by Drake Dalton
Julie's presence burned faintly ahead of me to the west, but the San Francisco peninsula was not very wide. The ocean was only a few miles away. I'd meet her soon. I'd meet that bastard, too, but how many others would get in my way? My ability to sense energy was feeble, at best—I might not have even noticed Julie if she didn't burn so bright—but even those feeble skills began to sense a large group of people just to the south.
Why were they there and not in the city?
Was it an army encampment of some kind?
Would they aid the bastard when I rescued Julie?
I'd borrowed Julie's clubs, but so many people might take a while for one knight to subdue. What would the bastard do in the meantime? By using the zephyrs to make off with a Lady, he'd clearly proven himself a vile coward. Would she remain safe while I fought to her side, or would he carve her up before my very eyes and laugh when I failed to arrive on time?
So many questions, but did they need an answer?
I hadn't come for them; I'd come to save a Lady.
Perhaps I needed a different way of thinking.
Until she was again at my side, the Old Ways of announcing my presence and challenging the bastard to combat were out of the question. I was no longer a knight. I was a thief, instead. I would stick to the shadows and steal back the girl. After she was again under my protection, there would be plenty of time to once again don the mantle of a knight...
And then, horse or not, I would break that vile bastard with my own fist.
#
Moonlight as strong as any spotlight filtered through a canopy of dark evergreens to shine on a winding path cut by small animals through the scruffy brush in what was Golden Gate Park. I worked my way through a shifting pattern of light and dark as the swaying trees hissed softly in a gentle breeze overhead. I didn't jostle the underbrush or make any noise as I moved. I was no longer alone. The hint of cigarette smoke floating on the air forced me into the foliage from the road before I'd been caught, but he was still out there somewhere.
I couldn't risk drawing his attention.
I was a thief who could not afford to be seen.
Parting the last of the brush, I stopped and then crouched at the edge of a grassy area lit by the bright moonlight. At a guess, the huge rectangle had once been a ball field. Sharp tree lines marked the edges to the left and right, but with the moon in the southern sky, the trees to my left were completely blackened by the shade, while even the pine needles on the smallest branches to my right stood out in sharp relief.
On the far side of the clearing sat my target.
The mansion was tall and wide and reminded me of the White House. Dozens of windows sat on two floors, while a massive overhang stood on a half-dozen columns to cover the porch and part of a circular drive that cut in from the right. Shrubs and flower beds filled the grounds near the mansion—possibly marking patios and footpaths that I couldn't see—while clumps of trees crowding either side made the place feel less like a ball field and more like a home.
Through the branches, I saw hints of water beyond those trees. The mansion might have been sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The bend in the treetops surrounding the mansion and the sound of branches swishing in a stiff ocean breeze at that end of the field supported the theory, but there were no cliffs in Golden Gate Park. It was just one more in a growing pile of questions that I didn't have the time to explore.
The mansion was my only concern.
Julie was in there; she needed a rescue.
A guard stood on the steps by the door, however.
That guard was a problem.
I hunkered down and considered. The sentry wore a black suit and stood silently in the shadows. There may have been more inside, since the lower windows were fully lit. The upper floor was mostly dark, but the only way up was a tree to the right of the mansion with a convenient branch near the roof.
My options were limited.
I could go in through the front after taking out the guard, but that would end badly if he alerted others before I took him out, or if—as I suspected—there were more just inside the door. I could go through the second floor window, but even if the scrambling climb was masked by the swishing sounds of the other branches, defeating a window latch would make the wrong kind of noise. I'd also need to approach without being seen. Hugging the shadows by the trees to the left would work best, but the window branch was to the right. Crossing from one side of the yard to the other would be problematic in front of a guard.
Retreating into the woods and finding another trail along the right was similarly sketchy. I'd likely need to cut my own path through the brush, which would either be too slow or too loud. Also, I'd eventually need to cross the driveway, which might have sensors to alert the staff to incoming guests. Laser trip lines or cameras were not out of the question, and that didn't address the minor matter of the unseen, cigarette-smoking guard on patrol in that general direction.
Having exhausted my options out front, I did what any thief with a growing headache might do. Slipping out of the underbrush, I cut left and headed for the shadows.
With no good options up front, I reclaimed my patience and hoped things might look better out back.
#
Proper planning and proper scouting were the two most important things in any successful assault. A commander had to know what he was up against and he had to have a good idea how to accomplish his goals. I'd had no time for either, as demonstrated so pointedly in my attempt to penetrate the mansion out front.
Fortunately, the back was a piece of cake.
The yard behind the house was not very deep—perhaps three times the width of the house. It ended in a sheer cliff that dropped a hundred feet into a raging surf that slammed with trembling impacts and rumbling thunder on the rock wall far below. There was no beach down there, just the surging black water, the white wisps of sea foam glowing eerily in the moonlight, and a glittering spray that accompanied each massive crash.
Anyone with such a view would want to enjoy it.
The designer of the house had kept that in mind.
The ground floor had no windows or doors, but a wide balcony stretched the length of the upper floor and extended out into a central deck that ran half the distance to the cliff. A pair of garden trellises with their ends butted against the mansion dropped from the deck to the edges of a patio beneath. With interwoven vines climbing each trellis, the back third of the patio was sheltered from sideward winds by those walls of vegetation, but my interest in those makeshift ladders was the same as that of the vines that climbed it.
Tucking the clubs beneath my chin, I grabbed the nearest trellis to test its strength, then ended my climb almost before it began—vaulting lightly over a low glass panel that acted as a railing around the deck and landing in a quiet crouch with my clubs once again at the ready five quick seconds later.
Pausing, the moon at my back and a salty breeze tousling my hair, I listened for anything odd inside the house—anything to indicate that I'd been seen. The overhead branches swished steadily in the ocean breeze. The booming breakers rumbled quietly in the night. The house remained dark and silent, which made sense. With a new guest to entertain, the occupants would be otherwise distracted.
Pushing the stray thought of Julie's fate to the side, I quickly studied the house. Four doors led from the balcony into each room beyond—two on either side of a featureless central wall that was as wide as the deck. The rooms were wider back here than those up front, with picture windows to capture the ocean view and doors to allow access to the deck. Most of the windows were black, but the room nearest to my left glowed with a faint light. At a guess, the hallway doors in the other rooms were shut tight, while that one was slightly ajar.
Leaving the dark rooms and their unknown contents alone, I slipped silently through the moonlight to the door at the right of that softly glowing window, then took a quick peek inside.
It was an office of some kind.
As I'd hoped, it was empty.
A heavy desk and a green leather chair sat with their backs to the window. A pair of plush armchairs faced the desk, while a long leather couch sat against the richly-paneled wall that was partially obscured by the balcony door.
As expected, the dim light came from a slightly open door in the far wall—a soft orange wedge that tracked across a white ceiling and fell across the couch, leaving the other side of the room gloomy. My quick peek left a solid impression of more rich paneling and two tall bookcases over there—with another bookcase to the left of the door—as well as lamps or freestanding clutter in the corners, but no people.
Satisfied, I tucked my right club under my left arm and reached down to break the lock. Unlike sticky window latches, door locks were easy.
Thieves used a tension wrench and a picklock to separate the driver pins from the key pins in each of a lock's pin stacks to open a door. In the time it took them to ready their tools, I'd extended the energy of my palm to slip a thin thread of force between those pins, then twisted to ripple the magnetic field.
Like charges repelled.
The pin stacks separated with an audible click.
With another mystic twist, I opened the door—
But the room was not as empty as I'd thought.
"Who are you?"
Panic surged up my spine.
I froze, not daring to move.
#
A jarring clash of instincts rooted my feet in place. Battlefield instincts made my fingers itch to grab that second club, but without a target my human survival instincts overruled that rash action and froze my muscles solid. My eyes darted around the room and my ears strained for any threatening sound, but I searched in vain.
It was empty.
The damned room was completely empty!
Who the hell was speaking?
"Who are you? Awwwckk. Who are you?"
The harsh squawk came from a bird cage beyond the desk to the left.
Breath that I hadn't known I'd been holding slipped from my lungs.
"A damned bird," I said, shaking my head and resisting the urge to bash the bell-shaped cage that hung on a tall stand in that corner. "Who the hell keeps a talking bird in their office?"
"Awwwckk," a big bird that I could barely see cried, then whistled as it turned its back.
"Yeah, same to you but more of it," I muttered, calming my nerves as I finished stepping inside. Shutting the balcony door, I took the second club from beneath my arm and crossed the room to peek through the gap in the other doorway, careful to keep from making noise on the hardwood floor.
The hallway beyond was cramped, with a wooden floor and a crimson carpet runner, more of the same rich paneling that filled my room, and a medieval coat of arms mounted opposite the door. It was indirectly lit by an orange light that spilled in from somewhere off to the right, but none of that suddenly mattered.
A voice echoed down the hall.
It was a voice that I recognized.
"What do I think? I'll tell you what I think. You're insane, that's what I think."
Relief washed over me for a second time.
A knot loosened in my chest.
She was alive; my negligence hadn't killed her—
But then, my head snapped up.
A sharp slap and a pained yelp rang down the hall.
The cold grip of that dreadful knot returned.
"I love women from your world," a man's voice sneered. Opening the door, I moved into the hall. "So much spirit. I absolutely love stomping on all that fire and watching it slowly die."
Another slap echoed in from a square opening at the end of the hall ahead—a window cut-out that also let light pour through from a huge room on the other side. Whoever the guy was, he resumed talking as I hurried down a cramped corridor crowded with shields and pole arms and other medieval clutter toward a spot just below that inner window.
"The amusing thing is that you actually believe—even now—that you have a choice in the matter," he said, "but your days of free will are over. You are mine."
"You are delusional," Julie snorted.
A third slap rang in my ears as I passed an ornate sweeping stairwell on the left. The urge to bolt down those polished steps and race to her rescue was nearly overpowering, but if we were stuck here for another day, I needed answers. I had to know what we were up against, and the cocky bastard sounded like he was about to start bragging to the helpless girl. She'd be fine until he finished gloating. If he'd been trying to hurt her, he wouldn't use an open hand... I hoped.
Crouching, I duck-walked the last few feet to the end of the hall.
"Now, now," the bastard said. "Is that any way to address your master?"
Another slap echoed in my ears, an endless ringing that refused to die.
Biting down on the angry growl at the back of my throat, I slowly lifted my head—just enough to see over the ledge—and took my first look at the bastard.
He was tall and powerfully built, with a cruel face beneath a crop of short black hair, thick eyebrows, hard blue eyes, and a thin goatee that was several centuries out of date. He wore high boots, black leather pants and a leather vest that exposed his powerful arms, although he seemed otherwise completely unarmed.
By any standard, he put the average bronze beach god to shame. Julie, however—a consummate connoisseur of bronze beach gods—was not impressed.
She glared at the creep from where she'd been tied to a squat wooden chair in a place that must have been someone's idea of a throne room. The chamber filled the entire middle of that mansion, from the ground floor to the roof. It was as wide and deep as it was tall, with a sunken marble floor and a short flight of steps leading down from a set of closed double doors in the left-hand wall below. A wide crimson carpet with gold borders ran across the floor to a raised dais and a massive high-backed chair against the wall at my right. Five brass sconces that ran across the opposite wall shined up onto a gabled ceiling overhead.
Another window cut-out sat high in the wall opposite me, so there were probably sconces on my wall, as well; but there was no door to the lower hallway beneath that cut-out.
At a guess, there was only one way into that room.
A pair of sentries in black suits guarded that entry from the inner steps, but they didn't have their full attention on their work. They split their time between watching their boss and ogling a pair of buxom brunettes in skimpy negligees who huddled beside that makeshift throne. When the time came, that might be useful.
"I can do this all night," the man said to Julie, snapping my attention back to the center of the room. "It doesn't bother me a bit, but you... I mean, it's such a simple thing, when you think about it. Are you sure that it's worth all this hassle?"
My view had me looking over Julie's right shoulder. I couldn't see much of her face, but her cheek was red from all the slaps and her jacket was unzipped. Black lace hung open and loose at her side. The bastard wasn't far along with the games, but he'd already begun.
"You can do it," the man added. "Come on. Lord Singh. Give it a try for your master."
"You will never be my master."
"That, my dear, is what we are currently attempting to ascertain."
Another slap—a hard one that snapped her head to the right and sent her red hair flying.
"Yes, indeed," he said almost conversationally, beginning a slow counter-clockwise trip around the chair while Julie kept her head turned to the side. "People from your reality think much of their supposed freedoms. They enjoy bandying words and pretending they're everyone's equal. Here, we need neither arrogant presumption nor wordsmiths. We need blacksmiths. We need swordsmiths. We need people to work the fields, to fish and weave, to tend livestock and to sew. But a select few provide other essential services," he added, glancing at his pretties.
Singh crossed behind her.
Julie moved her head to her left shoulder in response—continuing to look away.
"The Neutron
War a few years ago left us shorthanded. If the Druids hadn't come forward to teach a select few how to recruit workers from beyond the rift, we'd have perished. Sadly, however, conscripts from other worlds are seldom united to our cause." Finishing his circle, he stopped in front of her. "They often require... persuasion... so I give it to them gladly."
I shook my head.
The Druids again.
Why did they always meddle?
Druids saw the kidnapping of people from one reality to save dying worlds in others as a Big Picture solution with minor collateral implications. They refused to see that wrong was still wrong, just as they scoffed at the idea that their actions threatened otherwise undamaged worlds with the loss of that world's next Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein or Steve Jobs. Someone would need to do something about them before they screwed everything up...
But not with neutron bombs.
Neutron bombs were nasty business—kill the people, keep the buildings: all the radiation of a fission device with a fraction of the blast. In most realities, they'd helped bring an end to the Cold War between the world's superpowers, but they'd been used in a few realities, too.
"What do you want from me?" Julie asked. She looked out from the corner of her eye with her head still mostly turned to the left.
He raised a hand.
His quick chop stopped at the last instant.
She flinched, anyway, bringing a slight smile that she didn't see to his lips.
"Lorddd...," he prompted. "Come on. It's just a word. What's the harm, especially if it keeps you from being punished?"
"You have no right to punish me."
This slap was the hardest yet.
Her entire body rocked to the right.
Reaching to her chest, he did something that was blocked from view by her shoulder, but it was apparently very painful.
She cried out—her first scream.
Singh came close to dying that very instant. White knuckled and trembling, I reminded myself that if I raced into the room, the guards would stall me long enough for him to retaliate. There was no guarantee that I would be his target. I could not allow permanent damage to my charge. Flexing my fingers, I forced myself to relax.
