by Daniel Ruth
“Oh, that’s where you’re getting the gold,” the elf said as my cunning plan was revealed. “Good idea. And that is why you wanted the bag.”
“Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’ll be back soon,” I told them.
“When are you going?” Beth asked.
“Now,” I said as I placed the last Spellcraft primer book in my bag. I closed my eyes and reach out my dimensional senses.
Creatures like me are born with the ability to span the dimensions. We can go anywhere we have already been. Unfortunately, before I met a certain evil old dragon, who I shall not name, I hadn’t been anywhere else. Once he bound me and tossed me in another dimension I still had the ability to sense other dimensions I could travel to, however with the runic anchor carved into my flesh I couldn’t actually go there. Then the demon lord had put barriers in place. Only he could pass through the barriers and only at the portals. Unless you were keyed to the circle like me. In theory, I could do the same. Again, only at the portals.
However, in potency spells are generally trumped by circles, which are in turn suppressed by wards (with some exceptions). Runes are the closest to the concepts in the firmament and should surpass all the other kinds of magic I know of. Normally I could only go through the keyed portals. However, the anchor on my chest was technically ‘one’ with the anchor rune on the large rock lying next to the portal in Jeremy’s world. It was also technically the same as the one I had embedded in the fireplace of this room. I was about to exploit the hell out of this technicality.
I sensed the bond I had with the anchor fragment in the fireplace. Reaching my senses past that, I had a timeless instance of vertigo before I sensed another, larger affinity. Pushing myself out of phase with the dimension, I drew on the affinity of the larger rune. I wasn’t forcing myself past the barrier, I was simply using the rune to enforce the fact I was already there. And then I was gone.
If you haven’t ever had a hook pierce your chest and drag you along like a fisherman on a high-speed boat, you probably can’t imagine the brief moment of agony I experienced. It was okay, though, since a moment later I had the sensation of being puréed and poured through a hole so tiny it was only theoretically open. I almost completely forgot about the little hook sensation. The pouring through the imaginary hole seemed to last forever, then I found myself back in my body.
I was collapsed next to the anchor stone, staring dazedly at the portal and the cannons pointed towards the center for some minutes before I realized what I was doing. My nerves were still raw and my legs were weak. However, it had worked. It took a few tries to get to my feet. I looked towards the large stone with a mixture of disgust and gratitude.
I took about thirty minutes to gather my wits and take stock of my reserves. Aside from the memory of mind-blowing pain and the slowly fading sensation of burning nerves, I was fairly good. Even my energy reserves were mostly intact, just very low.
I reached into my pocket to grab my rune tooth and get another fragment to act as yet another anchor point when I paused.
“Drat! I knew I forgot something,” I mumbled a few choice curses. I couldn’t split a fragment off this huge chunk of rune etched duracrete without my special tooth. I had to give it up in order to get my bag. “Oh crud, this is going to mean another trip through the hell train express,” I muttered dourly. Oh well, I needed at least a day to recover, so I may as well go home, rest up and study. I think I may even have some dinosaur in the fridge. It’s only been less than two weeks.
My constitution wasn’t rebounding as fast as usual. The very thought of dragging myself across the city set my body aching. Sitting shakily back down on the ground, I opened up my terminal and sent out a request for a floater. The response took a few minutes and the estimated price was exorbitant. Still the fact that there was one available meant that they had started shielding the non-essential vehicles. An excellent step back to civilization.
The floater didn’t crash. I was strangely surprised at this. Although the traffic was nowhere as heavy as the pre-apocalypse level there were a few floaters making their way through the sky. The ground traffic had definitely picked up by a huge degree. Most looked rather old. They were either beaten up and looked like they had dragged themselves out of various junkheaps or they were in excellent condition but appeared to be ancient devices that belonged in a showroom.
No more lightning crackled across the sky, tracing the length of the ley line. I knew this was likely due to my wards attached to the buildings but I was significantly less proud of my work after having seen the energy distribution network laid out in Gildorn.
As the floater landed in front of my house, I eagerly exited. I was looking forward to a night sleeping in my own bed. Maybe even slipping down to sleep on my little treasure horde. I was definitely not expecting to see a repurposed old dump truck, backed up in front of my lawn. Vivian was out in the street, waving the driver to back up.
The tires were tearing up the grass. Not quite churning it to mud but there was certainly an impression. It was also fairly clear from previous tracks that it was not the first time it was here. As soon as the rear of the truck passed over the sidewalk huge gouts of steam billowed upwards and seems to circulate around some predefined boundary of my property.
As I approached I saw Mei was on the other side of the truck shouting to Vivian. “This is the last time! Get the damn track off Derek’s property before I pick it up and shove it up your ass!”
Mei was a tiny Asian woman, however, she also happened to be a pretty bad ass weretiger with a major rune weapon. In our battle with the demon lord, she had cut off his hand in a single blow. She had immediately thereafter been knocked unconscious, but it had definitely left a deep impression in my mind.
Apparently, Vivian was not aware how close she was to being vivisected by a sword-wielding tiger. She was blithely ignoring her, waving the truck further back.
“Fine, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Mei said as she bent down and started to grip the chassis of the truck. She had it levered at an angle above her shoulder and was obviously about to heft the entire structure over her head in preparation for... Well, I was a bit vague on that. Her threats were anatomically impossible, but I am sure it would have been gruesome.
“Hold on Mei,” I yelled over the squeal of springs and metal as it folded under her touch.
“Derek,” she shouted in surprise, Letting the truck crash to the ground. Now the grass was hopelessly churned. “I thought you were in France. Conrad made it sound as if you would be gone a while.” She looked at me again, “Why are you wearing a dress? You know what? I don’t care!”
“I’m just here for a day or so before I have to head back,” I responded, looking sadly at my lawn. I turned to Vivian, “A truck? Seriously? Look at my lawn!”
“This is at least the third time she’s been around,” Mei spat out. “It’s like a damn vampire murder fest. I never liked the things but I refuse to be a part of this massacre.”
“They’re not really dead, kitten,” Vivian said lazily. She apparently knew she was a weretiger, but had no concept of how lethal she was. Either that or she was way more powerful than I thought. Since I had seen Mei face off against a demon lord I was voting on ignorance. “They’ll be back when it’s safe.”
“Safe from you?” Mei responded with scorn. “I should have Derek suppress the ward and free all of your victims, so they can take turns gutting you!”
I looked over to Vivian with alarm and mouthed ‘how many’. She mouthed back ‘thousands’. That certainly explained why my house looked like it had a personal fog bank rotating around it.
“Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said attempting to calm Mei down. “Vivian has a perfectly good reason for...er, incarcerating these creatur...um, people.”
“I do,” Vivian nodded regally. “You simply have no reason to know it.”
I massaged my forehead. “Really? You’re not going to tell her, even after she caught yo
u dumping... lots of vampires into my ward?”
“I don’t see a need to,” she replied haughtily.
“How about if you don’t tell me, I’ll chop you up into giblets and soak them in the barrels of holy water Derek has squirreled away around the area?”
Vivian's head snapped around to look at me with a glare. I chuckled in embarrassment, “Well, you know, just taking healthy precautions against possible unkillable assassins. Who wouldn’t do the same?”
“Fine, you can tell her,” she spat in anger. “I have more important things to do, such as save my people,” she said before she continued as an afterthought. “And the humans too.”
“Speaking of which,” I took the opportunity to ask. “Do you have the name?”
“Lamia,” the vampire said reluctantly. “It’s a very old myth that dates back to the Greeks. There are no elders older than that time period.”
“Nothing else?”
“No. It was a discredited myth when the elders were young, but it’s the closest to what you requested,” she looked at the truck, which had stopped billowing smoke and ash. “I’m done here for tonight. Let me know if you need anything else.” She continued sourly, “I’ll be here every night until something changes.”
“Really?” Mei asked with boundless skepticism. “An evil god from the dimension next door has conducted a hostile takeover of the local undead and no one noticed?”
“Well, people have been busy,” I said, waving my hand with a yawn. I was sitting in my favorite chair. Mei had hauled in a chair from another room since this was originally designed to be a one person reading room. “Barbecues, parties... the end of the world. Doubtless tons of people are missing and no one knows what happened to them. Probably thousands just got eaten by dinosaurs, let alone vampires.”
“Why shouldn’t I tell Conrad, so he can mobilize AEGIS?”
“I can’t because I gave Vivian my word not to tell people. As for you, I can’t think of a reason.”
“I suppose a creature like you is bound to your word.”
“I’m not a demon,” I retorted in irritation. “I simply choose to abide by my word. You know like a human or a shifter would.”
“Fine. But I didn’t make any promises. I’ll tell him about...”
“The evil god...” I prompted.
“Oh god,” she lamented. “What am I going to tell him? You have to come tell him. He’ll believe the Professor!”
“Um, no,” I shook my head emphatically. “I am busy. The last thing I need to do is to be stuck with some stupid task force trying to address the symptom. Just go with something simple. Tell the part of the truth that’s easier to believe.”
“Which is the easier to believe part?”
“Just say that a faction of the vampire council has broken away and is going on a rampage. It’s true enough.”
“That is technically the truth,” she faltered. “What happens if you succeed and these vampires regain their senses.”
“We’ll say that one of the leaders had incredibly strong hypnotic powers and overwhelmed the senses of the weaker vampires. We got him and his control fell apart.” I got up again and went out to the fridge with Mei trailing behind. On the way, we passed the living room. It was filled with cartons and boxes addressed to Beth and me. I determinedly resisted the urge to put away the boxes and tidy the area. In fact, I tried to avoid thinking about the boxes of rocket parts altogether. Finally reaching the fridge, I opened it and stared in shock, “Where’s all the food?”
“I ate it,” she replied blandly, still concentrating on what I had previously said. “You’ve been gone for almost two weeks. The people you’re housing got hungry. Now that things are slowly getting better, the food situation isn’t so critical but it was pretty uncomfortable.”
“Oh crud,” I said with disappointment. “Are people delivering takeout yet?”
“If you're rich, sure,” she mocked. “You either have to be an old-time mechanic or a wealthy collector to have a car.”
“I saw a few floaters,” I pointed out.
“Government workers or people identified as important to the infrastructure. Give it a few more weeks and the ‘non-essential personnel’ will have some sort of vehicle. They are talking about going back to the ground cars in the interim. The streets are mostly intact. Anyway, I suppose that explanation is mostly the truth.”
“Why bother lying?”
“Right. I’ll go with that.”
“Great, let's order out.”
“What did I just say?”
“Only the wealthy can order delivery,” I nodded in recollection. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but I am incredibly wealthy. The trip home really wrung me out and you ate all my food.”
“You could have called ahead,” she said defensively.
I looked at her in annoyance, opening my mouth to rebut her statement, then paused. She had a point. “I forgive you. I’ll order for you too. Better yet, use my account and you order for us. I have a big appetite, so order a lot.”
The incessant ringing woke me up. I reflexively slammed my hand down on the alarm next to the bad but it didn’t stop it. Blearily opening my eyes, I noted it was the afternoon. Then I noticed that my table next to the bed had been smashed to flinders. I winced as I saw the mess, then smiled as I cast the Clean spell and the debris vanished in a shimmer of sparkling mist.
Then the ringing started again and I stopped smiling. It was the doorbell. I cast Clean on myself and shrugged into a fresh suit of tweed. It was nice to get out of the robes. Then there was banging on the door.
“I’m coming!”
Stomping to the front door I opened it. Standing there is all his armored glory was Faramond. I had to resist the urge to kick him into the next house over. First of all, I had already done it once and it had cost me a ton to replace the house. Second of all, there were niggling doubts about whether I could take him if push came to shove. Last of all, I really shouldn’t despite really wanting to.
“I am ready to attend my Mistress,” He intoned. I stared at him.
“Good for you,” I said after a moment. “What does that have to do with me?”
“She left this dimension with you and the little girl,” he replied shortly. “Since you are back, you obviously have a way back and must know where she is.”
I looked at him. I guess he wasn’t as much as a complete imbecile as I thought he was. I am not sure how he knew I had left with Stella and Beth unless Conrad or Jeremy told him, however considering both were still in France I doubted it.
“I do,” I began slowly. As much as I didn’t like him, he was Stella’s guardian. “I can tell you how to get to her but you will have to promise me some things.”
“Why can you not take me there?”
“I can only go there myself, no passengers,” I answered him while stifling a yawn. “You should know how it works unless you have a circle or a portal.”
“Then what are your conditions?”
“If I give you the means to cross the dimensions and the directions to get to her you must absolutely be polite to Maribel.”
“I am a gentleman, of course, I would be polite to a lady!”
“She’s the cute dragon guarding the Paris portal,” I continued. His breathing hitched.
“And will she peacefully let me pass?”
“As long as she knows I sent you,” I began. “And you are polite,” I continued tentatively. “And you pass through her territory as fast as possible.”
“Are you sure she will let me pass?”
“Mostly,” I assured him, avoiding looking him in the eyes. “She hates humans but we came to an agreement.”
“What is this agreement?”
“Mutual respect, gems and occasionally date,” I casually continued. “The usual.”
“Fine,” he growled as he looked at me suspiciously. “I will treat her with the utmost respect.”
“Great, once you leave the valley you keep following t
he road. If you meet a hydra, feel free to try to kill it.”
“Hydra?” he asked in surprise. “Are you sure you don’t wish to date that one as well.”
“Absolutely. He’s a jerk. Kick his ass.” I rather doubted he could but I wasn’t twisting his arm. It was great if he could. If he couldn’t, then no harm was done. To me.
“In order for you to pass the gate I will need to put a mark on you,” I warned him. I wasn’t actually sure about this. He was a modified human so there was actually a chance he could go back and forth with impunity, unlike supernatural creatures. It was better to mark him with my blood to make sure he doesn’t get stuck at the portal. It would be funny to see him pining at the gate but wasn’t worth the hassle.
“I will bear the indignity of your mark if it is required to the rejoin with my mistress.”
I stared at him. Nice of him to deign to let me help him. “Gotcha, come here and I’ll put it on your forehead.”
“Must it be located there,” he asked, slightly taken aback.
I looked him in the eyes and lied. “Absolutely.”
Chapter 27
I was settling down in my overstuffed chair for an afternoon full of studying when the doorbell rang again. I was getting flashbacks. I couldn’t believe that I had gotten more personal time in another dimension, in an apartment one-fifth the size of my house than I was at my actual home.
I felt like stomping to the front door but I restrained myself. I would just have to repair the floor. The Repair spell was a few books off. I would stomp around a lot more once learned it.
I opened the door. The stout person there was human. He was really familiar looking. “Clyde? No, give me a second...”
“I’m...” he started before I interrupted him.
“Hardy! You're still alive. Good for you.”
“Right wise guy,” he started belligerently. Only the whites of his eyes revealed his fear. “Boss sent me to check to see if you had figgered out how to raise our guy.”
