The rock quills blocked the view but it didn’t take a genius to realize we walked down a mountainside.
Geo Realm, I thought, good enough a name as any.
A place for mountains . . . mountains and metals and geomancers.
And what else?
A guide.
“Holy crap!” Val shouted of all things. Cursing . . . now she’s pushing in on my fucking job.
I turned to see her gazing up behind us.
I turned even more to see . . .
A temple carved into a mountain, quills of rock all around the base, mist and stone blocking the view of yet more earth piled on top of earth. There were broken columns, statues and carvings. Of men working forges. Of women delicately crafting machines. All worn by the wind and rain but . . . made of gold and steel and silver and even pearl.
A fucking temple unlike anything I’d ever seen.
A fucking cathedral to top any made by the hands of mankind.
Where we’d exited from, the stone door slid suddenly downwards, blocking off the cave yet again from light.
And from us.
I stood there, staring at it.
Lost.
Trying to assimilate The Mindfuck of all Mindfucks.
“So this is what Alice felt like,” Val said mostly to herself. “This is our Wonderland.”
“Yeah . . . well, we can explore and visit when we don’t have to save your sister.”
Val’s face told me I’d said the right thing.
I nodded at the steel road. “Crossroads seem like they’re a ways off, let’s get going.”
Not that I wasn’t shocked. I mean . . . Meta-Yo-Yo, you could’ve at least given me a hint all those years ago. Surprise, the world is more complicated and fucked up than you ever imagined, King Henry. Geo Realm. Prison. Effortless pooling.
I had thousands of questions that wouldn’t get answered.
If there’s a Geo Realm, then . . .
But I couldn’t get sidetracked.
Teenage girl to save and all that.
Curator face to smash in if I was lucky.
Yeah, I lied, Meteyos, deal with it.
So you got wings and a tail, don’t make you omniscient.
Guessing you were omniscient then you wouldn’t be trapped in a fucking cave, trapped in a realm, away from those stars you seem to like so much.
Forget it, not thousands of questions, millions of questions.
But no sidetracking.
Road.
Crossroads.
Guide.
Back to Christmas.
It helped that I’ve always been able to take in new information and change my plans without prejudice to the original. Like when I was a kid, learning about the Mancy. Saw Ceinwyn use it, put it together with my luck, accepted it, incorporated it with my outlook on the world.
This ain’t any larger of a shift than accepting magic exists. Just another lie or falsehood or idiocy from my teachers at the Asylum. Same as extended pools or split pools. Just . . . bigger. With ancient temples in it.
“I’m freaking out,” Val said.
“Don’t freak out,” I told her and we kept walking.
New information assimilated, that’s me. Change it on up quickly. Adapt and survive. Make Darwin proud. If Darwin had seen Meteyos, he’d have gone mad and fucked tortoises for the rest of his life.
“You’re freaking out too,” Val accused a bit later.
“Am not.”
“We just talked to a—“
“Don’t say it. If you say it then it becomes real.”
“I heard wings.”
“Lots of things have wings. Like pigeons.”
“When pigeons breathe, the air doesn’t shake.”
I tried to distract her and hoped it would also distract me. “Can you pool yet?”
Val scowled at the ground. “Not at all. It’s like this place is so heavy I can’t focus on concentrating enough anima.”
The further we descended the more the brown grass covered up the steel roadway. I thought I could see a tree or two in the distance as well. “Huh. Well, I’ve got enough to protect the both of us I suppose.”
“How much?”
“Plenty,” I hedged.
She was immediately suspicious. “How much is plenty?”
“Two hours, three hours. I’m not sure . . . it’s making me feel kind of drunk.”
Eyes without irises squinted. “How long was I out?”
“Few minutes longer than I was.”
“Then how . . . are you saying—are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I’m saying I’m a super hero here. Or a super villain. Depends on the pay.”
A bit more silence for a bit more walking with a bit more heavy thinking.
“It’s oddly freeing,” Val eventually said.
“Being on an alien planet?”
“Tell me that’s not what you actually—“
“Joke. It was a joke.”
“Okay . . . good.”
A bit more silence for a bit more walking with a bit more heavy thinking.
“It’s oddly freeing,” Val repeated, but added, “Not having the Mancy to worry about.”
“Worry about?”
“You don’t worry about it?”
“You’re one of those people who view it as an enemy to be mastered, ain’t you?”
“No . . . more like a troubled friend you have to keep an eye out for.”
“I see what you did there . . .”
She laughed. It sounded odd among such a strange atmosphere. A human sound in a place where I had a feeling humans hadn’t been for thousands of years. “I’ve worried about burning down rooms or hurting people since I was fourteen. Even learning to control it, even mastering it, there’s always been a part of me that’s worried if I let loose and stop focusing that the Mancy is going to . . . escape.”
“I’ve seen you let loose and you’re pretty amazing when you do.”
“Fireball of Doom?”
“Yeah, that and more.”
“But someone died.”
“He asked for it.”
“Maybe . . . but someone died. What if Christmas had been in the SUV instead of in the van? I have to watch and think and control myself. But here . . . I’m just me, just Valentine. I can’t hurt anyone.”
I motioned for her to stop walking. When she did, I planted a serious kiss on her. Predictably, she enjoyed it just long enough to realize she was enjoying it and then pushed me off.
“And now you’ve hurt my feelings,” I teased.
“So very funny.”
“Was a good kiss though.”
“They’re always good kisses,” she teased back, walking down the path and leaving me behind, “it’s what comes after that you fumble up.”
After another half hour of continual journey, steadily working our way down the side of the mountain, the mist and the jagged quills never ceasing, we made it to the trees.
Mushrooms.
Giant fucking mushrooms.
“I can’t handle much more of this shit.”
“Don’t you like mushrooms?”
“To eat. Not to give me shade.”
“But don’t you see how very earthy they are? They fit.”
Twenty feet tall at least, thick, white, fleshy, everything that trees are not. “If the mushrooms are this big then do we need to worry about wolf-hound sized ants?”
Val shuddered. “Why would you even say something like that?”
“Be prepared—“
“Wolf-hound sized ants? I’m going to curl up and die instead of being in the world with them. My whole body is itching now!”
“I could scratch—“
“Wolf-hound sized ants!”
“Maybe we could tame them and—“
“Stop making it worse!”
“Boomworm, scared of ants, I never knew . . . what about spiders the size of—“
“Shut your mouth!”
A bit more silence for a bit more walking with a bit more heavy thinking . . . with the occasional shudder from Val.
“Are the cliffs finally shrinking or am I just getting used to them?” Val asked.
“Nope . . . they’re shrinking. Look up ahead, you can see where they fall away and this road comes out onto something.”
“The crossroads we’re looking for?”
“I hope so. How long have we been walking by now?”
“Two hours?”
“Sounds about right.”
“I’m starting to get thirsty,” Val admitted. “We don’t have any water or food or a way to make fire. Now there’s a problem I never thought I’d have to solve.”
“I feel awesome,” I admitted back. “Like I could lift a boulder.”
“You look . . . anima stoned.”
“Heh, you said anima stoned.”
“Proving my point . . .”
“What would good girl Valentine Ward know about people being stoned, anyway?”
“No comment.”
The break in the cliffs came out into a rolling badlands, huge islands of rocks rising from seas of brownish grass and clumps of mushroom-trees. I realized another oddity: no birds. Forget seeing them, I didn’t even hear them. Of course . . . birds ain’t very earthy. No flies either. No mosquitoes.
I saw movement in the grass that could have been a rat or a snake or something that slithered, but that was the only sign of life. All around, the edge of those cliffs ended in fallen columns and stone buildings that had collapsed from disrepair. They were huge to be made out of stone, even the architects of Rome would have been impressed. Rome . . . they reminded me of Rome, of Greece, all those slides that Ambrose would show us in History class.
Greatness . . . forgotten.
“It’s a sign of civilization, I suppose.”
“Give or take a handful of centuries.”
There was a well at the cluster of buildings’ center. Val went to it and found a rope she used to pull up a clay bucket filled with water. She stuck her tongue in, wary, but quickly smiled. “Fresh groundwater.”
“Civilization . . .” I mused. “Not give or take a handful of centuries.”
“What do you think they’re like?” Val asked after she’d drunk her fill.
Despite not feeling thirsty I did the same. “Short, fat, and mining for gold?”
Val spit water out at the thought. “Dwarves?”
“Why not?”
Her face was skeptical. “The carvings weren’t short or fat.”
“The carvings were worn away to be almost anything.”
“You’re just hoping they have ale to drink,” she teased me.
The raised steel roadway continued through the badlands. Steppe. Whatever you want to call it. Lots of sky all of a sudden. I refused to look behind at where we’d come from. I didn’t think I could handle a mountain made out of jagged quills protecting a temple shrouded by mist. All that at once . . . there’s such a thing as too much magnificence.
Val felt safe from her not being able to hurt anyone.
I felt safe because I could hurt anyone.
That much anima with all the more coming quickly. I felt it, just waiting to pool. Inside of me, outside of me. Even in the air I breathed. A prison of gods to those with the skill . . .
I’m not a metaphysical kind of guy . . . but what’s the quote? Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven? Jethro Smith would be happy to know I got Milton’s meaning all of a sudden.
Barren badlands without trees, without birds. Just mice and snakes and maybe a warthog or two. I could have called it all to my defense. Raised myself a fortress, hurled rocks from my catapults and steel bolts from my ballistae.
Here . . . pyromancers, electromancers, all the mancers would be jealous of me.
I tried not to follow that thought. It went to bad places.
Another two hours and the badlands became mushroom forest, still the steel road going on and on, brown grass growing over it but not able to break it apart. As Meteyos likes to say: the Earth endures.
That road endured.
Had endured for a long fucking time.
“Crossroads,” Val breathed warning.
Our pace quickened when we saw the other roads on the horizon coming perpendicular to our own. Almost there, almost to our guide. Guide. We both had the thought at the same time and a glance and a nod was all we needed to stop walking on the road and instead walk among the small mushrooms lining it.
Alice, girl, you ain’t got nothing on this shit.
The ground dipped into stairs without warning. Not just our road but four all headed for a . . . crater. All four dipped into stairs along the edge and then met in a large square of cobblestone. At the center of the square was another column, but this one was made of some silvery metal I’ve never seen before. It showed not a bit of wear but felt older than anything I’ve ever seen.
At its top was . . . thirteen stars in a circle. The emblem of an Ultra.
Fuck me.
At its base was . . . not someone short or fat or digging for gold.
He wore armor. Ye Olde fucking armor. Small bits of grey steel held together by even smaller links. At his chest, along his hips. The rest was all leather, boiled, studded. High boots, thick wide pant legs and sleeves. Around his neck was a chain with thirteen links, each one colored familiar colors not with paint but with gemstones lining the outside of the chains.
He had a large traveling bag at his feet and another at one hip. On the opposite hip was a bow, something technologically complex with pulleys and compounded frame, yet small enough to draw and shoot. Like a . . . bow revolver. He didn’t have a quiver at his back but instead some kind of strap held arrows across his chest, points facing downward so they could be more quickly notched into the bow.
The bow wasn’t the only sight of technology, just not human technology. There was a collapsible spyglass at his shoulder, a compass at his wrist, even a rudimentary watch strapped in a pocket.
Next to him, leaning against the column was another weapon. A lance, big and thick and looking tough enough to go right through rock. Two thirds up it there was more precise machinery, supporting a hand-sized blade. No idea what it was for.
No short, no fat. Tall and thin. Deadly. A warrior. A . . . ranger. Gunslinger. Bowslinger. Something like that.
If the armor and weapons weren’t weird enough things got even weirder at his face. Black skin. Not like . . . African-American black. Not like African-African black. Fucking black. New iPhone black. Black as oil. Black as that cave with Meteyos. So black it made it hard to study his angular features and his nimble hands, almost impossible if not for the road dust coating him.
His hair was black as well. Not human black. That dull black we get. No, no. Panther black. So black it was purple. No, no. So black it was blue. Only his eyes were bluer, so blue they could have been sapphires. So blue they almost glowed.
Val and I huddled behind a mushroom and watched as he . . . smoked a joint.
I’m not saying it was made out of marijuana, but I know a fucking joint when I see one. And whatever this place had for a joint, this fucker was smoking one.
“Val, I can’t take much more of this. What . . . the . . . fuck?”
Her eyes were big. She looked excited if anything. “You were right,” she whispered hurriedly. “He’s a dwarf!”
I studied the black guy for awhile. He tilted his head enough so I noticed a slight point at his ear. “You are crazy . . .”
“He’s a dwarf!”
“I’ve seen all three Hobbit movies. They don’t look like this at all.”
“They’re fake!” she excitedly kept up, “they’re based off of hundreds of years of cultural drift and Tolkien’s creativity, but in the Old Norse dwarves are black elves who are very technologically skilled!”
“So he’s an elf.”
“Yes.”
“Not a dwarf.”
“One and
the same. He’s a Black Elf, which is also a dwarf.”
“My kind is called the Sawaephim,” came from below at the center of the crossroads.
Val and I had a simultaneous heart attack. We shut up as hard as we’ve ever shut up in our lives.
“Do not talk so much if you mean to be hidden,” soon followed.
Silence.
“We have far to travel,” the black guy tried again.
More silence.
“I have food,” the black guy tried thrice.
We shared a look.
“You call it bacon I have been taught.”
My stomach growled. I looked down at it. “So unfair . . .”
[CLICK]
His name was Pougpaelleith.
He had bacon and potatoes that he cooked in a collapsible skillet over a fire started with an oversized match next to a particular mushroom with a nice bit of shade thanks to an oversized crown.
The bacon and potato parts made him my friend.
Even if he was a . . . Black Elf . . . Dwarf . . . Sawaephim . . . whatever.
He seemed taken by Val, almost enchanted by her, especially her blond hair. “May I touch it?” he asked politely after the bacon and potatoes had been distributed on these tiny plates with two-pronged forks more knife than fork.
I couldn’t help but notice the craftsmanship and the metalwork even on the plates. This might not have been Earth, our cellphones were hundreds of years beyond this plane, but it wasn’t exactly the Dark Ages here either. The plates were machine-pressed steel. Same with the forks. The weapons and the Sawaephim’s gadgets spoke to a technology of sorts as well.
“Hands off the lady,” I told him, “bacon or not, there’s limits.”
Pougpaelleith’s face was innocent but his eyes twinkled with mischief. “Most sorry, friend, in your realm are women owned? Is she your property? Wife? Slave? I do apologize but I was only taught words by the Great One and very little of customs.”
Good thing Val couldn’t pool, pretty sure I’d have been molten slag. “No, I am not his property and yes, you may touch my hair.”
She couldn’t see the satisfaction on the Black Elf’s face, but I did. Guessing he’d never heard of Bros before Hoes either. Probably a good thing.
Pougpaelleith ran a hand through Val’s blond hair, sighing as he did so. The ebony fingers looked startling among the gold. “Most beautiful . . .”
The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm (The King Henry Tapes) Page 29
