Nightlord: Orb

by Garon Whited

  Is it the breath of gods within the stirring branches? Or do they move of their own accord? I can hear them, swaying and clicking, rustling and shifting, a fractal forest of movement in a single tree. Something moves among the roots, another unseen presence. This one scratches and skitters, the sound of claws on bark, amid the thick twisting of wood and root.

  I move, though I know I am not here. My vision shifts, as in a mirror, rising along the enormous trunk, following the forking ways, the branching paths, this limb, that limb, down to the leaves. Two leaves, not even on the same twig, come close to one another in the breeze, drawn into proximity by some play of hidden forces. They drift close in the swayings of the great tree and time slows, slows, crawls, perhaps even stops.

  A strand links these two leaves. Finer than spider-silk, it stretches its taut, tenuous length between them, touching leafy green and leafy green, binding them together in some strange way. In this instant, nothing moves—or almost nothing. This faint, almost invisible strand hums, vibrates, thrums with a strange existence. Time does pass, must pass as I watch, for the vibration is almost audible.

  A flicker, too brief to be certain even of its own existence, passes down the length of the strand, leaping from leaf to leaf like a spark on a winter morning. Then, while I still wonder if I have seen it, another makes the leap, a glint of light along a silvery strand. Bright flickers, sparks without end, leaping from one leaf to the other, on and on and on as though they will never stop.

  The tree folds up and vanishes, a child’s scribble on paper, wadded and torn, thrown away—or have I moved, plunging into a new vision or a new place?

  Now there is only darkness visible, and I see the colors of it. Darkness is the absence of light, but beyond the borders of the worlds, darkness is a thing itself, divided and mixed, making shadowbows in the blacklight, a dark palette for the canvas of the void. My eyes have their own darkness and I can see the colors beyond light, or beneath it, behind it. There is beauty in the shades beyond the night.

  A stroke of light pierces the formless dark and shapes appear. Manlike, yet not men, they are creatures of strange attributes, all different, yet all alike. Conflict is born, battle rages, and death comes forth among these new-minted lives. The multitude diminishes—

  “Are you okay?”

  I sat up with a sharp movement and knocked heads with Mary. We both cried out. I flopped back on the bed, rubbing my forehead. Mary sat down heavily and rubbed both her forehead and posterior. I took a deep breath and held on to the bed platform for a moment, trying to slow my heartbeat.

  “A simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed,” she observed, ruefully. Dantos, standing by the door, took this as a cue to slip quietly out into the hall.

  “Firebrand?”

  Boss?

  “How long was I out?”

  What am I, a clock?

  “You’ve been asleep for about an hour,” Mary supplied, getting to her feet. Bronze nodded.

  “Thank you.”

  “You were dreaming.”

  “Yes, I was,” I agreed, easing myself into a sitting position. My head hurt and I doubted it had anything to do with the impact.

  “Bad one?” she asked. “I thought you might be fighting something.”

  “I don’t think so. Something about a tree, and different colors of darkness. And there were some creatures, people-like, but they weren’t really people…”

  “Keep practicing,” Mary advised. “Psychic dreams take work. How much do you remember?”

  “That’s about it. Oh, and it was a big tree. Like, world-tree size. Or bigger.”

  “Got me. I haven’t had anything like it in my dreams. Firebrand tells me you had some sort of attack?”

  I said he was attacked, not that he had one.

  “I stand corrected.”

  “Then sit. Yes, I was attacked. Somehow, they found me—whoever ‘they’ are—and hit me with some sort of mental spell. I think. It felt as though they were trying to squash my brain. My guess is it wasn’t a physical force. More likely, it was a purely mental one directed at crushing my consciousness.”

  “So,” she summed up, sitting on the edge, “someone tried to destroy your mind.”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “And you have no idea who?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Ooo! I like it when you use that tone!” she purred.

  “What tone?”

  “The low, sinister, I’m-going-to-kill-something-in-a-particularly-gruesome-fashion tone.”

  “I have a tone for that?”

  “Yes.” Mary grinned at me and leaned closer, whispering. “And I like it.”

  “I wish I didn’t have a headache,” I observed. She pouted.

  “That’s my line.”

  “You’ve never used the headache excuse in your life.”

  “Well…” she considered, thoughtfully. “Maybe not. But you’re a man. You’re supposed to be tough. You can take it.”

  “I nearly had my brains pounded into mush by a psychic assault and you want to have sex?”

  “Your brains are only part of what makes you attractive.”

  “Sounds as though my huge, throbbing brain isn’t really what you’re interested in.”

  “Well, by weight, I’d say your brains are about—”

  “Under normal circumstances,” I interrupted, “I would rise to the occasion. At least, after ten minutes and a healing spell. As it is, whoever did this may be gearing up to do it again.”

  “Hmm. You raise a valid point, if nothing else,” she admitted, and sat back. “Fine. Tell me you have a plan that isn’t boring.”

  “Find them and kill them?”

  “I like it so far. How do we find them?”

  “That’s the trouble. I don’t know.” I lay back on the bed-shelf and thought about it. “This method of attack didn’t leave anything behind of forensic value. No dust, bloodshed, weapons, any of the usual stuff.”

  That’s not entirely true, Boss.

  “It isn’t?”

  You were the target. I did my best to blunt the attack, but I was mostly a watcher. I’m not really all that good at defending, you know.

  “We have a witness,” Mary observed.

  Yes.

  “So, witness, witness!”

  Pushy wench.

  “Blunt instrument.”

  No need to get nasty.

  “Will you tell us what you saw? Please?”

  Well… since you ask nicely. Okay. You’re not going to like some of the description, though.

  “We’ll muddle through,” I assured Firebrand.

  Yeah, well, this is psychic dimensionality. You’re really not going to like it.

  “As long as you don’t tell me the answer is forty-two, I’ll manage. What happened? How did they find me? How did they get past the various wards and shields around here?”

  That’s the thing, Boss. They didn’t. I don’t know how they found you, but it appeared from somewhere else. It didn’t come through the shields; it started already inside them.

  “Psychic dimensionality?”

  Yes.

  “You’re right. I don’t like it.”

  I told you.

  “Okay. What else can you tell me?”

  It was looking for you. Actually, it was you. At least, it… sounded like you? Tasted? Whoever built it had a good pattern to draw on. It had enough of you in it that it would recognize you when it touched you. When it did, all the force concentrated in one place, trying to scramble your skull like an egg.

  “I got that part.”

  I did what I could—I’ve got some of your pattern as part of me, you know—but it wasn’t interested in partial matches.

  “It was alive?”

  No… not really. It was going after the closest match, I guess.

  “Okay. Any insight into who did it?”

  Whoever did it has access to massive amounts of power, Boss. The attack moved through more than the usual phys
ical dimensions to go where you were and manifest there.

  “Fair enough. That does narrow it down a bit. Whoever did this has an intimate knowledge of me—well, my psychic pattern, anyway—and huge energy reserves.”

  “How intimate?” Mary asked.

  “Jealousy isn’t pretty,” I noted. Mary made a rude noise and poked me in the stomach.

  “Was the pattern a complete one?” she asked Firebrand. “Was it a copy, or did it hit key points—the things weird enough in his head to be uncommon individually, but unique when taken together?”

  It didn’t seem complete, Firebrand replied. I’d say it was the second one. Someone who knows him really well could have put it together. I could, obviously. His dark double, too, along with Bronze or Tort. Probably T’yl could. As for Amber or Tianna, maybe, but I doubt it. And Sparky, obviously, or any of the other gods they hang around with. Gods cheat.

  “I think we can assume the gods have more direct methods of chastising me for imagined slights,” I noted.

  Hard to argue with that, Boss.

  “So, where does this leave us?” Mary asked. “Who do we accuse?”

  “My first thought is the magicians of Arondel. You say something about massive amounts of power and I think of them. Some of them don’t like me a whole lot because of a few deaths. Others seem to think my presence in the world is a sure sign of trouble to come. People want to live forever and that desire leads them to me, for some weird reason involving making me bleed for them. Most magicians seem to understand the ecological problems inherent in the unrestricted spread of vampires. They might think removing the source of the problem to be a good move.”

  “How unified are they?” Mary asked. “I mean, are we talking about another bunch of fanatics?”

  “I doubt it. Most of the magicians act alone or in small cabals. Oh, there might be some fanatics, but I get the impression the magicians of Arondel aren’t terribly unified.”

  “Impression?”

  “I’ve never been there,” I admitted. “I don’t even know how they govern themselves, other than something about a Council that people sometimes ignore. I’m not even sure how they fit in with the kingdom.”

  “There’s a city,” Mary said, slowly, “full of magicians. A city. Full of magicians. And you haven’t even tried to find out how the place is set up?”

  “Well…no?”

  “You know,” she mentioned, conversationally, “sometimes I wonder if you really are an idiot.”

  “I’ve been busy!”

  “Ever since you arrived here the first time?”

  “Pretty much, yes!”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Besides, I figured T’yl knew all about the place. If I needed advice, I could ask him.”

  “Hmm. All right, you are provisionally forgiven until you do something else stupid. Back to our present problem. Could they target you like this?”

  “I have no idea. They would need someone to help them…” I trailed off, thinking. T’yl, a known associate, was missing. Tort, his former apprentice and another of my associates—a close associate—was also missing. Put two and two together.

  Hold on, Boss. You forget Thomen.

  “Thomen? He’s a wizard, not a magician.”

  He’s head of the Wizards’ Guild in the Kingdom of Karvalen, as well as the Court Wizard. If he told a bunch of wizards to show up and help him cast a spell, they would. Not every single one of them, obviously, but he’d get cooperation even if he didn’t explain what he was doing or why. And there are bunches of wizards in the Guild who think the Demon King needs to never come back. At least, there were bunches who wanted him to go away.

  “Ah, yes. I hadn’t thought of that. Didn’t someone also tell me Thomen hates me?”

  T’yl did, when he was trying to get you to move your stubborn—

  “I remember,” I broke in. “He’s upset about the way my other self mistreated Tort.”

  That’s one way to put it. You could also say your daughter is mildly warm, or the sea-people tend toward dampness.

  “He hates me,” I stated.

  Yes.

  “How bad?”

  More than he loved Tort, which was a lot. I don’t think he’d kill you, though.

  “Why not?”

  You wouldn’t suffer enough. I know you don’t like torture, but he doesn’t have a problem with it.

  “It ties in well,” Mary agreed. “The attack you had wouldn’t kill you, just put you down for a while, right?”

  “I don’t know. It could have been lethal if it had gone on long enough.”

  “But it could have been a miscalculation. If they didn’t take into account Firebrand’s ability to diminish the effect?”

  She’s got a point, Boss. I haven’t exactly demonstrated anything but fire to most people.

  “So, it’s either the magicians of Arondel or Thomen and the Wizards’ Guild. Anyone else we can think of?”

  “What about the magi? Back in my world?”

  “I don’t think they have the raw power for this. I think I saw one, or his astral form, anyway—that’s probably the best they can do. My guess is they don’t actually know how to get here, physically, much less have the ability to reach across worlds to smite me. It’s a long way to reach, and they would need astronomical amounts of magical energy.”

  “Fair enough. Any other magical groups in this world think you’re a good target?”

  “Religious ones, yes. Magical ones? I don’t think so. At least none that I provoked. I don’t know about my dark half.”

  He annoyed the daylights out of the Witches of Kamshasa, Boss.

  “I’ve heard that phrase before. Who are the Witches of Kamshasa?”

  It’s a kingdom or empire or something down south, across the sea, or around it. T’yl called it a matriarchal magocracy—a government by magicians, all of them women.

  “Go on.”

  That’s all I know about it. T’yl didn’t like to talk about it. I only know he was born there and didn’t care for it. He escaped by being a prodigy at magic, a long walk through a lot of sand, and by having the good fortune to be noticed by some magician visiting Praeteyn.

  “Interesting. If I had him here, I’d ask him. How did my other self annoy them?”

  Political stuff. They tried to take Mochara. Most people think it was a prelude to taking the mountain. They didn’t take Mochara, obviously. When word came of their fleet navigating the Fang Rocks, he called a war council and discussed what to do. I mentioned your trick with the spikes from underwater. Remember?

  “Vividly. But what’s a fang rock?”

  Uh, big rocks out in the southern ocean? Something about navigating southern waters, or eastern waters, or something. It has to do with all the rocks between here and the southern continent. You can go through them or go around them. Through is dangerous and around is slow. The Fang Rocks are some sort of compromise. Anything more, you’ll have to ask a sailor. He had a bunch of sailors for the yacht he was building; they probably know.

  “Yacht? He was building a yacht? That doesn’t sound right. This body sinks; I can’t swim. I doubt he would be too thrilled with the idea of being out to see, either.”

  He claimed it was a yacht. I don’t think it was.

  “What makes you think otherwise?”

  He put together a lot of shipwrights and brewers to build it. The thing looked like someone tried to sink a beer factory and almost succeeded, Boss.

  “When was this? And where?”

  Carrillon. He had a boathouse built just for his personal ship. The ship still wasn’t done, last I heard. He was mad about it, too. He didn’t think building it would be so much trouble. He almost killed the headman of the building crew, twice, because of delays. Once when the Witches sent a small fleet and it wasn’t ready, once when the beer exploded.

  “How did he find time to supervise building a boat?”

  Even he couldn’t spend every hour of every day sucking, slur
ping, screwing, snacking, or slicing, Boss. Although he did his best. He kept trying to beat his personal best of six days straight in debauchery of both mortal and undead sorts—

  “Thank you, that will be all. I suspect I don’t want to know the details. Back to the Witches and their naval assault. What about my trick with the bomb-spikes?”

  He liked it. Since nobody knew exactly what you did or how you did it, it was still a surprise. Some spells from Tort, a bunch of hammering, and there you have it. Busted keels and drowning men all over the place. The ones who washed up on the beach found Mocharan forces waiting for them.

  “Sounds like a victory for us, sure, but how was it especially unpleasant for the Witches of Kamshasa?”

  Well, their magical rulers are all female.

  “Right.”

  Women are the only people trained in magic. So, if you’re attacking a city known for wizards, you send a squad of witches along to defend against it. The ones who washed ashore wound up in the dungeons in Carrillon. Since the Demon King lived in Carrillon and was not a nice man…

  “Ah. Yes. I get the picture.”

  He eventually sent them home, though.

  “Did he?” I asked, surprised. “I would think they’re still in the dungeon.”

  Oh, no. He even sent the bodies home with the survivors, just as soon as all the kids were born.

  I groaned and flopped back on the bed. Mary made a sympathetic noise and kissed my forehead.

  “I take it this is going to hurry along your—uh, oh,” she broke off. Sunset started.

  “After you,” I offered, gesturing toward the bathroom. I followed her in and we prepared for our waterfall-rinse cycle.

  “As I was saying,” she continued. “This is going to hurry you back to your super-scanner-sensor-spells, right?”

  “I think it has to. Everything hinges on T’yl and Tort. If I find them, I can get real answers.”

  “Could you get answers from other people? I mean, have you even tried talking to everyone else you know?”

  “Well… no, I haven’t, not really. As word gets around, they seem to be getting in touch with me. It’s sort of a race between people who like me and people who hate me, I guess. But I know I’ll get my answers from Tort and T’yl.”