by Jeff Deck
Sol and Ulrich are both intact. We’re standing on an altar in the middle of the vast floor of the temple. There’s a metallic statue of—what looks like a gigantic human hand, splayed open, with a hole straight through the palm. (Briefly I flash back to stabbing my own palm back in Grieg’s office.) Multitudes of pews surround us, spreading in five directions like the ceiling, and we are not alone. Figures sit in the rows. Right now I can’t focus on them, though. I let go of Ulrich’s hand—he’s hyperventilating but starting to focus on his surroundings—and turn from the hand statue.
I look back through the Port in time to see the home aide raise her revolver. This time we’re not the targets. Amid the unearthly whistling of the Port, I hear the bound young man let out a muted screech before she shoots him.
“No!” I shout. My voice carries through the Port as well as echoing off the soaring temple ceiling.
I sink to the floor of the altar and watch in horror as the young stranger’s blood pools on the attic floor—but then flies up to the Port. The stream of blood vanishes before it can come through to our side, as if the Port itself is eagerly sucking it up.
Now Ilana is walking around his body, tracing a strange pattern: a five-petaled pattern, in fact. All the while she’s chanting something in an inconceivable language, full of chewing, smacking sounds. Mmnch, guh, chuh, gnch, ulch, gulp. And the Port shrinks.
Instinctively, I jerk toward it, as if to dive through the closing gap, but Sol seizes my arm with surprising strength.
“No,” he whispers.
It’s a good thing he prevented my stupid lunge, because the Port speeds up as it closes. I can imagine my body ripped in clean halves—just like the jaws of the monstrous serpent from Graham’s World, back on that horrible night in May.
Sol has saved my life. Now we’re even for the Narcan thing.
But what use my life still holds, I’m not sure. Because a defenseless person was just murdered, the door back to Earth has closed, and my traveling companions and I are now trapped in an unknown universe surrounded by alien beings.
5
Quick survey of the situation:
Two hundred members of an extradimensional species surround Sol, Ulrich, and me in the temple. I don’t know what’s underneath, but the congregants are wearing bright metal suits, like armor, with various hinged doors built into the suits to access who knows what. Most of the suits are red, though I spot at least one silver suit and a couple of brownish suits.
Their “helmets” feature faces that look vaguely human, but as if drawn with a crayon. Every detail is too wide and too blunt and too harsh. The faces’ expressions are frozen in emotional extremes, like carnival masks: some faces laughing, some weeping, some screaming in terror. Though the congregants are numerous, none of them are armed.
None of them seem surprised that we’ve appeared from an interdimensional hole to interrupt their service. Maybe this happens a lot.
Ilana’s been here, you whisper to me.
Perhaps. Maybe they’ve grown accustomed to visits from the Murderess of Round Island.
I hear a click. Ulrich has released the safety on the gun Ilana didn’t bother to confiscate.
“Great plan,” I say swiftly. “You’re going to try shooting the guys in metal suits. Also, how many rounds you got in there, Tex?”
Ulrich’s jaw clenches. He lowers his weapon. “I haven’t heard an alternate plan yet.”
“How about literally anything else?” Sol says, dancing from one foot to the other. He doesn’t look as terrified as he should. Clearly he’s drunk deep of the Tenacious Trainers’ idea that every strange world is a friend we haven’t met yet.
Okay. I clear my throat and address the congregants. “We’re not here to hurt you.”
A man (?) in a brilliant red metal suit is the only one not sitting in the pews. He—no, it—has been kneeling before the altar, but now it creaks to his feet. Its human mask has a dolorous look. A large, roundish object is strapped to its back.
The sculpted face doesn’t move, but a voice issues from somewhere in the suit. “We assumed no such thing was even possible,” it says in perfect, unaccented English. “Or at least that the odds were safely infinitesimal.”
Not only has Ilana visited this place, she’s apparently taught at least one of the locals English. “Great,” I say. “Looks like we’re off on the right foot, then.”
“Little early to say that,” Ulrich mutters.
“You are welcome here,” the sorrowful-faced man says, “by definition. All three of you. We summoned you here, through the grace of the Hand.”
“Through the grace of the Hand,” the congregants murmur in a unanimous echo, also in English.
I hesitate at that. “Well… what? We weren’t summoned here. We were forced through at gunpoint.”
“No. We petitioned the Hand, on this final day of its Festival. The Hand heard our prayer and brought you here.”
“Oh,” I say. “This is a religious thing. Okay, then, your god or whatever brought us here. Just like Jesus helps the Patriots win every game.”
The features of its mask don’t change, but its voice takes on a palpable tone of disdain. “The great downfall of your world is hubris—you think you are the authors of your every action. You think you must be the most advanced creatures in the multiplane. But you are among the least.” One of the hinged doors in his red suit trembles and then flies open, but it slams shut before I get a glimpse of what’s inside.
“Fine. We’re dogshit. You know all about, uh, Earth, then?” I ask.
“Not just ‘Earth,’” the thing says, and I can practically hear the air quotes. “The rest of your solar system. The rest of your galaxy. Your universe slides against ours like tectonic plates with only one, tiny point of contact. Unfortunately for you, that point happens to reside in the control of a foul sorcerer.”
Sorcerer, now. Magic and religion, two of my least favorite topics.
“I am Guhnach, Priest Lord of the Five-Petaled Temple, keeper of the Priest Relic,” the thing says. “These are the members of my caste, my acolytes and my congregation. As to your names, you find us at a disadvantage—we didn’t know whom the Hand would bring to us.”
“Guhnach,” I say, my mouth twisting around the unpleasant sound. “The big guy’s Ulrich and the young guy is Sol. You can call me Allard. I have no title, and I don’t think I’m the help you’re looking for.”
I take a step off the altar. Ulrich stays where he is, but Sol walks forward at my side, still looking like he could scoop this place up and eat it if only he had a spoon. Though he’s the more experienced Port traveler, I should keep doing the talking here. At least until I find out what Sol wants to get out of this little adventure.
“So,” I say to the red-suited thing, with keener interest now, “you know about the Ports. And like the residents in other universes, you’ve built a temple to dedicate to it?”
“Not to the Port,” it replies. “To the Hand, obviously. But aren’t you curious at all about why we would summon you here, traveler?”
It’s forcing me to play along with this concept of divine will. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to… fill an alien’s bucket. “Please don’t take this the wrong way,” I say, “but we have our own priorities to worry about right now. Our friend is missing and/or dead in a ditch somewhere. We’d like to get back home—soonest, if possible—to continue our search.”
“How interesting,” remarks the creature, “to assume our priorities do not intersect. It’s quite possible that your search for your missing friend has led you to the correct destination after all. By the grace of the Hand.”
“By the grace of the Hand,” the congregants murmur in reply.
I look at the thing sharply. “Milly’s here?”
The sorrowful mask looks back at me. My fists curl at my sides. The creature is waiting for me to ask about its demands, whatever they might be. Alien or not, it’s just another manipulative prick whose own needs come firs
t.
“Where is she?” Ulrich demands.
“We require a favor,” says Guhnach.
There it is. “What kind of favor?” I ask. “A dangerous one?”
“With danger comes reward.”
“Whatever it is, agree to it!” Ulrich says, his face flushing. “We can always back out later.”
“Don’t let this overgrown pig boss you around,” Sol says. He’s pale and trembling, but not with fear. He looks like he did the night I saved his life: in the grip of a dangerous drug. “Use your own judgment.”
Ulrich places a heavy hand on Sol’s shoulder. “Pig, huh? Want to see which one of us will squeal first?”
“Enough,” I hiss. I turn back to the red-suited priest. “We won’t agree to anything until you tell us what we’re agreeing to.”
Its mask inclines and it says, “I need you to enter into a Wager with a ruthless enemy of the city, and win.”
“I don’t understand what you mean by Wagers. Can you explain?”
His mask, frozen in sadness, clashes with his light, almost jovial tone: “Better than that, I’ll show you! Galg and Mauguh, what better time than now, on the crowning day of the Festival of the Hand, to finally resolve your quarrel using a Wager, here in the holiest place in the city?”
Two masked creatures rise hesitantly from opposing pews. One is in red armor like Guhnach with a male face curled in anger. The other is one of the few congregants not in red; it wears a silver suit whose mask depicts a woman wildly laughing.
The red one speaks in an incomprehensible tongue that must be the native language. The silver one answers in the same language, with a harsher tone. It’s a close cousin to the syllables Ilana spoke to shut the Port behind us: crunching, chewing, kind of like the sound of these creatures’ names themselves.
“They agree to participate,” Guhnach translates. The red one joins the red-suited priest up on the altar, followed quickly by the silver one. “Now I will ask them to submit to the Hand’s judgment and name their Wagers.”
The Priest Lord exchanges a few lines with the two Wagerers, then says to us: “They will participate in a third-level Wager, staking an emotion each. They must choose the emotion most important to them, so Galg has chosen to Wager anger and Mauguh humor.”
I assume Galg is the red one and Mauguh the silver. If their most important respective emotions are indicated by the expressions of their masks, then they’re definitely telling the truth. But… what kind of wagers are these? Impossible to fulfill, aren’t they?
“So be it,” says Guhnach. It unbuckles a strap on the chestplate of its suit and produces the object that was slung across its back: a hard, bumpy-looking shield about two feet in diameter, though irregularly shaped. It holds the shield out to the opposing wagerers. “Place your Wagers.”
Galg and Mauguh both put a mailed hand on the shield, which Guhnach retains its grip on. Then both of the Wagerers shudder and cry out, and one of the small doors in each of their suits opens. Something flows out of the dark little doorways and into the shield itself, bright and amorphous essences. Guhnach remains still as it holds the shield. The doors slam shut.
“The fuck?” Ulrich mutters.
“Guys!” Sol chirps. “Is this magic? If so, do you even realize how lucky we are to see it?!”
Oh, I feel so very lucky right now. “Calm down, Sol! There’s no such thing as magic.”
The shield glows now. The Priest Lord says, “Witness, humans. Mauguh’s humor and Galg’s anger are both contained within the Relic.”
That’s not how… emotion works. They’re not—glowing things, goddammit! Unless I’ve gotten it all wrong and my therapist owes me a serious refund.
Whatever these jokers are trying to prove with this light show, I’m not buying it. I elbow my way closer to the glowing shield. “Okay, what’s the trick here?” I ask.
“Trick?” the priest responds. “You’re witnessing the will of the Hand That Never—”
It bats my hand away as I attempt to brush my fingertips over the shield.
“Stop that. Don’t touch the sacred Relic. Watch.”
The priest presses an unseen switch on the side of the altar. A panel slides open on the top and Guhnach takes a handful of small objects from the compartment inside, then holds out its palm, with its other hand still gripping the shield. The objects in Guhnach’s hand—are they dice, or maybe jacks? What they most resemble are bones: yellowish-white, lumpy like popcorn. There are four of them.
“Galg, as the challenged, you will cast your astragali first,” Guhnach instructs.
The red Wagerer scoops up the bones with its metallic hand and then casts them on the surface of the shield.
Little symbols are scratched onto each of the four sides of each small bone, but I’m unable to read them. All I can tell is that in Galg’s roll, the up side of all four bones features the same symbol. Guhnach does us the courtesy of interpretation: “Three, three, three, three. Griffin’s roll.”
Is that good or bad? Would I bet on a griffin?
Galg says something in a flat tone. The creature doesn’t seem excited, but it doesn’t seem mad about the results either.
It can’t be mad, dummy. Its anger has been placed as a Wager.
“No,” I mutter. “Bullshit.”
Mauguh, the silver one, takes up the bones—astragali—next, casting them on the shield with a flourish. Again, the roll’s outcome is almost indecipherable to me. I can only tell that all four symbols facing up are different.
“One, three, four, six,” Guhnach announces. “The turtle roll.”
Mauguh opens its arms wide and bows to the onlooking acolytes. Galg, the red wagerer, simply looks on, as if immobilized.
The Priest Lord announces, “The Hand has judged Mauguh the victor and Galg the defeated. Praise the Hand!”
“Praise the Hand,” the congregation bellows in response.
The little door in Mauguh’s suit opens once more. I watch as all of the gleaming essence flows from the shield through the doorway in the silver Wagerer’s suit. The red one receives none; its doors remain closed.
Mauguh, the silver Wagerer, shouts in the native language, lets out an unearthly howl and slams a foot down on the floor surrounding the altar, cracking the fine marble.
“What happened?” I ask Guhnach. “I thought that one won!”
The Priest Lord nods. “It did. Now it glories in its new capacity for rage, bringing it ever closer to humanity. It brags about the ‘wrath of Mauguh.’” Then it adds, in an intonation directed to the crowd, “So goes the judgment of the Hand.”
“The judgment of the Hand,” the congregation murmurs. Even the loser Galg joins in, though its voice is dejected. It may have been robbed of its anger (no!), but not its sadness.
Ulrich and I look from one creature to another, dumbfounded. But Sol says, “I’m telling you. Magic.”
“No! You can’t bet an emotion!” I exclaim.
“Emotions are a third-level Wager,” the priest says patiently. “They are the second-highest Wager I am empowered to authorize, but there are also two levels below, and two above. The bigger the prize, the bigger the Wager must be. You have two Wagers ahead of you. First, the Wager that I ask you as a favor. Then you will have to Wager on the highest level possible to gain what you seek: a being’s freedom, and your path home.”
6
“You could take us home?” I say. “You could reopen the Port?”
“Yes,” Guhnach responds. “I assume you’ll wish to return if—er, once you’ve secured the freedom of your companion?”
I don’t like that hesitation about our odds, but I say, “Yes, of course. Where is she?”
“She?”
“Our friend.”
Guhnach inclines its mask. “In the Tower of the Glutton, where all the Wager-bound prisoners go. Doxe Ungam is the overseer of any loss of life or freedom, so you will need to petition it for a Wager. As the Priest Lord, I can authorize only the next hi
ghest level.”
The Priest Lord reattaches its shield—its Relic—to its body. “This is Avariccia, the City of Games. You come here during the Festival of the Hand, when whatever you seek can be yours, as long as your Wager is sufficient.”
No. We don’t have to play these creatures’ sick games. There has to be another way.
“Do you understand what you must put at stake?” Guhnach says.
“We left our wallets in our home universe,” I say. “Sorry. Nothing to wager.”
“Nothing? Nothing at all?”
No, I really don’t like where this is going. “What do you want? Our smartphones? Our shoes?”
“Playing dumb does not become you, friend,” Guhnach says. “I hoped the Wager between Mauguh and Galg would teach you about the necessary parity of Wagers. They must be even. To win freedom, only your own freedom can be Wagered. Well, that or your life itself.”
I scowl at it. “We’re not about to put our lives in your… hands. You expect us to play games with, like, dice we’ve never seen before? Back home we would call that ‘home court advantage.’ Making the Wager definitely un-even.”
The priest gives this serious consideration. Then it says, “That is a just point, though the two Wagers you will be playing involve different games than rolling the astragali. We’ll explain the rules thoroughly before you begin each game. We don’t get a lot of visitors, so you’ll have to forgive my thoughtlessness.”
It indicates Mauguh and Galg. The former is striding off to the front doors of the temple, perhaps to rejoin its silver friends and brag about its “doubled” anger. The latter talks quietly with a few others; one of them pokes Galg’s suit, as if to elicit an angry response, but the creature shrugs.
“May their Wager prove to you,” the priest goes on, “there is no cause for alarm. Wagers are consensual and voluntary.”
