him look distinguished if not for the scowl he always wore. John was one of the facetaker council members who had survived the bomb, and he was impatient to gain access to the machine.

  “How dare you initiate a test without me present?” John demanded as he marched up to Gregorios.

  Gregorios wasn’t ruffled. “Would you have preferred we hook you up to an untested machine?”

  He gestured at the cobbled-together machine. Although she trusted Alter, Sarah had been secretly glad she was not the first person to use that one. It looked like it could more easily fill someone’s mind with rust than reverse mental dissipation. She was looking forward to examining its rune configuration.

  John’s belligerence faded as he surveyed the ugly machine. “Well, you should have called me down anyway.”

  “I was just about to,” Gregorios said. “So your timing is good. First test was successful. It’s your turn.”

  John beamed, eager as a child at the fair. He glanced from the ugly machine to the pristine Sotrun. “Since you already have experience with the rebuilt machine, it is probably best I use the other one.”

  “Be my guest,” Gregorios said.

  John moved to the nearest chair not occupied by an exhausted facetaker.

  Sarah glanced at Tomas, who shrugged at John’s antics. She hoped the machine fixed John’s crankiness along with his mental stability. Someone who had lived through most of the world’s history should have figured out a better outlook on life by now.

  Eirene took Harriett’s hand in hers. “Are you children up for one more test?”

  “If you keep it simple.”

  “Nothing fancy. We’ll just meet back in time and enjoy a peaceful sunset together. Ten minutes should be a good start for John.”

  “We can do that.”

  The other siblings indicated their agreement.

  “I’ll be here to help if you need me,” Gregorios said.

  John frowned yet again. “I’d prefer it if you chose the memory, Gregorios.”

  Gregorios and Eirene shared a knowing look. “Fine. Eirene will oversee the show from the outside.”

  John turned to Sarah. “Will you accompany me on my first memory walk, my dear?”

  “I’d be honored,” she managed to say with a straight face only because Gregorios and Tomas would be meeting them in the memory. From the rumors she had picked up in the past few weeks, it seemed John had loved to live large before he got old. He liked fine foods and fine women. She didn’t want to hurt him and she didn’t want Tomas to feel honor-bound to break bones in the memory world if John decided to test the limits.

  She doubted he’d handle injuries radiating back to the real world very well. Sarah could already feel a couple of bruises forming from the recent memory duel, and her chest ached where the minotaur had head-butted her. Her enhancement would help her recover quickly, but it could have been much worse.

  She was relieved to see the blood soaking Tomas’ clothing in the memoryscape had been the minotaur’s. How he had survived that brawl with the monster without even a scratch was a mystery.

  Looking forward to a quieter memory walk, Sarah settled into the same reclining chair she had used just moments before. John glanced over and his gaze lingered on her curves before he looked up to her eyes.

  “You are in for a great trip, my dear.”

  Shameless old lech, she thought. “I’m sure it’ll be interesting.”

  John’s smile faded and he turned to Gregorios. “She won’t be able to control my memories, will she?”

  Alter answered. “No, sir. We adjusted the runes to ensure you stay in control.”

  Sarah really didn’t want to explore John’s past.

  Gregorios handed them both small, circular wooden pendants. On the glossy surface of both sides were inscribed runes. Sarah easily recognized Alter’s artistic flair. On one side was a simple rune of awakening that she recognized from her study of the rune lore Alter’s family had provided. She didn’t recognize the rune on the other side. It was small and intri
cate, and for a second she sensed a deeper image concealed within the crisscrossing lines.

  “What is this rune?” she asked, tracing the symbol with a finger, thrilled to learn yet another rune.

  Alter grinned. “I’ve been working on a failsafe mechanism. This will allow you to break out of the memory at any time.”

  “Excellent idea,” John said. He slipped his pendant over his head.

  “How does it work?” Sarah asked. “I thought we couldn’t activate runes since we don’t have your rounon gift.”

  “That’s the best part,” Alter explained. “I’ve already activated these runes and linked them to my life force, which will power them for the next half hour.”

  “How do we trigger them?” John asked.

  Alter pointed at the simple rune of awakening. “Draw that on your stomach. It will bind back to the runes on the pendant, which will activate it for you.”

  “That’s brilliant,” Sarah said.

  The idea was both subtle and profound at the same time. She had an innate sensitivity to runes, but this was a higher form of art. She needed to learn it. She reached into her pocket and fingered a folded piece of paper there. It held a new rune she’d been working on for the past week. It was not quite finished, but she felt it was going to be awesome. After the memory walk, she would add Alter’s complex new rune to the paper.

  Alter beamed at the compliment and stayed close as Francesca settled the heavy helmet over Sarah’s head. The faceplate snapped into position with that unpleasant pricking sensation. Then the heat of Bastien’s nevron drew her into darkness.

  When the darkness dropped from her mind, it was not the quiet vista of a beautiful sunset that took its place.

  She awoke in the middle of a battlefield.

  Chapter Nine

  I love the name of honor more than I fear death.