by P. S. Power
She nodded, troubled by the conversation.
“I do. A brother as well. I didn’t see it at the time, but it’s obvious why I was picked to come here in the first place.” She waved at Tor, but it was Zack who looked at them all and then slowly started to nod.
“Ah. So, you’re his sister here? Your brother is one of us?”
She shook her head then, rolling her eyes.
“I don’t think so? My guess is that there was no Tor where I came from, but the family connections are there. My sister, Debbie, looks like she could fit in that group. Darren as well. When you were shorter it was harder to see, but now…” She waved up at the giant man, who towered over the rest of them.
His entire being changed, and he scowled at Merry like he was about to hit her. Dareg figured it was about the idea that he’d slept with a woman that was essentially his own sister, and had a child by her. That clearly wasn’t the real case however, given that they were from different worlds.
His words came as a surprise, given that.
“Debbie and Darren Smalls? Of Copperton?”
Merry actually stood up then, which had Gwen pointing at her with a single finger. It didn’t seem that threatening, except for the fact that energy started to collect around it, inside of her skin, ready to burst out, lethally.
Not feeling that way himself, Dareg spoke a single word.
“Calm.”
Doris nodded, standing still, and smiled. She spoke in English for the others.
“Calm. I have to agree with Dare on that one. Now, Tor, Merry, you have information for us?”
The Wizard Tor closed his eyes, and gestured for Merry to sit, then moved to do it himself.
“I met a woman in the Capital of Noram about seventeen years ago. Debbie Smalls. Her brother Darren, he called himself Box, came later. It turned out that he was murdering young women. Raping them first. He’d been working with Austra on that, as a spy for them, but was from Noram, at least that was what I’d been told.”
Merry sank back into her chair, and then started to breath too hard to be healthy.
“I… That sounds right. Darren was always a bit off. Psychopathic, I think. If they’re here… Well, they might not be my brother and sister, of course, but the masters don’t exactly care about things like that. The threat that our families would be taken and put into the war was always there. If we failed, then that would be what happened. If we refused to fight, then they’d be tortured first. Killed. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it works surprisingly well as a way to ensure people do what you want.”
Tor shrugged and looked away.
“I… Killed Darren. Box. He’d been condemned to death for his crimes, and they were going to force Debbie to do it. So I stepped in. I hadn’t… I never even thought to check them for being from another world. We never even checked Copperton. That…” He took a deep breath and then closed his eyes after opening them to look at Zack.
The smaller man seemed a bit sad, but it was Brian, the other man, who was a bit darker and had different eyes, who went next.
“So, we collect this woman Debbie and see if she’s the right one? Then we just need to rescue the family that is left, to get them free? First, we need to secure our new asset here, and make certain her cover isn’t blown. If we’re being watched that’s not going to be easy. Unless… Can you move from here? I know that a lot of the stories have it that your people can move between realities. Not how that works, but…”
Everyone went silent, and Merry took a deep, slow, breath. Still speaking in English.
“We can do that, but like our other abilities, they aren’t really ours. We basically have transponders, kind of like your handhelds, inside of us. When we run into trouble we can ask for help, which comes from the outside. That way it can be turned off if we turn against our masters. So if I tried to do that, I’d end up going where they wanted me too. I’m not trusted enough to get to name where I end up. Probably inside a locked facility, where my mind would be stripped bare.”
The others seemed to think that sounded about right, but Dareg held up a hand.
“Wait… You have something inside of you that sends out a signal? If that were hidden, or blocked, the adversaries would just be people? Or removed?” He wasn’t certain of that, but Tor’s eyes lit up, as Merry furrowed her brow, but nodded.
Her voice was skeptical however.
“Yes? It’s located in several realities at one time. That would be hard to beat. I’ve never heard of a machine that could do it.”
Dare examined her and tried to memorize his mother, feeling the little thing inside of her that was located near her spine, at the back of her neck. A bit off to the right hand side. It was truly strange, but the sense of it was clear enough. Tor was doing the same thing, as a knock came at the door. It was Eva that moved to open the thing, letting Alice in.
Brian stared at her, and then grinned.
“Well, that’s different. I’m Brian.” He held his hand out, to shake, like a man from Austra or the countryside.
Alice did it back, her smooth features bland, more than anything. She glanced around, and spoke to the man directly, in English. Which probably meant that all of the Ancients from long ago could speak that way. It was getting much easier to understand, for him, and he was willing to bet that Eva was getting it down as well.
“I see. So, you know me, in some other realm?”
Brian smiled at her, looking right into her blue eyes.
“My son. Scott. It makes some sense, given that Merry over here is his mother. Odd that Dareg isn’t him, but that isn’t the case.”
Zack was the one who explained that part.
“Everything exists. It’s hard for people to understand, but every combination is real. I mean, this young lady, who answered the door? I’ve met her in a different world, where she’s a vampire, known as Eve. My own as well, where she’s a famous actress. Here she seems very different.”
Looking at the man, Dare tried to speak like he was, using the correct words.
“I based Eva on Queen Tiera, so that’s probably the person here that corresponds. She’s the Queen of the Moon.”
Gwen smiled then and shook her head.
“Amazing! You have people on the Moon? In my world, either of them, we barely manage to get off the planet. I suppose being on a different Earth is kind of cool, but that sounds wild, doesn’t it? Going to the Moon like that?”
It took a second for him to get the idea, but he nodded. Then, trying his best, he spoke in English. It more or less worked.
“No one mentioned that we’re on Mars, did they?”
The woman went wide eyed then, which she hadn’t over anything else, and smiled at him.
“No. They did not. That’s… Incredible! Is that true? This is Mars?”
Tor nodded, absently, his deep voice rumbling as he answered.
“Yes. We can go past Harmony on the way back, if you like? Anyway, Dareg, do you have any more of those transport pods? We can set one up here, without Merry leaving, and let her go back to Earth from here. The Capital port?” He looked at the small woman, who shook her head.
“Austra. It’s more like home. Where I come from? A bit prudish, but other than that, the monetary system, the costume, all of it is more similar. They even have a new fad there, of going around unadorned. I just tell everyone that I’m from Noram and no one questions my strange accent or anything. I was trained to blend into Canton, not anyplace else. It works though, well enough.”
Getting up, a bit faster than he meant to, with Alice glaring at him a bit, and smiling a little at the same time, Dare set up one of the pods. It meant getting into one of the chests, and allowing a name to exist for a moment for it, but no one tried to walk into the room with them.
“Go then? We need… Let’s get you a handheld as well? That way we can keep in touch. I suppose you could just run, but if you do that, know that the next time we meet, I’ll start by fighting.” It sounded col
d, and Merry made a face, but didn’t try to correct him.
“I love you, Dareg. Don’t forget that.”
“I love you, too.” Then he waved at the red box. “Which won’t prevent me from killing you, if you aren’t who, and what, you claim. We can’t afford to do that. Not yet. If you’re being honest, then… Well, we can work together and go from there?” Eva went to get Merry a handheld and set it up, without being asked directly.
As she handed it over, Eva bowed a bit, making the thing a gift. She didn’t speak however, just smiling and waving toward the door of the pod which was taking up a portion of his front room. His place wasn’t tiny, but the room they were in wasn’t really worthy of a palace or anything. It did look nice, however. Refined and made of slightly yellow colored stone, with what seemed like carvings all over the walls. Just simple designs and trims.
Merry didn’t try to touch him again, but she waved at him, and then Tor.
“I’ll be in touch. This… Honestly it went better than I figured it would. I’d expected a lot more screaming and crying. You’ve grown a lot, Dareg.”
He looked at her, and spoke in English, trying to get the accent correct.
“I have, but… Not in a way that anyone should be pleased with. Call me in four days. I won’t be here. If you get into trouble, get with Tor. We won’t meet again, unless we can protect you. If you get new orders, and can do it safely, let us know?”
“I will. Thank you. All of you. I haven’t had this much hope in nearly twenty years.”
Then she touched the star on the right hand side of the door, and walked into the box. After a few moments he could feel the thing working, so after checking inside, opening the door on the thing to make certain it was empty, he turned the thing off. He didn’t really need a public transport inside his home. That was an invitation to have tourists using his restroom at random intervals.
Tor looked at the others, and bowed, going low.
“Can you get yourselves home from here? We should set up a regular visit. Zack, your people can do that? The Line Walkers?”
The small pale man nodded at them and looked directly at Dareg.
“I’ll send a person to you. Once a week or so? We need to go over how to move between realities. We have a technique to train people for that. It takes about a thousand years, but in outer world time it’s only a few hours. Not everyone can do it, but so far, everyone that can move to different places has been able to manage it. You made these node points? That’s fairly large. Once you learn how to move between worlds on your own, you can probably design these to do that for you, which will allow a lot of people to use them…” He shook his head, and smiled. “Since I make my living doing that, it will cut into things, I bet! Well, nothing lasts forever. We can’t handicap ourselves just to keep gold flowing in.”
He clapped then, once, and looked at Eva.
“You should come and visit. Eve would get a kick out of that. Do you think you can learn English?”
The girl nodded.
“Sure. It isn’t hard.” As far as Dare could tell, she nearly didn’t have an accent as she spoke in that language, which had both Brian and Gwen going wide eyed.
Dareg nodded, doing the same thing.
“I think we can set it up for one of the Eva’s to go along with you? If you want, I mean.” He spoke to her directly, which got her to walk over and hug him.
“Yay! A trip. We should get Samantha in on that too? If it isn’t a problem? My sister. She’s like me. Made of magical energy?”
Zack nodded, and the others seemed surprised to hear about that part of things, as if it hadn’t occurred to them before that point that there might be different kinds of people in the room. It was a bit of a mistake; given they were stepping between very different reality schemes. Not that he’d be doing any better, if it were him in the far off world.
It didn’t take long to set that all up, but, as he’d feared from what the man had said earlier, Tor stayed behind after everyone else left the room. Then he bowed, his tall body and youthful face seeming suddenly wrong. Far too humble and polite for the situation.
“Forgive me, Dareg. I scolded you when I didn’t have a right to do so, and drove a wedge between us that shouldn’t be there. I knew that it was a sensitive area for you, and should have sought to be more understanding at the time.” The man faltered then, as if he didn’t know what else to say. It was a regular bow, not scraping on the floor, which meant something. Tor had gone low, meaning he felt bad about what he’d done, but not all the way to the floor, meaning that he also really didn’t think he’d been wrong.
Which, of course, he hadn’t been.
Dareg waved him back up, sucked in some air and blew it out.
“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have let myself act in anger. Not that I was wrong. I can’t be part of your family. Not until Austra changes, which won’t happen soon. Otherwise they’ll keep coming after me on the issue, and I’ll end up harming other people. That… I can’t let that happen. The thing is, if I’m pushed too much, I can’t really swear to protect them either.”
It was part of combat rage, really. Tor looked at him, standing up, but shook his head.
“Not really. I mean, it isn’t your job to protect other people beyond reason, Dareg. Besides, children can’t disown their parents. I looked that one up. It only works the other way around, and in Noram at least, you’d have to get the King to sign off on it, which Richard isn’t going to do. Not that I asked him to, which would be required. He already put his name on papers of confirmation, so that isn’t going to be easily undone.” He smiled, and tossed off another bow. “Meaning that you’re stuck with me. Legally speaking. On two worlds. That won’t force you to talk to me, or even acknowledge that I’m alive, but… Us being estranged won’t fix Austra either. What… I was thinking about that. What if we go there and do the tests in front of everyone? That might quiet part of things. Not that we should have to do that…”
Feeling torn, wanting to have a family, but also wanting to protect them, he shook his head. Not really saying no, as much as trying to let it be known that he didn’t know the answer.
“I… Guess. Really, I don’t know. I just don’t. Maybe?”
Tor nodded, and folded his huge hands in front of his body, as if he were a priest, addressing a crowd in Canton.
“I’ll set that up with Timon. We could do that on the trip in a few days? Alyssa was worried that you might not want us to come along. I assured her that if nothing else your anger with me wouldn’t be directed toward her.” He gave Dare a look that said he better not have been thinking about shunning her, at the very least.
“I hadn’t even thought of that. I can’t take things from you, I don’t think. On the good side, I don’t really need to now. Even once we prove things, everyone will think that I’m just trying to use you and the rest. I don’t know if that will ever go away.”
Tor shrugged, and smiled at him, half of his mouth lifting in a bit of a smirk. The man was good enough looking that he didn’t seem real.
“Who cares? No one would think twice if I just picked someone at random and gave them things. I do it all the time, in fact and no one, in any land, has ever said anything about it. That they’re concerned about you at all… I think that they’re bored, to be honest about it. They’re making problems that don’t really exist, trying to make their own lives more interesting. Not that… I mean, Albright should have figured out that he needed to back off. Combat rage is kind of considered to be having a bad temper there, in Austra and even for some people on the Moon. Part of that is ignorance. People think that what’s happening to those that have it is like what takes place when they get upset, and can’t understand why it’s different.”
That didn’t fix anything, of course, but instead of going on about that, Dare just nodded, feeling a bit sad. The rage was a horrible thing, for all that it also had its uses. Normal people couldn’t understand the burden of it, never having to deal with it
personally. There was no way to teach them, either. Or explain it.
Worse, it was controllable. It was really hard to do, but Dare managed most of the time. Stopping it from happening in the first place worked best, but controlling what he did wasn’t impossible. For others with the rage that wasn’t the case, it seemed, but he didn’t have that excuse. Making him a murderer. Not a warrior, just a bully that killed people for no good reason.
The kind of person that probably shouldn’t be allowed near others. Not good people at any rate.
“Um… I know. Anyway, we need to…” He was actually at a loss as to what he needed to do at the moment. Probably get ready for the Jupiter trip, which was closing in faster now.
Tor, who might be his father again, if what he’d said was truthful, nodded. At least as far as the law went. The man could have been lying to try and control him, but the same basic problem that had always existed still did now. There was nothing for the man in claiming him, in particular. It was the truth, but letting Dareg go his own way would be enough for most people. The man could have tossed him a few gold coins, or even silver, and that would have been more upkeep than anyone in Noram would have required of him. Even getting him a job would have been considered a simple kindness at that point. It might have been different if Dare hadn’t been an adult when they met, but given the way things had happened it was surprising that he’d gotten more than cold, or at least cool, indifference from the fellow.
Instead, on finding out that Dareg was there and real, his actual child, Tor had dunned the King himself, as well as Queen Tiera, and signed papers everywhere it was possible at the time, claiming Dareg as his own. Making him the heir to his fortune. The only thing that made any sense at all was that Torrance Baker simply wanted his child to do well. He wanted his family close to him.
Which was a thing too hard for Dareg to handle at the moment. Mainly because he’d just spent several hours with his dead mother.
Tor however, held his head up, as if Dareg had said something, or hinted at it, and he understood.
