by Garon Whited
It’s not like this was even a real threat to Mochara. Yes, if it had the army to back it, the combination could be a problem. The fleet, on its own, was really just a moderate pain the keister. When I turned back the army, the fleet should have turned back, too! This was stupid on their part… which could mean taking Mochara wasn’t the objective.
What were they trying to do?
Oh, maybe they had a plan to take the city. If they did, this really could be a straightforward attempt and the army was merely a helpful thing to have in preparation for the march on Karvalen. If so, I was looking forward to seeing their plan in action and stomping it. If I could.
Really, though, it didn’t seem reasonable or likely. Was it a feint? Could there be something sneaking up on Karvalen while everyone watched things unfold in Mochara? Was it a ploy to redirect troops and guards and make Karvalen—or me—more vulnerable to attack? Or was this someone’s way of depleting Rethven’s forces before invading it? Maybe Bob engineered this so he could start a takeover with troops from the Eastrange… but then he wouldn’t have asked for a way to cut down on the population, would he? Unless his request was meant to throw me off the thought he was behind it all.
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. I hate politics.
Still, better safe than sorry. I did a search around Karvalen and scanned the city streets. No massed bodies of men marching anywhere, no determined squads scaling the mountain, not even a wing of flying carpets circling the place in preparation for a kamikaze run.
Any assassins in the palace? Maybe. You can never tell about them; they have to be sneaky. It’s almost an evolutionary thing. Every time you kill an assassin, he’s obviously one who wasn’t sneaky enough. The ones you don’t get are the even sneakier ones, and those are the ones who survive to raise little assassins. He’d have to be exceptionally sneaky though, to succeed in killing me when I’m feeling paranoid. And fanatical to the point of martyrdom. That’s not impossible, not even unlikely, considering.
A few personal spells for my own protection wouldn’t go amiss…
I took care of those and went back to thinking. What can I say? Impending wars always make me nervous. I’m always afraid I’ve missed something fundamental, or at least important, and it’s going to cost people their lives.
The air near the left wall started to flicker. It was like a distant flash of lightning in the clouds, only without the clouds. It happened again as I wondered what was going on. It didn’t seem to be discharging energy into the room. As I examined it, the flickering grew brighter and more rapid before a circular area around it started to bend, to twist, to distort. The spell started to manifest more strongly and I recognized the business end of a gate spell.
“Well, crap,” I said, followed by an order to my two bodyguards to get back. We removed ourselves to the pivot-door as the circular distortion, now about three meters across, started to spiral toward its center. They started pushing on the door, grinding it open, as I monitored the magical effect.
I don’t often get to see the far side of a gate opening. Usually, I’m the one opening it. This one didn’t seem to be opening quickly, but I could think of three reasons for it, just off the top of my head. The slowness might be from someone’s unfamiliarity with the spell, extreme distance, or possibly from a time differential between the two ends of the gateway.
The twisting, swirling area of space finally opened up and snapped into place. The view through it was probably a cave mouth or similar crevice. The mouth of the opening was in shadow, but beyond the hard, harsh line of shade, a bright wasteland of dust and jagged rocks shone with a supernal light. The sky was black as velvet and the stars were visible, cold and unwinking above the oddly too-close horizon.
That was my glimpse of it. Then I roared in agony as the light reflected from the pale soil burned every inch of exposed skin—hands and head, mostly—sending up little licks of flame and a thin, white smoke like steam off a roasted turkey. It wasn’t nearly as bad as my accidental self-immolation, but the reflected sunlight was more than enough to set me slightly on fire.
My agonized yell was lost in the howling wind. Air surged around us as it poured away through the gateway, sucked through by the vacuum on the other side. This extinguished me like a candle on a birthday cake, at first, but the light continued to sear me. Then the rapid flow of air, combined with the reflected sunlight, caused my exposed skin to catch fire more definitely. It was not a measurable improvement over my accidental sunlight cannon.
If the three of us had been any closer to the open gate, we would have gone tumbling through into direct sunlight and vacuum. As it was, I clawed my way out into the corridor, half-helped by my bodyguards. One of them partly dragged me, scorching his hands badly, as we clawed our way along the floor and into the hall. The other hung back and wedged himself against the doorframe, pushing with his legs to swing the pivot-door partly closed, putting me in shadow. I remembered my childhood lessons about extinguishing the burning victim.
The whistling sound of air being sucked around the edges of the door seemed loud amid the heavy breathing and the crackling of my regenerating skin. My other bodyguard slid-crawled across the doorway, wedged himself on the other side, and pushed with his legs, helping to swing the door a few inches more. I stayed out of the way—and the light—while people farther down the hallway in both directions shouted incomprehensibly into the wind.
Someone—the entire list of suspects consisted of Johann—went to the trouble of opening a gate on the Moon.
I begin to think Johann doesn’t like me. I’m also thinking he doesn’t necessarily want to capture me alive. The combination of vacuum suction and sunlight was a straight-up attempt to kill me.
It was a good one, too. I’m glad he’s in another universe—and glad the gate wasn’t directly facing the Sun. All I got was a dose of indirect light, which is merely awful. This is worthy of note: I was burned by moonlight. Really up-close and intense moonlight, but technically moonlight. It implies I do have a mild resistance to sunlight at night. Moonlight doesn’t usually burn. Too much moonlight, however, is still sunlight. I may need to investigate this.
I sat there in the shadows and the wailing wind of the hallway while I regenerated. More guards showed up. I was hungry and cranky, so I shouted over the wind to send one of them off to make preparations to feed me. More people leaned up against the door, rotating it until it closed. We waited until the gate quit and the whistling, shrieking sound died away. We opened the door again with weapons drawn.
Nothing came through the gate. That was one of my main worries, of course. If Johann wanted me on the lunar surface, he might have conjured something to drag me along rather than rely on suction. Maybe the gate was taxing, even for him? Hopefully so. I didn’t see how he could put one end of it on the Moon and the other end here. All the gates I understand require me to be actually present at one end or the other. I’ll have to think about how that might work. Could he have managed spells to get himself to the Moon and cast his gate spell there? He could, certainly, but how would that affect his connection to his nexus? Would he go? Was I so important to him he would do such a thing for a shot at killing me?
I recalled his face when he drove a red-hot piece of steel through my liver. Yes, he would. He might send one of his kids to do it for him, since he had the option, but he’d do it himself if he had to.
Meanwhile, my scrying setup was ruined. The table was still there, but the sand was gone. All the mirrors went tumbling through the gate. What was left of the place was a shambles, wrecked.
“Please find me some mirrors,” I said, calmly, through tightly-clenched teeth. “Someone get me a bucket of sand. I have to set up my station again.”
People started moving. My bodyguards, however, had some difficulties. One had a nosebleed—and if you are ever in a position to think a nosebleed looks delicious, I sympathize with and pity you—while both had trouble hearing. I worked on them a bit with my spells, m
aking sure they didn’t rupture anything crucial inside their ears, stopping the bleeding, and encouraging healing. I paid special attention to the burned hands; those hands might very well have saved my life.
Then, rather than send for replacements, they wanted to follow me as I went to dinner. If I ruptured veins in my eyeballs and sinuses, along with an eardrum or two, I’d want to take the rest of the night off. Not them. They’re tougher than I am. I told them to send for replacements anyway.
We waited for their relief. It gave me time to finish regenerating my face. It doesn’t do for a king to wander around with a grin three times larger than his mouth. It makes people nervous.
The bucket of sand arrived first, so I poured it into the sand table and started a spell to subdivide it into finer and finer grains. When the next shift of bodyguards arrived, I sent my previous two off to recuperate.
I hoped the two new guys had strong stomachs. I was getting hungry. Dinner wasn’t going to be dainty.
Quite a number of things are slaughtered every day in a city—every sort of animal imaginable, from the mundane chickens and pigs, to the slightly odd dazhu, all the way to the outright exotic. I was only interested in the ones which bled copiously; regenerating a sunburn takes a lot out of me.
Mental note: Don’t test whether or not Sparky will cook me in a sunrise. It may not be a religious effect. It might be a purely physical reaction based on my inner darkness versus the light during a change of state. It might not require the personal attention and power of a sun-based deity.
Beltar apparently took care of the more sanguine matters, organizing the blood collection and making all the arrangements—down in the Temple of Shadow. I appreciated his efforts even though I found the ceremonial trappings somewhat… distasteful. Just a personal preference, obviously, but I barely tolerate being a king. Being treated like a deity makes me itch. Or maybe it was the sunburn.
The fact he had three people waiting for my personal attention also came to light, although in a less incendiary manner. It seems in poor taste, even callous, possibly heartless, to mention them in conjunction with a flood of livestock blood poured over me. And yet, they played their part in restoring me and sating my hunger. Their blood helped restore my flesh; their spirits helped me recover from my exertions. They were even happy to help! I helped them escape from slow, painful deaths and move on to their next life; they helped me by giving me new life.
Is it really in poor taste to mention them? I didn’t regard them in the same way as livestock, yet they helped me at least as much as the livestock did. They came to me and asked to be allowed to pass on. I fulfilled my function in this ecology—is it callous of the wolf to devour the aged and weak? Or am I drawing parallels that don’t apply? I’m not a wolf. I’m not hunting them. I’m not weeding them out. Should I be more actively pursuing prey? If so, who should I be hunting?
If I start picking and choosing who lives and dies, what does that make me? A vampire? A god? A king? Or what? I’m not qualified to be the judge of who should live and who should die… or am I? I see into the souls—or what I believe to be the souls—of living beings. Does that make me qualified? If I can look at a man and see him as he truly is, good and bad alike, and know where he falls on the spectrum of saint to sinner, does the knowledge also give me the right to decide his fate? Is it fair to judge him based on my own beliefs and opinions and on how he measures up to them?
Don’t get me wrong. I have no qualms about killing someone trying to kill me. They’re trying to commit violence upon my person and therefore volunteering to be eaten. If you jump on the back of a tiger and start biting its ear, well, you get what’s coming to you. Likewise, someone brutalizing a child is also going to discover exactly how awful a crime it is. These are two things about which I refuse to budge. But beyond those specific cases, how do I judge? Can I decide someone’s fate on my opinions? Can I say someone isn’t a good person based on the cultural values in my upbringing?
These things seem to bother me more than I recall. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I was worried about becoming inured to bloodshed and death; nobody wants a nightlord without a conscience. Now I’m worried I worry too much. Is this normal? Is it a cycle of some sort?
Anyone know where I can get a copy of Vampire Psychology and Unlife Cycle? Or maybe Understanding the Dark Lord Within? Come to think of it, who writes self-help books for vampires? If I ever do manage to become old and wise, maybe I should look into writing them. If they sell, it could indicate a lot about the vampire population of whatever world in which it’s published.
Meanwhile, in the scrying room, they brought in several new mirrors and lined them up against one wall. I set them up around the sand table and got to work.
My first order of business was a spell to divert incoming gates. I’m heavily shielded from detection and location spells, so I doubt Johann targeted me in such a manner. On the other hand, there was nothing I could really do about, for example, a scrying spell in a fixed location. Like a security camera, it couldn’t track me down, but it could wait until I walked by. He couldn’t locate me with the magical radar, but he could watch the security camera and spot me that way. Although I would have thought my scrying defenses were more than adequate… against local scrying sensors. If Johann was putting a scrying sensor, somehow, in between worlds…
Come to that, how big would a gate need to be for a peephole? With proper lensing—or even fiber optics—could someone open a gate so small it was practically invisible? It would still take a lot more power without a suitably-sized gateway border on both ends, but if the initial gate size was small enough, it might be worth it. I’ll have to look into that.
But my point in building a gate-diverter was simple. I didn’t want him opening a gate facing the sun or deep under the lava of an active volcano. The redirector should divert any incoming gate into a sealed chamber in the mountain. If nothing else, it should give us enough lead time to avoid surprise.
Once again, assuming he didn’t open a gate inside the Sun. I’m still not sure how he could open a gate between two points without standing on one of them. I still sort of doubt he went to the Moon to cast a gate spell, so I’m concerned. If he’s learned so much about gates already, I could be in even more serious trouble than I already believe.
Once I realized this, I had to exert myself to suppress a panic attack. I really need to stop giving myself new reasons to be terrified. I mean, I’m the unholy fiend of darkness, immortal and terrible, feasting on the blood of the living, with all of humanity as my rightful prey. Why am I the one scared?
Let’s face it. Humans are scary.
I took a minute or ten and calmed down. I needed to. There was a lot of work to get done before morning.
I integrated the powdered sand into the sand table’s enchantment and got it back on-line. The mirrors were more problematic. They fetched several for me, only one of which was larger than a hand mirror. I set it up as my main screen and started arranging the others. It took hours to get it all on-line and working, but I fully intended to watch the battle of Mochara closely.
Naturally, it started early. A pox upon thy house, Murphy! —and you, too, Thomen!
The ships moved in slowly. In the mirrors, I set the images for false color to show the spells involved. The ships were surrounded by scryshield spells. As I watched, a steel bolt flickered through the night, missing cleanly every single ship and splashing into the ocean hundreds of yards behind the task force. Nobody seemed to notice, though.
With a ranging shot to guide them, the defenders launched another bolt a couple of minutes later. Their aim was good; it struck the bow of the lead ship, breached it, and went right into the lower decks.
I think they had guidance spells. They certainly had something on that bolt, but it flicked through my view too fast to identify. From the way the fires erupted from belowdecks and flecks of light fountained up, my guess is several pounds of steel turned to shrapnel and molten metal inside the s
hip’s wooden guts.
Once the ships realized they were in the defenders’ range, their wizards raised their defenses. The ships were quickly covered by multiple layers of spells. First a disruption-effect barrier, well out in front, to dispel magic directed at them—or magic on incoming projectiles. Then a spell to slow anything coming toward them. Then a spell to divert or deflect whatever might still be coming. I had to admit, they were well-prepared. Still, it was expensive in terms of power to raise shields over such large areas, not to mention multiple types. I’m sure they didn’t intend to start using them so soon.
It didn’t seem to change their plans much. They pushed up their schedule, hurrying toward the harbor instead of lazily timing their arrival with the sunrise. A few more of the steel bolts came to meet them and were deflected. It wasn’t a total waste; defending against something so heavy and fast cost them shield power they might need later. It also forced the other ships to reinforce their own shields, just in case.
Then they entered arrow range and the defenders volleyed. Since the shields protected the front and upper arcs of the ships, the arrows all fell harmlessly into the sea, diverted. I saw a number of magical flashes, spells on arrows being disrupted or dispelled. Again, however, it wasn’t a total loss; power applied to defense is power not applied to attack.
Then the catapults behind the seaward wall launched some god-awful number of arrows. It was an impressive sight, watching the packed masses of flaming arrows spread apart in flight. It was a hailstorm of fire and must have looked awfully frightening from below. Still, nothing got through. Arrows fell on the shields and slid aside, parting over the ships to splash into the water.
The lead ship—the belowdecks fires now extinguished—maneuvered to enter the harbor. As it passed between the pylons marking the entrance, it ground to a halt on the cables strung slightly under the surface. When it lurched and halted, a sitting target, a whole line of Mocharan wizards stepped up and pointed staves at it. Sparks and bright discharges leaked into the visible range as the shields went down under their volley. Archers volleyed again, peppering the ship and crew with flaming arrows; the sails and rigging caught fire. Then the big ballista cut loose again, spearing the ship with another steel bolt. It did the same thing the previous one did. The ship began to burn despite the crew’s best efforts. It sat there, struggling with the flames, blocking the harbor entrance.
