by Bryan Fields
“Based on the fact that Iargolon still has dinosaurs, we think our worlds split at the K-T event, though it may have been even earlier. Iargolon’s core is a bit cooler and less active than Earth’s. The temperature underground stays around seventy degrees for the first fifty miles or so, and there are hundreds of city-sized former magma chambers that have been explored and settled.”
Angus nodded. “I grew up in an old magma chamber, five miles long and half a mile across. I was over four hundred years old before I saw sunlight the first time. It was agonizing, but…beautiful. It changed my life.” Angus picked up his wineglass. “So. To making the world a better place.”
I nodded and murmured agreement. As we touched glasses, I thought back to Thirteen’s world. Making it a better place would be a hard trek indeed. I lifted my glass and drank.
Merciful Mother…I tasted sunshine and rain, the scent of the land, the cold nights and warm afternoons, the wind rustling through acres of grape leaves, the constant, quiet hum of the world simply going about the business of life. I lowered the glass and asked, “What is this?”
Angus topped my glass up. “Crimson Wonder. This pressing is Brighid’s Fire, bottled Beltane, 10,054, on the Isle of Apples. One hundred-fifty years old. Perfect age for Elven wine.”
“It’s magnificent.” Rose took another drink and her eyebrows jumped upward. “That’s odd. I shouldn’t feel an amount this small.”
“You will,” Angus said. “This, you will.”
“I wish this winery made smothered burritos.” I started to take another drink and decided to wait. “It’s obvious Iargolon is, well, what Earth folks would consider a fantasy world. Is the level of magic you’ve used here considered normal, or would you be exceptionally powerful by your world’s standards?”
Aerin shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t quite understand your question.” She looked down and cocked her head to the side so the mongoose could whisper in her ear. “Oh! I see. Thank you.” She turned back to us. “Riki explained what you were asking. Iargolon is a lot like the worlds you people run role-playing games on. A campaign world, you call it. Angus and I are…well, Riki says we’re retired high-level characters. Or, we would be if we were in one of your games. We actually are retired, in real life, I mean.”
“Pfft. Our lives are not a game. Slaughter, war, seeing friends die.” Angus said. “I endured that shit for Crown and country, not experience points.”
No end of questions popped to mind with that statement. “If I understand you, Iargolon actually does have people who go around looting ruins and killing monsters for fun and profit?”
“You need a license,” Aerin said. “You have to form a registered company and apply for a royal salvage permit. Without the permit, you can be arrested for tomb robbery.”
Rose’s eyebrows went up. “Isn’t it still tomb robbery if you do have the permit?”
“No,” said Aerin. “I mean, yes, they’re tombs. And you are taking stuff from them. But getting rid of zombies and ghouls is pest control, not corpse desecration. What makes the difference is paying your taxes. As long as you pay the Crown its share of your loot, you’re all good.”
“And killing monsters?” Rose cut her third steak apart and downed half of it without chewing. “Do you have to have a permit for them, or is it just kill on sight?”
“No permit needed, but it’s not just open season, even for bestial monsters. Most intelligent monsters will negotiate with you, or see if they can sell out one of their neighbors.” Aerin shrugged. “Think about the struggle for the American west, and then apply it to an entire world. You’re not just fighting others like yourself—you’re fighting creatures that are stronger and more dangerous than you are, because you both need the same resources. You both need to continue your species. Two valid claims and one piece of land. One of you has to lose, and if someone else also needs that spot, that person might lay low till the dust settles and kill the victor. Right or wrong, each race has to fight and kill for what it needs. We went out to fight for our nation and our people, not to have adventures or to get rich. Both of those things happened, but neither was our goal.”
“Getting rich is good,” I said. “How is it you came to be here?”
Aerin looked back at me and furrowed her brow. “Here on Earth or here at the hotel? Did we change the subject?”
I waved the question off, shaking my head. “I’m sorry. My brain just took a left and jumped ahead a few spaces.”
Aerin gave me a tight smile. “My brain isn’t that agile anymore. You have to leave me a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. Please rephrase your question with more clarity.”
I thought for a moment. “How did you wind up in this suite, in this hotel? A woman named Karen is having kittens over losing your patronage at her casino, and asked me to discover how she can continue making you happy.”
Aerin set a deviled egg on a saucer and topped it with several lumps of steak. She moved it to the side and held her arm still as Riki scampered down off her shoulder. “Tell her Riki likes large earthworms, raw duck eggs, and those baby mice people feed to snakes. He also snacks on banana, pineapple chunks, and grapes. When we go to dinner, I don’t want the waiter freaking out if I order steak tartare and a fingerbowl so Riki can eat with me. I don’t need a veterinarian for him, but I want her to find one with exotic animal experience who can be on call if we bring his girlfriends with us. They’re all non-magical, Earth-native mongooses from India. If the hotel groundskeepers find any scorpion nests while we’re in town, I want them to let us know so I can bring Riki out to go hunting.”
Riki lowered the chunk of egg he was holding and chittered. Aerin shrugged. “Sure, why not? Riki also wants a climbing tree. The kind cats use, and it needs to be next to a sunny window with a nice view.” She scruffed him behind the ears and stroked down to his tail. “Ma tha gaol agat orm, bu chòir gaol a bhith agat air mo mhongoose. If you love me, you better love my mongoose.”
I laughed. “I’ll tell her she needs to show the mongoose some love. What about the suite? I thought you had to drop a load of money to get a room like this.”
Angus nodded. “You do, and we have. The VIP host here wants us to switch hotels, so he’s wooing us. Gordon gave us an Epic suite, but when VIP services called Central, we got upgraded.”
“How do you know Gordon?”
Angus took a drink of wine. “I’ve worked as a fight coordinator for movies and television shows for fifteen years or so. About ten years back, some of the stunt people I worked with started asking to become sword students. I took some as apprentices and organized the rest into a fight team. We had some good parts and turned down a lot of crap ones. Three years ago, Gordon calls with our biggest contract to date.”
A light went on in my head. “The duels. You trained the actors who do the duels.”
Angus nodded. “Yeah. The Warblade Live fight team trained two years at my dojo in Santa Barbara, then relocated here last month for full-dress practices.”
“The fights are amazing,” I said. “How did you choreograph them?”
He rubbed his throat again, rolling his eyes just slightly. “I taught them around three dozen fight segments, each with a different sequence of attacks and responses. After that, we added racial fighting styles, individual flourishes, and accent pieces. Each duel combines different segments and flourishes. Each fighter knows the sequence for each match. If there’s a problem, that fight gets scratched and the team sets up for the next one.”
Rose snickered over her wine glass. “Do the actors know the armor they’re using is from another world?”
Angus shrugged. “Didn’t ask, didn’t tell ’em. I bought twenty assorted armor sets at the sell-sword’s market in Londunium, and maybe twice as many weapons. I hired an Earth-born armor smith to do maintenance on the gear. They’re running the armor shop down in the Trade Ward, in addition to maintaining the fight team’s gear.”
Riki rolled over onto his back next to Aerin�
�s plate and belched, sending up snickers around the table. I started to clear my plate, but it jumped out of my hand. Ghostly figures swept the tables clear, sending food into the trash and stacking the plates in a waiting dishwasher. In moments, the table was clean and the fruit centerpiece replaced with a fresh one.
As Angus poured more wine into our glasses, I asked, “Seeing as you come from the kind of world Warblade and other games like it attempt to portray, what do you think of them? I’m asking because I’m trying to make that kind of game as well.”
Aerin scratched under Riki’s chin. “Yeah,” she said. “About that…”
Chapter Ten
I’ll Take Backstory for Five Hundred
“…don’t be surprised if every investor you’re scheduled to talk to has something come up at the last minute. We’re not doing anything and neither is Josephine, but Crom may be stacking the deck against you.” Aerin sighed, rubbing the mongoose under his chin. “Crom can’t, and won’t, do anything to violate your free will. That I swear to you. But he can set obstacles or trials in your path.”
“I see. And you know this because…?”
“I’m a priestess of Crom. We talk.”
I set my wineglass down and pushed it to the side. Just to make sure that gesture wasn’t misinterpreted, I snagged a slice of melon from the fruit platter. “I’m going to need some backstory here. Anyone happen to have a Summon Exposition spell?”
Nadia waved. “I’ll take this one, since I’m snarfing the recruiting bonus for you two. Some time travel is involved, so pay attention. Angus first came to Earth in the late sixties, on Royal command, chasing some nutjob wizard intent on raising an army to conquer the world, yadda yadda. The wizard fell in with some occultists in Berkeley, who convinced him to head back East and enroll in some college world history courses. At some point in those classes, he learned about the Spear of Longinus. He decided that was his path to victory, so he went back to the end of World War II to steal it from the Thule society.”
“It was not the Spear of Longinus,” Angus said. He took a longer drink of wine and softened his voice again. “It was Gungnir, the spear of Odin. The Spear of Longinus is a pilum, not an ash-bladed war spear. That spear is…safe. It can kill gods deader than roadkill, so it doesn’t get out much. Gungnir is the bloodthirsty, glory-crazed one all the legends and conspiracy theories talk about. It claims to be the Spear of Longinus when you pick it up, but it’s lying.”
“You’ve held it.”
Angus nodded. “That’s the easy part. Thousands have picked it up. I put it down. Once. Doubt I could a second time. It knows how I beat it.”
“Hopefully once is enough,” I said. “Um, maybe I missed something. Why would Odin’s spear want to be mistaken for the Spear of Longinus?”
Angus shrugged. “No idea. Although, if I had to guess, I’d put it down as a joke. Just Odin messing with the Church.”
Nadia shushed him. “As I was saying. The wizard went back to Nazi Germany, screwed around for a few years trying to mind-control Hitler, and then jumped a few hundred years into your future. Angus and his associates finally caught up to him and killed him there. They left Earth, went home, and received all due honors and glory. A hundred or so years later…”
“Thirty-two,” said Angus.
“Three hundred years later, Mom and Angus fell in love and he brought her to Earth to show off your toilets, cars, and movies.” Nadia made another shushing gesture at Aerin. “They decided to stay and found a place to live. While they were getting settled, the priest Mom trained with had a vision about the Drow, and called her back to the temple.”
“I thought some game designer in Wisconsin invented the Drow.” I looked at Angus. “So, I take it your people aren’t a copyrighted intellectual property?”
This time Nadia shushed me. “Drow is a Scottish word used to refer to trolls or other critters dwelling underground. The language we use at home is more or less Scottish Gaelic. Anyway, it uses the same word with the same meaning. On both worlds, it’s what surface-dwellers call Dark Elves. That’s the only major similarity. The Drow of Iargolon do not worship spider-demons. Their primary deity is Risenue the Bloodmaiden. A few hundred years ago, a handful of Drow noble houses asked Crom to back them against Risenue’s followers. Crom agreed, and it’s been civil war ever since. In any civil war, you have refugees, and the vision Mom responded to was about a specific pair of refugees.”
Nadia paused to take a drink. “These two were dissidents, but not rebels. However, they were in danger of discovery and would have been executed. She was a high priestess of the Bloodmaiden who had the poor judgment to fall in love with a craftsmage. Different castes, forbidden romance, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. Crom wanted Mom to save them, so she brought them to Earth.”
“Sandra and Richard Llewellyn,” I said.
“Bingo. Mom and Angus taught them to blend in and provided identities, as well as some initial capital and an outline for eighty years of stock investments. In return, the Llewellyn family agreed to create identities for our family to use when we moved to Earth. Officially, Mom is the eldest daughter of Josephine’s oldest sister, Didi. In Dark Elven culture, first daughters have all the power. Mom outranks Josephine, which drives Josephine nuts because Mom is a card-carrying loose cannon and a bad example for the rest of the family.”
“So why aren’t you running Llewellyn Industries?” Rose shook her head at Aerin. “You could have all that power and wealth. How can you just let her have it?”
“I have more money than she does,” Aerin said. “I can use the Llewellyn resources any time I want, and I can’t stand routine. I like to putter.”
Nadia said, “Josephine is in charge because Didi quit LI twenty years ago and started a cake decorating business in Seattle. Sandy and Richard pretended to die thirty-some years back and have been living in Hawaii. The rest of the Llewellyn clan are either other refugees, or Earth-born children with varying degrees of Elven blood. Disguises are difficult to maintain, so only those who can pass for Human venture outside Gilead.”
The lights started to come on. “Aha…”
“Hold your horses, we’re not there yet.” Nadia took another drink. “Several decades ago, Crom tasked Sandy with a quest. No details on why, but the order was to collect environmental data from around the world and create a model of Earth’s ecology. We used to think it was for planning for events that might impact the family, but last year Crom told Josephine it’s the core system for a new game.”
“Llewellyn Industries doesn’t make games.” I sat back, and then changed my mind and had more wine.
“True. The other issue with LI producing it is the fact Crom has a presence here on Earth.” Nadia inclined her head toward Aerin. “Mother might have to step in here, but in short, Earth is a laboratory for the deities to study free will. Miracles aren’t allowed because they’re considered bribing your way to more worshippers. More importantly, any divine intervention on Earth allows the offending deity’s primary adversary to intervene as well, with a matching level of divine power. If LI makes this game, it gets counted as intervention. If you make it, it doesn’t.” She spread her hands. “I have no idea why it makes a difference, but it does.”
“Ties to the struggle back home,” Aerin said. “It would allow the Bloodmaiden to import existing believers instead of having to build a local following from scratch. That would be bad.”
“But I’m a local, so there’s no foul.” I refilled my wine. “What does this game do for Crom? And why does he need to be imported? Isn’t he also Crom Cruagh?”
Aerin shook her head. “No, Crom Cruagh is a different deity. Pretty much a regional influence. However, the Crom depicted in your books and movies is the real Crom. Fandom produces the same praise and veneration as faith, meaning fans count as worshippers, at least at the divine level. Between the sword and sorcery fans and the Llewellyns, Crom had enough worshippers to claim his place as an official deity on Eart
h.
“Crom began as a god of steel, weapon craft, and valor in battle, but in the last half-century he’s expanded his portfolio to include self-reliance and self-improvement. Forging yourself into a masterwork. Your strength. Your power. Your triumph. Using might to do what is right, helping the weak learn to be strong, fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves yet. It gave him a new pool of potential worshippers, and positioned him to find converts on Earth—through games.”
“Games.” I looked at Rose, but she was as confused as I was. “How does that work?”
“When you’re totally focused on a thing, it becomes real for you.” Aerin waved her hand toward Danya and Matthew. “Writers and artists do it all the time. They imbue their work with part of themselves, and that fragment speaks to others, making the work real for them as well. Same thing with a game. You get wrapped up in it, in making yourself better, or the best. You want to destroy your enemies, crush all resistance, and proclaim your victories. That striving, that drive for glory, is what Crom values. Someone dedicated to another deity won’t count as one of Crom’s followers, but anyone who isn’t spoken for does, as long as they’re playing or thinking about the game.”
Holy shit…no pun intended. “That…could be a lot of followers.” The image of Ingrim Thain attempting to raise the dead at Mom’s funeral came to mind. Those who had been true believers in life were immune to his spell, regardless of who they had worshipped. That tended to support what Aerin was saying. Then my deep-seated abhorrence of proselytizing kicked in.
“There is a problem here. I don’t like the idea of recruiting for anyone. Promoting any faith by actively recruiting anyone is, well, against my religion.”
Angus snorted. “Good way to make sure your faith dies out. Why not forbid sex and recruiting new members, too?” He leaned forward. “Do your gods forbid showing your faith in action?”
