“He has work to do in his workshop.”
“Ah, the workshop.” She laughed, her voice tinkling like the wind chimes Sam had made for her.
Nalia liked her laugh. She liked Nicole. She had become almost as a mother to her, as well as a cherished friend. She looked over at the older woman. For a woman of fifty years, especially in this world, she was in fantastic shape. She did something called yoga that kept her body firm and slender. Her hair, almost as dark as Nalia’s, framed her face in a pleasing way, much like the round picture frames Sam had scattered throughout their house. Her skin, taut with but the smallest of wrinkles around the eyes and the corners of her mouth, was cream-colored and flawless. Her blue eyes were expressive, much as Sam’s were, and that lopsided half-smile Sam often wore could trace its roots to his mother. Her face reminded Nalia of the pixies Sam had told her about and shown her pictures of in some of the old mythology books he had, and her personality was pixie-like, too. Yes, Nalia had great affection for this woman with whom she had spent the last year and a half.
“What?” Nicole Sharp asked.
“What, what?” Nalia answered and then paused. “Oh, I am sorry. Was answering your question with another question disrespectful?” She had adopted some mannerisms and phrases since she had been on this world that probably would have been frowned upon by her father and the other Zouyim. It was difficult to know if “slang” was respectful or rude sometimes.
“No, it’s fine. You were looking at me quizzically just then. Do I have something on my face?”
“No, no. You do not,” Nalia rushed out. “I was merely noticing your smile when you teased me about Sam. He wears that smile often.”
Nicole sighed. “I know. It’s infuriating, isn’t it? Makes him look like he’s always up to something. His father had a smile like that, as did my brother. It must run in the family.”
Nalia was at a loss at what to say. “Uh, yes. Perhaps it is so.”
Nicole laughed and hugged the other woman. “Oh, I’m just teasing you. I know I wield that smile like a sword. No disrespect to those of you who actually do wield swords.”
Nalia laughed. She was one of the Sapsyra Shin Elah—the name meant “dagger of God” in Old Kasmali—an order of women warriors on Gythe, called the finest combatants in the world by those who knew of such things. As far as she was aware, she was the last of the Sapsyra still alive. Nicole knew her background and had seen the swords that were her favorite weapons.
The two women climbed into the truck and headed off to the small town fifteen miles away, chatting amiably. Sam would see, Nalia thought. There would be no problem with discussing their trip to Gythe with his mother. She was sure of it. Mostly.
Chapter 2
Sam put the finishing touches on his current project and took a shower just in time for the girls to get back from town. He helped unload and put away what they got and helped in the kitchen while his mother made them some dinner. She didn’t normally allow him to cook because it was one of her great loves. She always said she would die in the kitchen, and would do so happily.
An enjoyable, relaxed meal followed and when everything was put away and cleaned up, the three sat around the living room to talk.
“I had a confrontation today with one of the men in town,” Nalia said without preamble.
Sam looked at her blankly, not quite knowing what to say. “You…you had a confrontation? What exactly does that mean?” He looked back and forth between his mother and Nalia. He was sure the confusion was evident on his face.
Before Nalia could say another word, Nicole spoke. “Harold, that guy I told you about who has been asking me to go out on a date with him, he was there are the grocery store.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember you talking about it. He’s what, in his mid 30s? He’s a good-looking guy. I don’t know why you won’t give him a chance. I think it’s a compliment that someone so much younger is interested in you.”
The look his mother gave him told him volumes about what he had just said and how wrong it was. Her arched eyebrows and furrowed brow made him feel uneasy, like he was a child in trouble. He swallowed loudly. “Sorry,” was all he could think to say.
“As I was saying,” she eyed him sternly and he caught a small smile on Nalia’s face to the side and behind his mother, “he has been more and more insistent. He’s got a crush on me, that’s plain. And yes, it does feel nice that men, much younger men at that, are interested. He’s not the only one, by the way, but it’s a small town and maybe their options are limited.”
She waved the idea away. “Anyway, he was bugging me about going out on a date—again—and I was politely declining. I told him we had to go and he grabbed my shoulder. Not hard, just a soft, pleading action.”
Sam saw where this was going and feared for the worst. “Oh no,” he whispered.
“I did not hurt him,” Nalia said, then added, “much,” as if she were saying she bought lettuce while at the store.
Nicole laughed. “Don’t worry, what she says is true. She grabbed his arm, did something where she twisted his fingers, and his feet left the ground as he did a complete flip and landed flat on his back in the grocery aisle. Still twisting his fingers, which seemed to cause him more than a little pain, she made him apologize for touching me and then promise never to do so again unless specifically asked by me.”
Sam shook his head and then put it into his hands. “Did you seriously hurt him?” he asked Nalia.
“No, it is as I said. I merely subdued him. He was surprised and the joint lock on his fingers caused him discomfort, but after he got up, he walked away without too much limping. He will be fine, but he will think again if he ever intends to touch Nicole in the future.”
Sam’s mother looked fondly at Nalia and then shifted her gaze to Sam, eyes softening and mouth twitching into a subtle smirk. “He’s fine. While I think maybe it was a bit extreme, it had the intended effect. I don’t think he’ll be bugging me anymore. Definitely not when Nalia is around. She’s my bodyguard.” She squeezed Nalia’s shoulder and smiled at her.
Nalia’s firm nod was Sam’s cue that this conversation was over. “Okay, well, now that that’s out of the way, we need to talk about something.”
Sam looked at his mother and started. “Mom, you know the whole story about how I met Nalia, how I accidentally transported myself to Gythe, how I traveled that world that occupies the same space as ours but in a different dimension, with a different vibratory frequency.” Her nod was almost imperceptible.
“Well, Nalia and I have been talking about it. We’ve been back from Gythe for almost a year and a half now and we both love it here in our little house in the trees, but she misses her father, Rindu. With the way time passes differently in the two worlds, she’s afraid that he may be close to death from old age.
“After all, I was there for about seven months and when I returned here, only a few hours had passed. How many years have passed since we left there?”
He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Basically, what I’m trying to say is that we want to go back to Gythe. What’s more, we’re thinking maybe we won’t just go to visit. We’re thinking we may want to stay there. Live there. The only thing is…”
Nicoles eyes widened and her face lit up with her smile. “I think that’s a great idea. Can I come too?”
Sam stopped mid-breath and looked at his mother, then to Nalia, and then back to his mother. “Come again?”
Nicole took Sam’s hand. “I asked if I could come too. You know, go to Gythe. Live there. With you.”
“I…um…but…it’s kind of primitive there.” He saw a sharp look from Nalia and hurried on. “I mean, technologically. There aren’t any modern conveniences. Electricity, stoves, cell phones. None of it.”
Squeezing his hand, Nicole continued softly. “Honey, I know what it’s like there. We’ve talked about it enough. You and Nalia have told me all about it. I do like my modern conveniences, but anywhere we’re together
is home to me. I love the trees, love living in them here. According to all you’ve told me, Gythe sounds like a huge forest. I think I could adapt.”
“That’s great,” Sam said with a sigh of relief. “I was afraid that you’d stay here and I’d feel bad about leaving you. I don’t know why I was so nervous about talking to you about it. I think maybe my guilt just made me afraid.”
Nalia mouthed, “I told you so” from across the room. Sam made a shooing motion with his hand.
“I’m sure you knew I’d want to go. You always have overanalyzed everything.” She kissed the top of his head. “So, when do we leave?”
Sam, Nalia, and Nicole bustled around the house, packing things and trying to figure out what they would need close at hand and what could be packed away for later use. Sam had given it a lot of thought and decided that he would be able to, with Nalia’s help, transport his house and workshop both to Gythe. It was a matter of including the structures and the air around them, as well as everything within the radius of the vibratory field he would set up. He hoped it would work.
As he got ready for his trip, he thought back to the last sixteen months or so. He had quickly melted down the gold ingots they brought back from Gythe—gold was worthless there—and formed it into smaller chunks that could be sold. The last several years, places were popping up everywhere offering to buy gold jewelry and other gold scrap for cash. With the money, Sam paid off his mother’s house.
His own house he sold with just a touch of sadness. He loved that little place, but he would no longer need it. They would be moving to where there were more trees, to Southern Oregon, very near where the Sapsyra headquarters were on Gythe. That area was approximately where Crater Lake was here on Earth. In Kasmali, the language spoken on Gythe, the world from which Sam came was called Telani, meaning “shadow.” Apparently, people on Gythe had known about Earth and had named it accordingly, a shadow to their own world.
While his mother stayed home and prepared to rent her house out to a close friend when she moved up north with Sam and Nalia, the two took a road trip to look for property.
Along the way, Nalia marveled at everything Telani had that Gythe didn’t. The desert, a strange thing to her because her world had much more forest, was fascinating to her while the beautiful ocean views from the highway they traveled didn’t seem to be all that interesting because she had seen the same coast in her homeland.
The cities were a wonder to her. She literally walked around with her mouth open, staring at the structures, the numbers of people, the clothing. She had gotten used to the thought of electricity, appliances, transportation, and other conveniences, but the sight of the Golden Gate Bridge spanning the familiar narrow opening to the bay in San Francisco made her goggle.
Sam could understand. When they passed through the city of Bayton on Gythe, he had the same reaction, but for the opposite reason. He could only stare at where the bridge he was used to seeing in Telani sat, but in Gythe, there was no hint of any structure ever having been there. It was unsettling.
Sam suggested to Nalia that they visit Chinatown in San Francisco, wanting to pick up some things. She agreed excitedly and they set out to wander the streets.
They made their way down the street, gawking at the buildings, the people, the different world that was nothing like anything Nalia had ever experienced. Even Sam, who had lived in this world his whole life, recognized this was like no place he’d ever been. It wasn’t even like the rest of San Francisco, which he had visited before.
As they made their way under the Dragon Gate, Nalia tightened her grip on Sam’s hand. Her head darted back and forth, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells. Sam looked into her eyes, which were alight with excitement. He squeezed her hand and started them down Grant Avenue, toward the heart of Chinatown.
There were many shops that had exotic items, but they both agreed that their favorites were martial arts related. When they walked into one small shop and saw the weapons lining the wall, Nalia’s sudden inrush of air made Sam look at her quizzically. “What? What’s wrong?” he asked her.
“Are those shrapezi? Do they exist here, too?” She was pointing toward a pair of weapons mounted on the wall, crossed and glinting dully in the overhead light.
Sam knew they were called hook swords here on Telani. They were about as long as the distance from his shoulder to the tips of his fingers if he spread his arm out straight. They were swords, yes, but different in form than what most people would consider a sword to be.
The longest part of the sword was straight with a curved section of blade on one side, looking somewhat like a shepherd’s crook, but with sharpened edges. The other side ended in a triangular sharpened point. A hand span above the spike was a crescent that guarded the hand and provided more sharpened edges and two wicked points. The handle consisted only of thick cord wrapped around the main section of the sword underneath the crescent. Other than the wrapped handle, every other surface on the sword was sharpened. At least, it could be. Sam could tell that these hook swords were sharpened only on a few areas, such as the hook itself and one side of the main section of the blade.
Nalia’s shrapezi, the weapons she used on Gythe, looked exactly the same as the hook swords, but they were very high quality steel and razor sharp. Sam had seen her remove limbs and even heads from enemies with those weapons. She was a master with them.
“They’re called hook swords here,” Sam told her. “I’ve seen very skilled martial artists use them in demonstrations, but none of them have near your mastery of them.”
Her mouth quirked into a smile and she hugged him briefly. She knew she was a master at combat, but it never hurt to remind her that he knew it, too.
Realizing that the weapons were much inferior to hers, she moved on, studying the other weapons displayed. When she got to the glass case with the more conventional swords, she turned to Sam.
“It is amazing to me how much steel there is in this world. Just the items in this shop alone would be worth enough to buy a large city on Gythe.”
Sam knew what she was talking about. Because of the unique vibrational frequency of the world of Gythe, steel was…problematic to make. Iron was softer on that world, for some reason, and it did not readily alloy with carbon sources to make steel. Her swords alone were worth enough to buy a village, or to live in luxury for a lifetime. Most edged weapons on Gythe were made of either bronze or a ceramic glass that was much stronger than should be possible, staying razor sharp for years, and durable besides.
“Steel is common here. There are people here who would pay a lot of money for the ceramic blades from Gythe, though. Each world has its benefits.”
She was already moving on. “Oh, those swords are magnificent!” Nalia said, pointing toward a pair of classic twin Chinese broadswords. They had wide curving blades, sharp on one side, shaped somewhat like a pirate cutlass. The wooden handles were separated from the blade by a large half-oval handguard and had a bright red scarf attached to the end. The swords fit together so they could be wielded as one sword and fit into the same scabbard. “May I see them?” she asked the clerk, a small, older Chinese man with a mole on his face that had three wiry hairs at least six inches long coming out of it. Sam had trouble keeping his eyes focused on the man’s eyes without them straying to the hair quivering slightly in the breeze of the fan sitting on the counter.
“Of course, of course,” the man said with a strong accent. “Very good steel. Very sharp. Old swords, antiques.”
Nalia picked up the sword the man offered to her. “They are balanced well and the handle is firm, not loose.”
“Full tang. Sword is hand-made, in the old way. Very good blade. Belonged to Master Ho Win Po. You know Master Ho? Very famous.”
Sam studied the man as he talked with Nalia. He expected a hard sell, having visited the Chinatown in Los Angeles several times. This man was sincere, though, Sam thought.
“I am sorry,” Nalia told him, “I have not heard of Master
Ho. Why were his swords not handed down to his sons or daughters?”
The man’s long white hair, swished as he bowed his head toward Nalia. “Very sad. Master Ho had cancer, died at only fifty-five years old. Had no sons, no daughters. He came to America and so there was no temple, no school to leave weapons to. They were sold to pay medical bills.”
“That is unfortunate,” Nalia told him, her eyes softly holding the man’s. She seemed to have no trouble in keeping eye contact. The man saw her sincerity and bowed his head to her again. Sam decided he liked the man.
The two stayed in the shop for half an hour, chatting with the store clerk and looking at his wares. When they left, they were carrying the two broadswords and had significantly less money. If Sam hadn’t trusted the man by the time they left, he never would have spent so much. He departed satisfied with the purchase. They were magnificent swords.
As Sam and Nalia left the shop, Sam narrowly avoided colliding with an older Chinese man on the crowded sidewalk. “Pardon me, I’m sorry,” Sam told him as the older man deftly dodged out of the way.
Sam stopped and looked at him. He seemed familiar in some way. Realizing he had been staring at the man for a good ten seconds, and that the man was staring back at him, he felt himself flush. He couldn’t place what it was, but he felt some sort of connection, a kinship to the man. Embarrassed, he turned and started to follow Nalia down the street.
“Excuse me, sir,” the man said to him. “Are you a Sifu, a Sigong?”
Sam turned back to him. The man was probably not even five and a half feet tall, had a full head of pure white hair, cut short, and a kindly face. His Asian features; the eyes, nose, and cheekbones, were softened somewhat from others he had seen during the day. Sam thought he was probably not full-blooded Chinese, but had other ethnicities mixed in. He still couldn’t place why the man looked so familiar. “I’m sorry, what?” Sam said.
Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set Page 55
