“Can you do that?” she asked, surprised by the idea.
“Don’t see why not. Just like . . . staying on the highway instead of getting off the exit, right?”
“Have you done it before?”
“Once . . . by accident. Heard T-Bone call me as I went through and sort of . . . paused it all. Moved from my workshop up into the comic shop. Scared the Employee to death when I popped up next to her.”
Val’s other hand found the one holding the World-Breaker and clasped her fingers around it. “If you think you can, then do it.”
“Are you checking to see if I still have all my fingers?” I teased her.
“Oh, I felt all ten of those when you had them on my hips earlier,” she teased back. “I just don’t want to get lost wherever in-between is.”
[CLICK]
I experiment.
It’s what I do.
Most interesting part of my job. I ain’t crazy. I do take precautions. At least . . . not as crazy as some. Mancer Crazy and Mundane Crazy ain’t the same scale, get’s pretty crazy in the One-in-a-Million World. Like realm-jumping without ever touching said Realms. Like I told Val, I had done this once before. On accident. Wasn’t so different from other firsts, right? Split pooling had been half a disaster and now I could do it no problem. Couldn’t even hold a pool through the pain of it until Obadiah Paine confirmed it could be done. Can be done if you’re man enough to hold your hand in that flame till it’s nice and charred. No pussies allowed. Hey, ain’t my fault, the Mancy came up with the rules.
The World-Breaker was just another skill to master, just like I had the Mancy. Opening more doors than even the Mancy did. All the hidden abilities the artifact must have and then thirteen whole worlds to explore, including everything between them? Or maybe it was just the one world. Geo-anima World-Breaker for the Geo Realm. Makes a certain amount of sense. Maybe you need a specific type for each Realm. Hydro to Hydro. Aero to Aero. On and on. Logical. The Nice, Quiet One . . . logical until it gets magical and then . . . then shit gets weird. Ain’t just mancers work that way, it’s our power source too.
I don’t know.
Still don’t know.
Only way I can know is if I do crazy shit like this.
Experiment.
Refine.
Experiment some more.
Sometimes you end up with a dud or an unstable artifact. Other times, you come to the semi-brilliant realization that you can use anima cores for their natural elements, opens up a whole new market for you to explore, especially if you ever get brave enough to sell them to mundanes.
Experiment.
Risk it all.
Try not to get killed.
First night you find out the names of the Divines.
Second night . . . not so much.
Having Val with me always makes me try to do the impossible. For her. For me too. Or at least, me trying to deserve her. Something about those eyes . . . not how dark they are, not the star I see in them . . . just the trust they have in me. The expectation in them that I always do the impossible, that when the world gets rocky and up is down and it really matters, I’ll do the right thing, the amazing thing, the thing no one else thought of.
Not even Jimmy with his inbred, albino fruit flies.
This time: two football fields of impossible.
Two-hundred yards.
That’s all I had to do.
No problem, right?
Ain’t like I’m trying to hold our divine fucking sparks together as I skate through a hurricane of geo-anima. Ain’t like there’s pieces of creation itself flying about like shrapnel, dipping and diving in gales of pure undoing all around us.
Two-hundred yards through subspace.
And King Henry Price without a pair of rollerblades.
Or a motorbike, kickstand or no kickstand.
Come on, you fucktard. Do this and you won’t have to hear from Poug until tomorrow. Sure, you’re just about to shit your pants over those two-hundred yards and you can’t even imagine traveling halfway across London to get Val home—so it’s only likely a small respite—but maybe you get brave again, maybe you figure if you can do two-hundred yards, then why not a few miles?
If humans didn’t forget what pain felt like we’d never have more than one kid. Powerful as all the other hormones are, loving as a mother can be, good as sex feels, no way women would do that shit more than once. Might not even have to get that far. If we could really remember pain, we might not even get past our first break-up. Sure as shit wouldn’t have a couple more and undertake Try Number Four like me and Val had. Whole species would just be a bunch of loners wincing in the darkness, shunning every kind smile ever comes their way.
In the center of that geo-anima hurricane I couldn’t imagine ever trying to do this again. Not for two feet, much less two-hundred yards. Always like to talk strings and connections, but in that place my whole body felt like nothing but knot after knot tied together. All it would take was a single knot coming undone and then whole pieces of King Henry Price would be lost . . . forever.
To say nothing about the tenuous grasp I had on Val’s hand.
In everyday existence your fingers can’t unravel . . . here, they could.
So easy for my fingers to just . . .
And then she would fly off to who-knows-where.
Lost to me forever in the Void.
The Void . . . the Pit . . . the Gap.
Somehow in the chaotic place in-between the Realms it felt like they all connected. Void, Pit, Gap. Knot to knot to knot.
Felt like this wasn’t some experiment, but a continuous escape attempt. Like if I could keep going, keep breaking out of the Pit then I might escape Fate herself.
We weren’t alone.
There are beings who go beyond something as simplistic as existence and I should have known they would take notice as soon as I tried this trick.
Especially one of them.
Fate I could escape, but not him.
IDIOT FOOL OF A PROPHET, I heard Meteyos call into my very being with the wrath of every earthquake that had ever sounded.
Help, I managed to send back, the sound of my thoughts pitifully weak in comparison.
YOU ARE NOT READY FOR THIS.
I’m never ready, but I keep on swinging. Can’t blame me for doing what you taught me.
YOUR ARMS AND LEGS MEAN NOTHING HERE, LITTLE MANCER.
They sure ain’t helping me move even an inch forward, that’s for sure.
STOP WALKING WHERE YOU HAVE NO FEET. STOP BREATHING WHERE YOU HAVE NO LUNGS. STOP LOOKING WHERE YOU HAVE NO EYES.
Whatever you say, Morpheus, just stick that red pill up my ass, okay?
Meteyos’ hiss carried from all corners of the nothing. IMAGINE BOTH THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF YOUR TRAVELS.
The only other piece of existence nearby clutched at my hands. Val, I remembered. It was so hard to remember myself, much less her.
FOCUS, the voice of Meteyos called to me.
Both sides of my journey, I repeated.
DO NOT THINK IN LINES. DO NOT THINK OF JOURNEY, BUT OF BINDING. THINK OF THEM AS ONE. THINK OF BOTH, WITHIN MY REALM AND YOURS.
When I thought of either the Guild Library or of the Geo Realm crossover from it, I felt a pull towards them. Go in one door and out the other, no hurricane, no strings, no risk to Val, simple. Poug yells about the mountainside, Poug yells about me trying to cross the In-Between, but I live. No experimenting. Ever. Curiosity satisfied. Won’t even look at the World-Breaker again in fact. Spend all day and all night in my prison cell. Let ESLED handle Paine. Join the Guild.
Just get me the fuck out of here!
NO, Meteyos yelled and with it came the elemental equivalent of a pimp slap.
My whole being rang from it, resonated at the specific frequency that was King Henry Price. Foul Mouth. Dirt King. Geomancer. Tyson Bonnie’s friend. Ceinwyn Dale’s pupil. JoJo Price’s brother. Valentine Ward’s lover.
Everything I
was blinked.
Everything I was stopped being afraid of how very small it felt.
Everything I was defied anything that wasn’t part of me.
As one, I listened for once in my dumb life.
SEE YOUR DESTINATION AS YOU WOULD HAVE TRAVELED THE REALM. DO NOT STEP THROUGH THE DOORS. BIND THEM BOTH TOGETHER. EARTH TO EARTH. REALM TO REALM. THEN EARTH TO REALM AND REALM TO EARTH. THEY ARE ALREADY INSIDE OF YOU. BRING THEM TO YOU, SURROUND YOURSELF WITH WHAT IS BETWEEN, HOLD ON TO WHAT IS YOU AND STEP THROUGH THE CENTER OF THE VORTEX.
Oh, I get it. Got to know the pieces of the puzzle, how about that?
ONCE AGAIN YOU OWE ME YOUR LIFE, LITTLE MANCER. KNOW THAT YOU CANNOT RUN FROM OUR NEXT MEETING FOREVER.
I can try, I thought as I clung to Val and stepped through the piece of me that had already travelled to the Vault.
. . . I think.
Don’t quote me.
This shit wasn’t even Mancer Crazy.
This shit was the Crazy Crazy.
[CLICK]
We tumbled out of nowhere and everywhere.
Val ended up on the bottom, both of us slamming down on the Vault floor right in front of Excalibur. At least it ain’t one of those sentient swords Val reads about in her fantasy books. Don’t think I could go on living if an inanimate object made fun of me for faceplanting into my girlfriend’s breasts like I just did.
Not that either of us had even an ounce of energy for anything sexual or romantic or . . . we breathed heavily, me with my cheek against her heart and Val staring up at the Vault’s ceiling. Her heart pumped like a maniac as her lungs shivered to fill themselves with air. Mine did the same, my arms and legs twitching involuntarily.
Breathe in.
Breathe out
No wax on.
No wax off.
Fuck you, Mr. Miyagi.
“I think . . .” Val managed before losing the mental fortitude to speak.
A minute or so later I managed, “Therefore you are?”
“I think I found something I actually don’t like doing with you,” she got out.
“Nah, plenty of those.”
“Can’t think of another one.”
“Thinking ain’t something we’ll be good at for a couple hours . . .”
“Not that we were very smart to begin with tonight,” she said.
“We got back together.”
“That impulse doesn’t come from our brains, King Henry.”
“Comes from our hearts, yuck, yuck,” I teased her.
“I’d laugh, but . . .”
“Breathing . . . it’s very important.”
“Yes, very. And just . . . being here and not there.”
“Or all of the above.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Okay.”
Silence as we both refused to think, only to breathe.
Felt so nice. Felt like one of them hugs I never got enough of as a kid. Felt like . . . comfort and warmth and a silence of pure contentment that wanted nothing else and needed nothing added to achieve perfection.
“What else wouldn’t I do with you?” Val’s curiosity eventually made her think of something else.
“Three-way with Anne,” I decided.
She thought about it. “Good point,” she admitted. “Of course, you have your limits too.”
“Nah, totally limitless.”
She somehow worked up the energy to smirk. “Three-way with Heinrich.”
“Not even in fan fiction, Val.”
Bit more breathing.
“Think we can get up and find that file now?”
“Five more minutes,” I begged.
“Sounds good,” she whispered as a hand reached up to caress my cheek.
Yeah, we’re both here, sweetheart.
Neither of us let go.
[CLICK]
Whether I had or not, whether it was real or my imagination, whether the winds blew against my skin or my soul, whether the memories of it were already faded and foggy, I felt like I actually had walked through that hurricane.
I was sore.
My ears rang with the sound of winds and currents, like each one had a seashell duct-taped to it.
My mouth was dry, like I ate a whole bucket of dirt.
My asshole . . . for once my asshole was minty fresh.
But even my eyes were sensitive to the Vault’s spectro-crystal light. Wouldn’t mind going back to that library room for a couple hours, I thought, just to be in perfect darkness. Sure as shit knew I’d be sleeping well for the few hours I got tonight before Watson woke me in the morning.
This had been a long night. Maybe too long. Maybe I should take a break tomorrow night. Just spend a few hours with Val in her apartment, especially if we get the info on what a Maximus is right now.
Third floor, needed to get to the third floor of the Vault. Three floors of stairs in-between me and my goal. At least not In-Between. Just normal ol’ stairs. I could do that. Ain’t my favorite piece of architecture in the world, but I’ve conquered them before. Was just stairs. Wasn’t even a fucking ladder needed climbed.
Took the wind out of me still. Val had an arm around mine just to keep us upright. Wonder if distance traveled through the In-Between is relative or if this feeling is just the same reaction as when I first tried to hold in an anima pool?
Experiment finished.
Results: Traveling from one place to another with the World-Breaker, is it worth it? Not at the moment. Not if this is how it feels every time you do it. But if it gets better and if I can zoom from London all the way to Fresno, then yeah, maybe . . . if I had a bed to sleep it off and not stairs to walk up. If distance is relative then what comes out at Fresno won’t be human, just a blob of meat once was human.
More experimentation needed.
Not tonight, not tomorrow night, maybe not a long while.
Third floor of the Vault was a lot more like that Guild Library room and less like the museum below. Still not vault-like, but the Guild had to store their classified documents somewhere. Mancy knows they haven’t figured out how computers work yet, much less servers or the cloud. Rows of filing cabinets, a few more bookshelves, a desk with a chair. A safe, I realized as I saw a big chunk of squared metal in one corner. Was about as tall as I was. Could feel the metal, geo-laced like all the rest. Lock was complicated, extra complicated. Complicated enough to frustrate a geomancer.
“Can you get into that?” Val asked me, moving to a second cabinet. “These are just the uncensored meetings so far.”
“Only if I go brute force and rip the front of it off,” I admitted. “Think even a dumbass as oblivious as Massey might notice that difference . . .”
“Give me the camera again,” Val ordered. “I’ll take as many shots of these as I can. Check the bookshelves to see if they have what we’re looking for.”
Instead of doing exactly like Val asked, I checked the desk first. Blank papers. Pens. Pencils. Chalk. Chalk? It had been used too. Glancing around, I found a distinct lack of chalkboard in the Vault. Where are you hiding? My dirt eyes squinted at the bookshelves. Don’t tell me . . . they went for the ultimate cliché, didn’t they?
Pulled on a few of the books. No secret door as of yet. The books were on the Mancy. Old books from back before the Asylum and the rest of the world started getting censor happy with all the lies and bullshit and blissful fucking cogs to rule over. Books on Artifacts, on golem crafting, on more than just Geomancy, but the other disciplines as well. Interesting, useful, but nothing on greatest powers.
Shelf filled with parchment and papyrus scrolls barely holding themselves together. There was a sign hanging on the shelf: “not for viewing, storage only, please see appropriate translation.” Third shelf had those translations. More binders. No lists. No obvious something that could be updated with a pen, pencil, or a piece of chalk.
Felt with the Mancy next, tired and worn out though that part of me might be. Yup, there’s more behind these shelves,
just need to figure out the activation sequence. Was hoping for a statue of some kind, or a bust, full on 60s Adam West Batman Style. Nothing. Hidden button on the desk? Nope. One of those scrolls ain’t like the others. Most had wooden knobs, some a precious metal, but one was plain steel.
I pulled on it.
There was a loud clank.
Call that a good sign.
Starting from the second bookshelf on the right, they all moved. First that one, then the next, and finally the last. The one on the end slid forward to make space, all of them consecutively doing the same when they hit the far wall, until there was a stack of four bookshelves in a tight row. Where they had been . . .
A chalkboard.
With names and titles and guesswork.
More than that . . . another shelf filled with tiny books even older than the rest.
“I think I found it,” I managed.
Val stepped up next to me, filing cabinets and old Guild meetings completely forgotten. “Our . . . our names are up there,” she couldn’t believe what she saw.
“Nice to know what you are, huh?”
“I knew what I was, King Henry. Now I don’t have a clue.”
Wasn’t in a list. No, of course not. This was old school. This was cult and alchemy and hidden behind secret handshakes. Thirteen stars in their own thirteen pointed star. A title above, a name below, with a notation beside it. A second or third name to the right of it indicating the odds on replacements when the time came.
Glassbreaker: King Henry Price. Confirmed, Unrecognized, Undeclared.
Purifier: Valentine Ward. Confirmed, Unrecognized, Undeclared.
Deathtouch: Moira von Welf. Confirmed, Recognized, Undeclared.
Bloodsinger: Ceinwyn Dale. Confirmed, Recognized, Undeclared.
Streamfeeder: Maudette Lynch. Confirmed, Recognized, Declared
Darkwatcher: Fines Samson, crossed out. A question mark for who would replace him with a list of four names also all crossed out, with the notation of ‘test failed’ next to their names.
It does pass on and the dumbasses haven’t even looked at Eva yet.
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 30
