by Pam Uphoff
Mogan grinned. "The food's not too bad, as Vinz is a Prince among employers."
Vinz steered Inky ahead, listening to the banter behind them.
"Certainly. Yes, Vinz does seem to be universally well thought of. You too."
"Vinz's good attributes have rubbed off on me." Mogan shook his head dolefully. "He won't let me use the bullwhip. But he's shaken off my misogynistic ways, after all this time. How come?"
Yellow shrugged. "Should we start believing in predestined true love?"
"I'd just as soon not."
"Yeah. Maybe it was just the shock of witches attitudes toward sex and children and so forth. The man was completely overcome by a woman with both power and a healthy attitude toward sex. Maybe he was bound to fall for the first witch he met."
Inky was giggling by then, and made a rude gesture in Yellow's direction.
Vinz opened a door and ushered them into a suite, a sitting room with a table in the corner by the window and a bedroom off each side. "That one is Mogan's." he said as Inky poked around. Dan cleared his throat behind him, making him scoot over.
"Right." Yellow pulled out her collection of maps and frowned at them. "You've had gold shipments hit here and here?"
Mogan sat down beside her. "Yeah. Nice coordinated operations, both times. I'm willing to bet either Veronian or Auralian. I suppose I should get used to saying Fascian or Jythan."
"Except that with corridors, it could be anyone. We've had enough run-ins with Organtes for them to feel justified in a bit of financial warfare." She snorted. "Earth or One World too, for that matter," she muttered.
Mogan stared at her for a long moment. "Would you care to explain? The rumors fly and none of them make the slightest sense."
She shrugged, "The details are pretty tightly kept." She took a bite of meat. "I need to ride the routes, see these two spots especially."
Vinz watched in interest as Mogan tried out five different ploys to get her to open up about Earth and One World, then gave up on information and went after her body. Vinz suspected he'd find that much easier to acquire, and left them alone to escort Inky home.
Chapter Fourteen
Summer 1398
Southern Divide Territory
Garit looked around the barren desert. They were out on a black lava flat, a couple hundred feet from the nearest ridge. "I can do anything. I just wish that I'd paid more attention when Xen was giving lessons in magic to Easterly and Deena."
Private Kuri looked nervous. "Sir, is this a good idea?"
"I just need to figure it out."
"Yes, sir."
Garit grinned. "Ah, c'mon. You've seen Xen and Q doing all sorts of magic. What do they do?"
Kuri blinked. "Well, first they grab big handfuls of nothing. Then they throw it. Or they grab some metal and start bending it . . . well, I can't see most of the other stuff they say they're doing."
Garit's turn to blink. "Umm, I was actually expecting you to tell me about the huge grandiose things they achieved. Grabbing handfuls of nothing sounds . . . a bit more like practical advice."
"Err, yes sir?"
Garit ignored him and held his hands out in the bright sunshine. Wizards source from light, Mages from heat. So I've certainly got both here. He hesitated, and shucked his uniform coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves. "There. I've got lots of light and heat."
He spread his fingers and started a slow powerful bear hug type motion. "Does this look as stupid as it feels? There's nothing but . . . light . . . stuck to my hands! I'm doing it!"
He swept his arms back out and bear hugged a whole bunch of light. Squeezed it down to a ball so bright it hurt to look at it. He cackled in glee, and threw it. It stuck. He yanked one hand away, then gave the other a quick flip.
The ball of fire flew across the rocks, skipped twice and exploded like Cove Islands black powder. The concussion knocked him flat in a wave of heat. He rolled over and scrambled to his feet. The brush on the ashrock ridge was on fire, black smoke climbing into the sky.
Kuri staggered to his feet, patting at his reddened face. "Never seen Xen do that."
Chapter Fifteen
Summer 1398
Section Twenty, Southern Divide Territory
The next afternoon Yellow rode Tat down a wagon trail, staring around at the thin brushy woods of the ashstone ridges. Halfway to Southern Hell she admitted defeat. "Q or Xen is going to have to come and look for their escape route. I'm afraid I could scramble through the damned stickery bushes for hours and walk right past a locked corridor. From horseback?" She shook her head.
Mogan snorted. "I've been looking for more ordinary signs, and I don't think any large groups of riders nor captured wagons have left the road since the grass last had enough rain to grow."
"None-the-less, I'm going to see what they are up to." She dropped off the horse and got her feet on the ground.
::Q? Xen?::
::Hey Yellow, having fun?::
::Yes, Xen, but I'm no good at finding corridors in brush and woods. Are you or Q free?::
"I am."
Mogan's horse spooked as he was drawing his sword, and he cursed as he reined her around.
Tat threw her head up, then snorted in amusement at the other horse.
Yellow looked up and shook her head. "How far away were you?"
"Twenty miles or so. I was almost in Southern Hell. Morning Mogan."
Yellow nodded. "I remembered Q saying there was a corridor in the woods, so I thought maybe there'd be another one down here. Somewhere." She pulled out her map and Xen dismounted.
Mogan joined them, standing closer to Yellow and a bit stiff and bristly. "We had wagons hit, here and on another road about five miles north."
"So not the corridors I've released. And they had to move multiple wagons without anyone noticing?" Xen looked around thoughtfully. "Let's start by assuming they only had one corridor, and look for a place accessible to wagons from both roads."
Mogan frowned. "We searched. There was no sign that they'd gone off into the brush. the wagons would have crushed and broken too much to conceal."
Xen vaulted back onto Pyrite. "Anyone who can make a corridor, can cast an illusion. And corridors are easy enough that I may be wrong—in which case the corridor would be close to the road. So let's take a fast look first."
Yellow poked Mogan as he tried to help her mount. "I'm a member of the King's Own. I can get on a horse without assistance."
He growled something under his breath. " . . . damn pretty-boy wizard . . . "
Just a mile further on, Xen turned suddenly, as if catching something in the corner of his eye, and after a half hour of carefully searching was fairly certain he had found a locked corridor. While he sat on the ground and meditated. Mogan lured her away from him. "I suppose a prince that's a wizard is irresistible to a witch?"
Yellow smirked. "Tempted though I am to encourage these amusing shows of jealousy and possession, common sense says I should tell you to get lost."
It was hard to tell under his weathered tan, but she thought he might have flushed slightly. "Sorry." Yes, definitely a flush.
"Hmm, that attitude rules out Scoone and Verona. And you lack some of the attitudes I consider Auralian. Not Earth, either. So, are you a marooned One World Spy?"
Definitely red. "No. I. Am. Not."
Yellow nibbled at her sandwich. "No? Hmm, what have I missed?"
"He doesn't have a One World gene." Xen said. "I'd have noticed."
"You weren't supposed to be listening."
"Ha! And congratulation on having the sense to not drop that bombshell on him while you were alone with him, but don't you think you should have warned me?"
Mogan glowered. Except for a touch of panic in the back of his eyes. She was getting somewhere, she just didn't know where.
"And spoil the surprise if I was wrong?" She poked Mogan. "This is what you get for being so curious about our run ins with Earth and One World."
"Ah. There we go. Le
t's see where this goes and then you can get back to dissecting the poor man." Xen rose – he was too damned graceful to ever scramble – and stepped into nowhere.
Yellow tucked her hand under Mogan's elbow. "C'mon. Aren't you curious?"
"Yellow, I'm not a part of this. I'm not a thief."
"I didn't think you were. But you are just so rootless, and the questions you asked so useful for, umm, the other side. Now, let's see who got the Laughlier gold." She towed him through a white whirlpool and into a large warehouse. Xen was already on the far side, looking over a door.
Mogan frowned and detoured to look at crates stacked to one side. "Ours. Empty." He kept his voice low but it still echoed around the mostly empty building. He turned then and walked up to Xen. Shoulders braced.
"The door's too well made for me to see or hear anything, and there are enough people walking around on the other side that I think we ought to wait until dark to open it." He looked at Mogan. "No, you don't know. Good."
"Good?" Mogan hunched as he followed Xen back across the warehouse and out the corridor.
"Can you see the warehouse through that?" At Mogan's head shake, Xen made a motion and the white whirlpool disappeared. "God, I hate waiting. Anyone hungry?" He opened a bubble and offered sandwiches.
Mogan took one. "So, how about killing the time by telling we what Little Miss Closed Mouth here, won't. What happened between us and Earth and One World?"
Xen glanced at the Sun. "We've got plenty of time. Okay. The first Western explorers into the interior of the Old World—Central Eurasia, roughly—found the Dallas Dimensional Exploration Corporation location probably within a few weeks of its establishment. Two of the four explorers went through the gate with light warps around themselves and inserted themselves into a group of trainee laborers for a two week introduction to Earth and what happens to Worlds that Earth discovers. The other two explorers hung around the Dallas base. The two on Earth were discovered, but believed to be One World spies. They escaped, and made it back to the gate Complex and waited for the right World to come up and returned."
"The four explorers took off to warn the King, while the Earth freaked out and sent troops. We had a nice little battle, artillery verse magic, and sent them packing, with a stiff diplomatic note.
"We all pretty much ignored each other for eleven years. Then we approached them about detailed information on the comets. Really tried for some diplomacy.
"Anyway, they knew about the impending comet impact. The Empire of the One also knew about the comet. They discovered us, umm forty years ago, that we know of. They had some sort of relations with the Auralians.
"Anyhow, Earth had no intention of helping us, so we dealt with the comet ourselves.
"But the One World agents—I don't know why, whether they were stranded or thought this was a handy back door to attack Earth through or what—but they teamed up with the Amma and his army, and the God of Peace for heavy magical work.
"Just before the gate was scheduled to open, Pax traveled the gate anchor to outside of Fascia. We've never met anyone that came back, so all we know is that Pax, the Amma and a few Soltis, their families and Army, and the One Worlders all passed through the gate to Earth. The Earther soldiers who had been guarding the gate when it was snatched were captured and sold as slaves or kept for ransom in the Amma's usual way. They escaped, regrouped and took control of the city in the confusion of the Amma's departure.
"They kept the gate anchor under watch, and followed the emergency protocols—fired it up every Solstice and Equinox.
"We deflected the bulk of the comet core and for the next sixteen years applied ourselves to studying the concepts of trans-dimensional gates. We figured out a way to make them magically, and started exploring. We discovered the One World. Oh, sorry, I skipped the attempted invasion from One World. It was a bit messy, but we won quickly and closed the gate. Anyhow, when we located the Oners, we infiltrated and studied them. For that purpose we set up, and still use, multiple empty Worlds as way points, so they can't use our gate to invade. Our gates are permanent. We've since learned how to take them down deliberately, but it's not the sort of thing one wants to try to do on a battlefield.
"Then the Earthers stuck in Fascia all these years were rediscovered by Earth.
"Who promptly decided to attack. When they sent the army through, we made a corridor. A big loop, from right in front of the gate to about a hundred feet above the anchor. It was pretty brutal.
"Earth sent another Anchor. All the Earth troops were evacuated except the ones that had been stranded for decades and 'gone native.' They left behind a truck full of tanks and sprayers set to go off a few hours later, and a small nuclear weapon set to explode in a week. We sent the truck back to them, and kept the bomb in a time dilation bubble. Oh, and damaged their gate on their side to enforce a timeout." Xen raised his eyebrows.
Mogan glowered. "I'm going to pretend I understood all of that, because I hear horses coming."
"Inky and Vinz." Yellow said, as Trip and Invisible galloped around the corner, tails wagging.
"Bah. You did understand it. Now, if there's a fourth polity exploring the dimensions we'd love to open diplomatic relations. On the other hand, if you're another agent from that Purple World working with the Earthers in Hastu, I think they've reestablished communications and are no longer marooned. You might want to go home quickly before Q finds Earth's new gate and destroys it."
Yellow's eyebrows rose. "Oh. Like Jaime Felis. Ha! I saw that twitch! You know him?"
"Jamie's not a Purp, he's a Power." Mogan hunched his shoulders. "And they blamed all their troubles on me and kicked me out."
Xen grinned. "Jaimie's with the abandoned Earthers on the east coast of Asia. He's gotten a fair amount of training at the Wizards' School. Did you debilitate your scalp because of your hair color?"
Mogan gave him an exasperated glare, but Xen was suddenly not paying attention, gazing north at fast climbing dark clouds. "That could be trouble." He vaulted onto his horse and disappeared.
"Does it bother you to have a boss who comes and goes like that?"
"No. I'm just amazingly jealous and wish I could do it." Yellow peered at the clouds as Vinz and Inky pulled up beside them.
"Oh, sorry. Did we interrupt something?" Vinz looked innocent, but Inky was looking at the clouds too.
"There's a corridor right there." Mogan pointed at thin air. "Captain Wolfson found it, apparently it goes to somewhere in Auralia. We were waiting until dark to sneak around when he came over meteorological and popped off to see what that storm is about.
Vinz looked at the clouds and then at the two witches. "Spring thunderstorms aren't that rare this close to the Rip."
"That looks more like smoke. Forest fire, not one of these flimsy towns, I hope."
Something caught the corner of Mogan's eye. The white whirlpool of the corridor whipped back into view. "I think someone's coming. Let's get out of sight and see who and how many." He grabbed his horse and led her around behind the corridor and into the brush.
Yellow chuckled, "And when they've gone, we can move the corridor and they'll be stranded."
Vinz grinned. "Oh yes. That would be lovely."
They all dismounted and held their horses noses, to muffle any attempts to neigh at the strange horses as they trotted in neat order through the corridor and turned toward the Long Lake compound. No uniforms, nor uniformity to their dress, or the tack on the horses, but they all tended toward Cavalry sabers however they'd personalized the sheaths. They all had crossbows slung across their backs, and Yellow could see Vinz biting his lower lip. She shook her head, warning him. Then reached out for help.
::Xen! Can you hear me?::
:: Yep. Oh, they decided to raid did they? Got a head count?::
:: Thirty and still coming. Headed toward Long Lake.::
:: I'll shift troops there.::
Yellow looked over at Vinz. "Relax." she breathed. "Xen is going to find some troops to
take there."
:: Are they still coming?:: Even in mental communication Easterly had a country boy drawl.
:: Just stopped. Sixty, all mounted, all with crossbows. I'm going to try to move the corridor, so they can't escape.::
:: Good idea. Are they out of sight?::
Yellow eased forward carefully. :: Yeah, gone.::
Easterly's horse flung up her head in protest, and the dozen troopers behind him had their hands full for a moment as their horses spooked at the sudden dislocation.
Xen shrugged. "Sorry." And disappeared.
"He'll deliver a century of bowmen to your Long Lake compound, and if needed, we'll hit them from the rear." Easterly grinned. "Can you move the corridor, Yellow?"
"Yep." She grabbed the tenuous edge of it and unstuck the two corners from one tree. She pulled it over to the other tree and unstuck that side. She pushed the insubstantial nothing about ten feet, and stuck it to another pair of brushy trees about two feet apart. She stepped back carefully and breathed a sigh of relief.
Inky sighed. "I can't even see you doing anything. Damned stupid One X isn't good for anything."
"Err, One X?" Vinz looked puzzled. "Where'd you get that?"
Yellow snickered. "Oh dear. Do you really want a lecture about genetics that includes drunken gods and gang rape by One World spies?"
"Yep. Since I'm planning on hanging around you, I need to fix some bad holes I've discovered in my education." Vinz rubbed his nose. "I didn't use to believe in magic at all, you know."
Yellow mounted and Easterly sent out scouts.
"Well. The wine of the gods. I'm sure you've heard a dozen versions. As best I can tell, Lady Gisele, the Goddess of Health and Fertility and The Auld Wulf, the God of War, who grows grapes and makes wine when he's not off fighting, got to worrying about how there were only seventeen witches, nine wizards and a handful of inbred mages left on the World. Talked about it over a few bottles of wine. Then they started talking about what they could actually do to encourage things along. And started putting spells on the nearest wine barrel."
