by Pam Uphoff
Back in the living room the Witches climbed out of the SUV and told him he was set to go. "We're going to take down your Gate as soon as you're gone." Falchion tossed a corridor down to the bottom of the Rip and he drove back onto Wilderness. Over to Earth. A hard right to get out of the building through his corridor. It was quiet, no one but Freckles and the two cops in sight.
"The fighting's stopped, but no one knows what happened to the kids they've already taken away."
"I've got a bunch of them, safe. If you're ready, I'll start pulling them out. The ones they already took through the gate . . . I can find the World that's kidnapped them, and I just yelled for help from the Dimension Cops." He walked down the street popping the bubbles holding the unconscious kids as he spoke. Walked back to the SUV as people arrived at speed to take the kids away.
Eldon sat down in front of the SUV and meditated. No snake, anymore, but he could see the ragged membrane edge . . . and something weird . . . it was passing through a normal membrane and right there a dark area where it was sticking somehow. And looking closer, he could see the ruins of dead cities.
All the tall tales about the Cannibal World . . . They're going to kill all those kids.
The only movement, the only feeling of power was very close to the sticking spot. And that marked where he needed to go. He backed off, away from the dark wedge. A bulldozed path with no traffic on it. One cone, two cones. He got back in the SUV. The two cops—Jerry and Phil—and the dog jumped in. He drove through.
***
They emerged in ruins. Sick twisted things, as if each building was two, overlapping and warping together into something that shouldn't be able to stand, and often hadn't. Sidewalks had been sucked up to become parts of the walls, mismatched windows didn't quiet overlap. The sky ahead looked odd, like a shadow cast across the sky by nothing whatsoever. He listened and caught vehicular noises and drove carefully that direction.
"Set up one of those corridors, here, for a fast retreat." Phil rolled his window down. "Damn, this looks like a Hollywood set from Hell."
Eldon backed up, stepped out and stuck the corridor mouth on the wall across from the gate and took the other end with them as he wound through a neverland of mutant trash.
A mile down the bulldozed path through the weird wreckage, he stopped and parked. They pulled out the three big crates and shifted them into a travesty of a room. He looked over the controls carefully, before he fit the three parts together, and then set the timer for six hours. They all set the alarm functions on their watches to give them a fifteen minute heads up, then he restarted the SUV and headed for the shadow.
***
Eldon cruised down the bulldozed road at a speed probably not recommended for the surface.
"How are we going to find the kids?" Phil bit his tongue as they hit a larger bump than usual.
"We're going to ask. I'm not planning on being nice about it, either." Eldon told him.
"So how come you've gone from being the Demon of Jones Creek to Mr. Hero?"
"I think a whole lot of people need a hero, right now."
Jerry snorted. "That hardly makes sense. Watch . . . "
They hit the oncoming truck head on. Fortunately it had been going slowly and Eldon had good reflexes. They all leaped out and Jerry found himself grabbing the driver of the other vehicle and dragging him bodily out of his truck. "Where are the people you kidnapped?"
The driver cursed in another language.
Eldon reached over and put his hand on the man's forehead for a long moment. "On the far side of the shadow zone. In a prison by the Merge Center . . . right. I got the location . . . And we can't get there from here." He slapped the corridor on the nearest wall and got back in the SUV and waited impatiently "Just drop him. He's a cold blooded killer, you'd puke if you knew what he did to a college student a couple of weeks ago."
He backed away, turned carefully and drove through the corridor and through his gate.
Grabbed a cone, smacked his gate and watched it fall apart. He grabbed one of the cones and aimed it at the world the Cannibals were merging with, set it down . . . it sheared away from the shadow zone, and attached out in a grasslands probably ten miles from the shadow zone.
He found another cone, twist the tails and . . . shoved this end up right against a building and then shoved it down a bit.
They piled back into the SUV and drove through.
He stopped long enough to attach a corridor to a pair of trees, then hustled.
This time there was no road at all, but the bumps were softer, big grass mounds or fallen branches from the scattered trees.
Half the bumps they were feeling weren't from the ground. He rather thought that the SUV was on its last legs.
"Is that an army? Over to the right?"
Eldon gave a quick glance. "Two of them. We're not the only people pissed as hell."
But closer to them, there were buildings silhouetted against the shadows. And he could feel the terror and desperation from there. It was close.
In fact it was that building right over there, across the barren field. Eldon threw a corridor and crammed the SUV in without worrying about the niceties. It spat them out a dozen feet from the blank concrete wall, and Eldon stepped out and looked it over. "Time for a bit of slicing, I think this place needs a new door right about here." He chopped his hand around and scooped a ten foot diameter hole in the wall, the rubble collapsed in front of them and they strode into a makeshift prison, a maze of bars and stairs. Figures inside the cells were staring at the hole. Lots of people. Starting with the half dozen kids in the cell they'd just broken into.
He grabbed prison bars and molded them into a rectangle with handles. Attached the corridor.
"Jerry, this is the corridor back to the Gate. Tell that dog to find Shane and Coltrain. I'm going to find guards. And get the kids out of here."
He slid through the gap he'd made in the bars and stalked off, locks shearing off prison doors as he passed them.
***
Jerry and Phil looked around.
The prisoners looked from the hole in the wall to the frame he was holding. "Can you get us out of here?"
Jerry turned the frame. "Yeah. Step through the frame, see the gate, go through it."
They dived for it. A quick glance showed them dashing through the gate and into the familiar campus.
"You know. I think we're lucky Eldon's worst behavior seems to be nasty sex."
Jerry nodded. "Yeah. How'd you like someone like that that wanted to rule the World."
He shoved the frame out of the cell and followed it. "All of you, through here!" The other prisoners wavered, then one jumped through and the rest rushed it and crowded through.
Jerry stared around. "Follow Eldon or . . . Napper. Find Coltrain." The dog sniffed the air and wagged his tail. They followed him up a metal staircase, and found more occupied cages. Locked.
Phil shoved the frame between bars. "Go through, look around, there's a Gate to Earth, take it." They dived through without questioning him. He jerked the frame out and shoved it in the next cage. There were hundreds of cages, with perhaps ten people in each. All men, he realized. He heard the dog barking and then some screaming, shots. The prisoners were all up and yelling, and he could only keep dragging the frame from cage to cage. Then Eldon was trotting toward him, snapping the locks off the cages with a gesture of his hands. Jerry held up the frame and the prisoners poured through it.
"Stay here, I'll send the kids this way."
Phil looked at his watch. "No problem, we've got almost an hour until Eldon's bomb goes off."
Jerry shrugged. "Doesn't really matter, we're not even on the same world."
The light dimmed suddenly and the metal building and bars warped around them bending to sink into other bars that hadn't been there a moment before.
Jerry swallowed. "I hope."
Chapter Twenty-one
Xen’s mission
Primitive World
; 7 Safar 1405 yp
Clouds climbed through the turbulent air on both sides of the shadow zone.
It's going to be a wet muddy battle.
And a strange one. Magical Horse Troops, looking much too keen to tackle a modern army—the look on Inso's face when Garit showed up with the cavalry! Wizards and witches.
And, of course, the much more conventional Oner Army.
Xen returned his attention to the Oner commander. "General Ilqy? Your men are safe as long as they stay out of the Shadow Zone. If they go into the Zone, they will feel an immense desire to merge with any un-merged Helios or anything organic. So try to keep them out. I'm going into the zone and I'll send out any Oners I find already inside the Zone."
A high whine echoed across the rolling plain. A plane still low, but climbing, flew out of the shadow zone. Egg shapes of bombs below its wings . . .
"Aunt Question? Take it down." He verbalized the mental command so General Ilqy would understand what was about to . . .
The lightning bolt hit the plane, continued to the ground, the reverse strike again passed through the plane. Almost faster than he could see . . . the plane exploded, or perhaps one or more bombs. The result was the same.
"The Comet Fall Magicians will deal with their planes and if you have a specific problem, Val and or Drei will relay that to the people who can help."
The boys both nodded. Well, twenty years olds, he ought not call them boys, but the sons of the God of Eternal Youth looked quite young.
Xen eyed the army facing them.
A battle line of infantry, and tanks. Far to the left, the jail building he'd explored, just outside the shadow zone. Where I need to be, right now.
He turned back to the Oner officers. "Every Helaos who comes out of the Shadow Zone to fight has already merged with one of those kidnapped college students. From the procedures I witnessed, before merging, they do spot damage to their victims brains to ensure the Helaos personality will dominate the merge. Then they merge. The kids are not recoverable, at that point.
"You're going to have to kill them."
An uneasy shift through everyone within hearing range.
"If they hesitate, if someone inside there is fighting for dominance, you can try to get them to surrender. Use stun spells. But don't hesitate so much that you get yourselves or your men killed. I'm sorry. Now I have to get going, they're merge-killing those students right now."
Xen hardened his habitual physical shield, and reached for one of his recognition points . . . the one inside the shadow zone . . . wasn't there anymore.
He grabbed the stable bubble from his collection and opened the door. "So, feel like a run across a battlefield?"
Pyrite tossed his head. :: I want to hurt those people who hurt Q. ::
"Right. We'll take out a tank or two on the way to where they're holding youngsters they captured the way they captured Q."
Xen ignored General Ilqy's "What? You can't take on a tank from horseback!" and vaulted aboard.
Pyrite sprinted down the hill, and up the next . . . head up, taking a good look, and teleported to the crest of the next. Galloped down through the next swale.
:: Be ready. They'll be close on the next jump. ::
Xen braced himself, raised physical and energy shields. A wedge, a plow to shove everything—everyone—from their path. They crested the hill and Pyrite traveled them to the crest of the next . . . a few feet from the front line of infantry.
Tank escort. Professional, no sign of internal resistance to be seen.
He opened horizontal slits in his shield to both sides and sliced.
Then a vertical slice that went diagonally through the tank as Pyrite raced past. Veered for the next nearest tank.
Xen let the horse take care of the driving while he sliced, then sent a fireball into a canvas covered truck. The tank was turning it main gun his direction . . . he chopped the barrel off and braced his shield as it fired anyway. Hit the shield and exploded.
Pyrite staggered, levitated to stay on his feet, laid his ears back and charged the tank.
Xen gave it a vertical then a horizontal slice, then they were past the tank line.
Xen threw fireballs, started grass fires, more for the smoke cover than for actual damage. He threw a physical effect—glitter, Q called it—reflective surfaces, tumbling through the air. One or the other worked. The army didn't follow as Pyrite bolted for the jail.
Put on the brakes and slid into a scene from a nightmare.
Unconscious teenagers on gurneys, being wheeled to his right, toward a hazy edge of dusky light.
The terrified auras of thousands of people coming from the jail on his left.
Xen warped light as he drew his pistol and shot the Helaos orderly pushing the gurney closest to the shadow zone. Shot the magazine empty, switched, and kept shooting. He swung off Pyrite and swooped a bubble over the gurneys as he ran toward the shadow zone.
An open walled pavilion housed a scene of horror. Limp bodies on gurneys being stripped, a doctor with a gun-like instrument to a young man's head as a line of naked old men leaned eagerly . . . Xen shot the doctor. Shot the old men.
The Helaos soldiers were running in to help, but stopping short, staying in the zone.
One turned toward the gurneys already inside . . .
Click. Out of ammo.
A mental punch dropped that soldier, but the rest turned and rushed the gurneys.
A careful slice. Head high. Well above the gurneys.
Blood sprayed.
A head rolled onto a gurney and sank into the flaccid body.
He turned and slap attached the bubble to the saddle. "Get out of here, up to the crest of the next hill and warn me about what's coming."
Pyrite snorted disagreement, but spun and bolted back toward the smoke.
Xen closed his eyes, looked at the infrared . . . Several hundred warm bodies headed his direction.
The kids can't even help themselves!
Can I merge proof them?
He looked over the pavilion roof, to the clouds rushing into the zone from Helios.
That should do it.
Xen strode into the shadow zone. Three slices over his head and a hard push to send the roof flying. Pulling power and reaching far out into the Helios sky to release it as heat. Instant thunderheads lifting, rain falling toward the shadow zone . . . he pulled it, blocked the Primitive World's rain . . . was hit by a deluge, torrential rain hitting his skin and sinking in. Hitting the kids and disappearing into them.
Xen started pulling the gurneys past him, shoving the kids back toward the Primitive World and got between them and the charge of soldiers through the door.
Shield out and grounded . . . and where the hell was a bubble so he could get these kids out of here . . . Did the merge affect them, repulse them? Did he dare open one of his other bubbles . . .
:: Soldiers coming your way from either side, but they're stopping at the edge of the shadow . . . :: A mental spook and a sense of a fast retreat. :: It's growing! Fast! ::
A shiver underfoot, a cacophony of metallic scrapes and pops. A glance back . . . the shadow zone had engulfed the jail.
With unmerged Helaos soldiers charging from both sides to surround and trap him.
All right. No more Mister Nice guy.
Xen reached out mentally , a shallow scoop of a slice to take off the left side of the jail's roof. Bend the gravity slope, slide it left and toward him . . . and drop it into the space between jail and pavilion. On the soldiers coming from that direction.
Another scoop from the right side and drop it on that batch of soldiers.
Xen wove between gurneys, reaching up and pulling down another deluge, shoving the water over and into the jail.
He reached over his shoulder and drew his sword.
And extended his shield to cover it.
Chapter Twenty-two
Fly free little birdies!
Old Gods Know Where
Effing Winter
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Eldon galloped down the central aisle of the jail, snapping locks on either side as he ran. "Go! Back the way I came from!"
Then the whole building wrenched, twisted. The metal bars . . . for a second he could see as second set, nearly in the same place, then they torqued, squirmed. Froze back in place, the doors warped and unopenable.
Eldon cursed, leaned to slice the bars below the chest-high crosspiece.
Too slow! He extended his shield out both hands, held them high and low, awkwardly bent . . . Bolted up one side of the corridor, and paused to look down a stairway at the dim light out the front doorway . . . The soldiers massing to either side . . . he felt an urge to run down there and grab one . . .
Their attention was focused across the road . . . on Xen Wolfson.
Oh shit! Eldon turned and galloped back, slicing the bars on the other side.
"Jerry? Phil? I think we're in the shadow zone . . . ah shit. The corridor popped?" the metal frame he’d made was empty. He closed his eyes . . . a few bubbles, skittering away . . . he grabbed one and it popped. "Right. Send the kids down this staircase and out the hole I made and off toward the gate. I hope to hell it's still there . . . "
A crashing shriek, and half the roof slid sideways and forward, fell out of sight. The other half went forward and the other direction before falling.
Bet there's a whole lot fewer soldiers out there, now.
"Uh . . . There's a guy out there. Very tall, wearing dark gray. He's the Good Guy D-cop. If he looks belligerent, yell that you're here to rescue the kids. Loudly, quickly." Eldon glanced up and caught a faceful of rain . . . That hit and sank in, felt like it was filling a vast hollow inside him . . . and those soldiers weren't nearly as attractive as they had been.
