Chapter XXXVIII
In Which a Bet is Offered
I examined my pocket watch and glanced up at the sun, shielding my eyes with my free hand. Four hours had passed since our arrival, and the brilliant orb had covered more than half the distance to the horizon. I found this comforting, since it meant that we could probably expect a normal twenty-four day in this place wherever it was.
I noted the time to Madam Rabinovich and she withdrew her cell phone from her bag to confirm that my watch was accurate. I have always found it odd that neither she nor her husband kept a watch (wrist, pocket, or otherwise) with them at all times. She claims that she has no need, since her phone is perfectly capable of telling her the time. I have yet to point out to her that her phones battery will only last the week.
She calmly returned the cell phone to her bag and took the tube of sunblock in its place and passed it around for reapplication. We had the misfortune of traveling in the same direction that sun was setting (west?), so were forced to climb with our eyes lowered and our faces exposed to the burning rays. Madam Rabinovichs umbrella, which had been such a good parasol in the past, was now serving as a walking stick for Mister Ward, and nobody besides myself had the foresight to bring a hat. Of the three of us, the Russian Jewess was the most sensitive to the harsh effects of the desert sun (Mister Ward was not bothered by the bright light, for obvious reasons, and Im Sicilian), so I had loaned her my fedora.
Besides, I had far worse in Abyssinia.
I let my gaze wander over the hills around us and to the plains beyond, marveling at how varied this planet can be, how two deserts can look so different. Different soils. Different rocks. Different plants. Same rainfall. This place, like many of the areas of the Middle East it so closely resembled, looked far more inviting than the wastes of Africa that had swallowed up so many of my countrymen. It helped that the hills werent teeming with Meneliks soldiers.
I shivered at the memory and glanced back at Madam Rabinovich, who was, thankfully, busy taking Mister Ward to task for not putting on enough sunscreen and thus did not notice. I rarely spoke to anyone about my wartime experiences, and even then, most people were far more interested in the Great War than Italys ill-advised attempt to conquer Abyssinia. Even Madam Rabinovich, my most trusted confidants, knew very little about the experiences that forced a young, arrogant Italian playboy to grow up.
I prefer to keep it that way.
I calmly returned to my hike along the top of the hills, toward what appeared to be the crest of the ridge. They were, all in all, quite shallow and none too tall, no more than a hundred meters above the base, but our hike was slow and uncertain. Mister Ward was completely incapable of guiding himself, so Madam Rabinovich had to assist him with every step. This was mostly done through the weak telepathic link that they had set up. After seeing him stumble several times in a row, his face understandably torn with frustration, I realized that he was not actually seeing through her eyes.
Yes, the link is meager, she elaborated. He picks up subvocalizations and echoed conversations.
Echoed, madam?
She gave a small smile, probably secretly relishing the fact she knew something I didnt (not to say she is not a genius, herself, merely competitive). Neurology and linguistics are her fields of expertise, and my knowledge in those areas is both lacking and outdated. Whenever you listen to someone else speak, your brain replays the words in order to store them into your short term memory. If you listen carefully, youll catch yourself thinking everything you hear in your own voice.
I grunted my acknowledgement. It was a curious thing, and I had often wondered if it was merely a byproduct of my eidetic memory. And he reads these from your mind?
She nodded. And I subvocalize directions for where to put his feet. But he says its like Im speaking through glass, and sometimes he doesnt catch it.
They had already seemed to have worked out a system, where all of her directions and assistance was silent and thought-based, but their other conversations were spoken. I didnt ask about that, since I was already feeling embarrassed for pointing out Mister Wards stumbling, and immediately performed a mental facepalm: Madam Rabinovich was trying to keep things as normal as possible speaking her directions would be a constant reminder of his disability, and keeping their conversations hidden as well would lead to an awkward silence that would, likewise, be a reminder.
Madam Rabinovich is a very wise woman.
When we finally crested the top of the ridge, the sun was dipping dangerously low on the horizon. We had, at most, two hours of daylight left. The landscape below unfolded like a map; the hills dropped quickly down to a valley floor, then rose again on the other side, even higher than where we currently stood. The base of the valley was verdant and green, and in the middle, sparkling in the sun, was an enormous river.
I think we found your water, madam, I announced as the others caught up with me. Its a good ten or twenty kilometers away, but seeing as it appears to still be Spring here, it is likely that well find a stream that feeds the river.
She looked up at the setting sun and frowned. We had better; we wont make it there by nightfall.
Can we make it to a stream? Mister Ward asked. Can we see any from here?
I started to shake my head, then caught myself. No. We need to remain here, where we can keep an eye out for the Kushans. If he gets dropped off somewhere, we need to know.
How? Madam Rabinovich put her free hand on her hip. There wont be any light pollution and we have nothing to see by except the flashlight in my bag. And we need water and food.
If only we had Rostov Kushans flare gun
I murmured.
She gaped at me. He has a flare gun?
Of course, I replied. He had taken it for the purpose of signaling his men in case things went south, but it would adequately serve as a light source or beacon if necessary.
Men! She groaned. Why didnt you tell me this? If he keeps any of his sense, hell fire it the first night hes here and stay put.
What if were wrong and he appeared here first? Mister Ward, the only one to ever point out the flaws in our plans something he took great pride in added. He might have fired the flare last night and we missed it.
There was a long silence.
He has a few of them, so maybe hell space them out
Madam Rabinovich gave me a nervous glance. Or he might be sitting and waiting for us, then eventually give up and start exploring. That option looked rather bleak. Lets hope were right and he appears at some point over the next twenty-four hours.
Do we wait here for it then?
Madam Rabinovich shook her head and pointed down the slope. Take a look at that patch of green over there; those trees are much thicker than they should be. And then therere the shrubs around it
Id be willing to bet that theyre occluding a small stream or spring.
I raised an eyebrow. I never knew you to gamble, madam.
She gave me one of her looks. It is in the unique nature of women to express any number of thoughts, desires, or intentions, using no more than their eyes. Each woman has their own style of Look, and as much as they expect men to immediately know what she means by it, it is only through trial and error that they can be deciphered. This specific one said, I was being facetious and you know it, but Im going to make a quip in reply anyway.
Not in a long time, no. Her eyes flashed with laughter. People stopped betting against me.
Mister Ward groaned. Madam Rabinovich smiled and immediately began the descent towards what we hoped was a source of fresh water.
This side of the ridge was significantly steeper than the eastern, and combining that with the pull of gravity meant that we travelled faster and far more dangerous than before. Small falls were common amongst all three of us, accompanied by many cries of frustration and annoyance, and it is only with a good deal of luck that we survived with nothing more than scratches and bruises. Madam Rabinovichs bag was beginning to show its true worth with antiseptics and bandages, but I couldnt help but wonder if it was going to be enough to last us through the endeavor, since the supplies Mister Ward had stored were in a small pocket dimension that could only be reached via magical means.
Once again, I cursed myself for my reliance on magic to supply me with all my needs. Now all I had was a watch, Rostov Kushans pistol with a single clip, my cane-sword, and a set of survival skills that I hadnt used in over a hundred years.
I didnt even have my own source of light, which became an ever-growing complication as time passed and we lost our race with the sun. When we finally reached the trees - and the brook that sustained them - we had only a flashlight and a rising moon to direct us.
Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich
Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?
Chapter XXXIX
In Which Matches Are Sorely Needed
When we were home or, at least, on the same special-temporal plane as home the moon was waning slightly, it had been a week or so after the middle of a lunar month. Over here, or over in this time, which seemed to my senses to be the more likely, it was waxing, and would reach its fullness in perhaps another week. Its light was barely sufficient, in any case and the night, just as Id predicted, was incredibly dark. There was no light pollution, no glowing cities on the horizon, no sparkling dots of airplanes and satellites drifting across the sky. That was the hypothesis I posited to the men while we were resting, breathless and drooping from boneless exhaustion, after our trek down.
Or it could be a dimension like my dads, Garent said. Where technology is pointless.
Hence the highly convenient non-existence of magic, I said drily. To make life ever so much easier.
Your point being?
That technology doesnt stagnate in dimensions where magic isnt all-prominent, I said with exasperation. Humans like their hot baths and their rapid travel and their antibiotics.
Lorenzo and I grimaced at each other over Garents head, looking at our grubby clothes, dusty hands and subnurnt faces, probably thinking the same thing; that we wouldnt mind a hot bath, rapid travel and, perhaps, even some antibiotics. Out of the appealing list, I only had the latter item, and even that in woefully short supply.
I groaned, lurched to my feet, and went off toward the sound of running water.
The campground if one could call three people sitting down with nothing around them a camp was rocky and sported a large amount of thorny bushes which tore at my skirt. It did, however, had trees to hide us from the rising wind, and a convenient small little streamlet that, at least in the dark, appeared relatively clean and supplied a decent amount of cold water. It certainly was not enough to wash in it wasnt even enough to wade in but I did make a point of rubbing the dust and grime off my hands and face, and filling up my water bottle to bursting.
I helped Garent wash his face, and poured water for Lorenzo as well. We all felt better once we were marginally clean, though we were still gray, with dark circles under our eyes, and the look on Garent's face was downright disconcerting.
Then I busied myself tallying and treating the damage from our descent. We all three had cuts, scrapes and a couple bruises which would turn into spectacular sights in a day or so. About the latter I could do little I pressed a cold, wet bandage to an especially spectacular one on Garents elbow but I was occupied for a while cleaning and drying out dirty scratches.
I still say that a parallel universe is not as good a possibility, I announced, grabbing hold of Garents wrist and swabbing the back of his hand with alcohol. We know when the gem of Shubat-Anshar served its purpose; why search for some implausible hypothesis just to make our lives complicated?
So that we dont make mistakes, obviously.
Instead, I said with soft, biting anger, we wont come up with a working hypothesis at all, and find ourselves without plans, without means, and without an estimate of what were up against. That does not strike me as productive. I moved on to Lorenzo, reaching up to clean a thankfully shallow cut on his arm.
The river He hissed momentarily when the alcohol touched the wound. Could very well be the Euphrates. The map of the region fits, vaguely, with the features of the land. If it is indeed the Euphrates then we are currently in the small mountain ridge to the east of it, with plain all the way to the Syrian mountains which are too far to see and Lake Tharthar to the south. We saw a body of water, of sorts.
Which makes the city we saw Shubat-Anshar. Probably in all its ancient glory.
I pulled down his sleeve, and tilted his head gently to deal with a scratch on his cheek from a sharp outcrop of rock he encountered on the way down. I had a matching one on the other side of my face from where I rapidly pulled Garent back and overbalanced. In the moonlight, he was practically gray with exhaustion, and seemed on the edge of his nerves; not close to snapping, surely, because people like him did not snap, but likely to withdraw so deeply into himself that there would be no dragging him out.
Lorenzo was never an easy person to have as a friend or to be a friend of, I wasnt sure which. I never knew quite where one stood with him, how much he cared for my company, and how much he simply tolerated my presence because I was too rude to leave him alone, and he was too polite to tell me to do so. It whatever it was, in our case only worked out because we respected each others privacy as much as we respected each others confidence. Or, I should say, I respected his privacy and confidence, and he occasionally indulged mine. Nevertheless, there was a limit to even such a respect, and I was deeply worried that trying to stoically contain everything, as he was both taught and inclined to do, would do him more damage than even his resilient psyche could handle.
Or perhaps, truthfully, distance him further than my psyche could handle.
I said nothing. We had, unfortunately for my tired eyes and aching feet, miles to go before we sleep.
The business of setting up camp for the few hours we would spend in that place proved simpler than wed anticipated. Not for lack of wanting, but for lack of resources. Between the three of us we had, perhaps, six pockets, including the ones in Lorenzos coat. Most of these contained the professional tools of the mage that he was or had been where magic was useful which he extracted, ruefully examined, and then discarded. My own pockets held a folded-up stack of tissues, some pocket change in various international coinage, and a pen. Not precisely what one would call a survivors dream. I wished for more daylight to scavenge around and acquire food I was beginning t feel the lack of dinner the previous evening (though I could not quite estimate how many hours ago that had been) but the darkness, and the scarcity of fruit at this time of year, if indeed it was spring as it appeared, prevented me from even trying seriously.
I think the stream must have fish in it, small, thin fish with no taste to speak of, I did not add. I suppose I could fish some.
I suppose I could snap off a branch for a fishing rod, Lorenzo made to get up. I pressed him down again, firmly.
You stay seated. A fishing rod would not be fast enough, or efficient enough. Considering the size of this puddle, Id want something that I could simply use to scoop the fish out. Perhaps, my eyes lighted in speculation, if Garent were to loan me his t-shirt
Uh oh, Garent hunched down protectively. Oh no, I dont like where this is going at all.
I cannot very well be expected to provide mine, I said acidly, and was rewarded with a rather misplaced, I thought collective shudder. I decided to ignore it in favour of poking through my bag. Its a moot point anyway, because while there is kindling in plenty, I have no matches, alas.
Ah, Lorenzo patted his pockets ruefully. Nor do I. Madam, you dont think you could
?
The question hung in the air treacherously. At one point in my life, I had been a pyrokinetic. I was not of impressive talent for the truly magnificent displays of fireworks one required a far greater deviation from the normal than my brain presented it was my skill and imagination, rather than my strength, that had allowed me to dance circles around my foes, and leave them wounded, or dead. Nothing is without its price, however and my sojourn in the sphere of global events had not left me unscarred. I still suffered nightmares and occasional reversals to my injuries. My brain had been battered into a pulp more than once. It was a wonder that I had still had a sense of self not to mention all my memories and intelligence. I will forever walk with a cane, but I was, on the whole, grateful.
I owed it to them to try, at least. I extracted out the small bottle of ethyl alcohol I used as a disinfectant, and uncapped it, smelling the wafting fumes. Ethyl has the lowest flash point of all liquid fuels; a run of the mill psionicist should be able to make it burn, even under the circumstances. I, however, could feel nothing, and grasp nothing. I tried to reach out a mental hand and will the liquid to burn, but it simply sat there, inert and stinking. I placed the cap back on the bottle firmly, preserving the alcohol for more beneficial uses.
I still could deal with world conspiracies, global threats and interdimensional demigods
but I could not light a fire.
By this point, I am sure, Lorenzo was mentally kicking himself, regretting ever having asked. In truth, I am not overly inclined to feel sad or even consider this a disability; ninety-nine percent of people cannot make fires with their heads, and for the first thirty-something years of my life, neither could I. this was no different. I grimaced annoyance at the notion of spending a night in the cold, however, especially since Garent was looking like he was barely keeping himself from shivering. I could tell, with my hand resting on his shoulder as it was to make conversation easier.
Unfortunately, this is not our lucky day in the firestarting business, I said lightly, and saw Lorenzos frown disappear.
Thats too bad, Garent was commenting, not complaining. I didnt realize deserts get cold at night.
Deserts are very... deceptive. Lorenzo picked up his long, heavy coat, and draped it around Garents shoulders neatly. I pawed in my bag for a while, and came up with the tiny, folded space blanket that I used to treat shock victims and hypothermia, which I spread on the ground for all three of us to sit on. That was, more or less, the sum of what we could do for ourselves at the time. Daylight might bring more optimal solutions I certainly hoped so.
Garent drooped quietly in his spot, and yawed. I figured on his tiredness; he was expending immense energy just to stay in touch with me, not to mention the tiring job of moving around without seeing the path. It was no wonder that now, when he was warm, he couldnt stop himself from falling asleep. I would follow his example if I could afford it.
Why don't you take a nap? I advised him. We'll wake you if anything interesting happens.
You-- he yawned, think I should?
Most definitely, I and Lorenzo asserted at almost the same moment. He sighed, and curled on the blanket like a child, huddling in Lorenzo's coat. Within moments, his breathing softened into the rhythm of sleep, or at least shallow slumber, and only two of us remained, scanning the horizon hopefully for Rostov's flares.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter XL
In Which Old Friends Appear
I was awoken from my sleep by the sound of gunfire.
Madam Rabinovich and Mister Ward were both asleep, oblivious to the bone-rattling rapport echoing off the mountains. I knelt down to wake them, then thought better of it and instead headed in the direction of the pitched battle; after all, if they were in too deep asleep to awaken from the sounds, I reasoned that they were exhausted enough to need that sleep. I decided to leave my swordstick behind in the off chance that Madam Rabinovich would need some kind of weapon, and drew Rostov Kushans pistol.
The nearly full moon gave me enough light to see by, and the adrenalin pumping in my veins seemed to override the pain in my knee, and I quickly approached the crest of the hill. Not wanting to give anything away, I dropped down to a crawl, and peered over.
The brothers Kushan stood back to back on the valley floor, guns raised and blazing, accompanied by Rostov Kushans small mercenary force. I could make out the grim determination on their faces, accented by the flashing light of the rifles they were carrying. They were surrounded by bodies of the dead and dying 5th Column soldiers that had apparently attempted to ambush them. Or were ambushed by them.
The gunfire came to a halt and I saw that none of the enemy remained standing. The two brothers let out howls of triumph, and cautiously walked through the casualties. I was amazed that they had done so well, had managed to defeat dozens of enemy soldiers without any injury and wondered, with twinges of jealousy, if they had not been affected by the loss of magic.
Regardless, I was exulted by their appearance together no less! and shouted a greetings.
Lorenzo? Rostov Kushan yelled back, somewhat suspicious. He waved his rifle in my direction, unable to find me on the hilltops.
Indeed, Mister Kushan! I replied as I slowly rose to my feet. It is good to-
Good to what?
I could see across the gap to the next hill and beyond it. Black shapes, man-sized, moved with deliberate slowness, their weapons glinting in the moonlight. The hill beyond was covered by the silent stalkers, and the hilltop beyond that, off into the horizon. I looked back down at the Brothers Kushan, then up at the incoming ambush, and raised my hands to my mouth to sound the alarm.
There was a crash of thunder and the sound of bullet flying by my ear and I dropped down to the ground. The ground around me exploded in a hail of bullets and pushed myself away and back, quickly protecting myself with hills bulk and a moderately sized boulder. Bullets whizzed by, keeping me from peeking out to watch my comrades, to see if they were going to survive, and I knew the pistol wouldnt have the range to be of any use. I could do nothing but sit and wait, and pray.
The praying should have struck me as odd and should have been my first warning. As I mentioned earlier, my faith abandoned me a long time hence, and I trust in nothing but skill and luck. But somehow, for some reason, it seemed natural to pray for their safety. Not just natural, but
necessary.
The gunfire and the screaming stopped, and I worked up the nerve to carefully peek out over the top of my rock. The soldiers had formed up in a half-circle around my companions, who were in various stages of injury: some were on the ground; some were standing with their arms raised in surrender. Rostov Kushan was clutching his shoulder with one hand, and the other was held behind his back. His brother was among those lying on the dirt.
Surrender! I heard one of the soldiers shout. Arms up!
Rostov Kushan shook his head, still keeping one arm behind his back, clenching something fiercely. I leaned forward, trying to see what he was holding, but it was too dark and his own bulk hid it from the light of the moon.
One of the soldiers nodded to the other, who stepped forward cautiously. Rostov stared at him, slipped the object into the waist of his pants, and raised both hands. The soldiers relaxed slightly, and the one that had stepped forward was motioning for him to get down on the ground. He nodded, bent his knees, then leapt forward with incredible speed and strength.
I stared in horror as the torrent of gunfire combated his forward moment, flipping him backwards in the air, crashing him face first into the ground just in front of the line of soldiers. One of them, stepped forward, and flipped him over with his foot. He, like me, was wondering what Rostov had been trying to hide, and knelt down to examine his pockets.
He didnt even have time to scream before the grenade detonated.
I instinctively ducked behind the rock. I was too far away for the explosion to be a danger to me, but shrapnel could be
treacherous. Only after a few seconds had passed and the sound of raining debris ended, did I stand to witness the devastation before me.
I saw that not a man remained standing, and I charged down the hill, pistol in one hand, crucifix in the other, unsure whether or not I would be saying the last rites over my friends or exacting swift justice on surviving enemies. It didnt take long for me to reach the crater the grenade had created, and the dismembered remains of my comrade-in-arms.
I froze. I hadnt worn a crucifix in over a hundred years.
I opened my clenched fist and stared in amazement at the ancient symbol. It had been given to me by Beppe Giordano, his last spoken desire before his lungs collapsed. I carried it with me for only two weeks before it was deformed by the mine explosion that crippled my leg. After the war ended, I gave it to Beppes widow.
I looked up, and I was on the Alps once more, surrounded by dead and dying Austrians and Italians. My focus slid down, amongst the remains of Giustino Ennio, whose valiant sacrifice would be praised by his own widows hollow voice, all while her eyes stared at me accusingly. I had been his officer. It was my duty to bring him home. To watch over him and keep him safe from ambushes. To protect him from idiotic orders and idiotic plans made by incompetent generals. Why had I lived?
Mon
Mondavi?
I whirled, my eyes searching. The voice called again and I darted through the bodies, seeking out my man. It didnt take long to find him. The top half, anyway.
I
Im sorry.
Be quiet, Schirru, I ordered, kneeling down beside him. Keep your strength.
For what? He started to laugh, but it quickly became a cough. Blood dribbled down his chin. Im dead.
Not yet. Not if I can-
You couldnt, remember? His face grew hard and accusing. You waved your hands, did your thing, and I still died.
I swallowed. I tried, Schirru, but it was beyond my abilities. I need time for those things, those rituals. I couldnt bring back your legs. I couldnt stop the infections or the fluid in your lungs.
Ha! Raul Shirru spat blood on the ground. You couldve sheltered us, protected us. You kept yourself alive!
It was all I could do just to keep the Austrians from interfering! I shouted back, feeling the old anger returning. They had occultists, too, Schirru. If I sacrificed any concentration, they wouldve scryed and found us, destroyed us.
They did anyway! He lifted himself up onto his hands and started crawling. You failed.
I wasnt strong enough
Excuses. Worthless justifications. He thrust a finger at me. You couldve brought us back afterwards. You know how! But you didnt even try. You failed us, just like you failed her.
I took a step back and felt a presence behind me. I froze. I couldnt face her, not now, not after what Id done. What Id seen. I had tried so hard to learn how to cheat the Reaper, how to remove its stench from those whose purity demanded vibrant life. But now I reeked of Death. It clung to me and I reveled in its power. How could I ever show myself to one who had adored life so much?
Besides, I told myself for the millionth time, hating myself as I did so, if there is a Heaven, she is in it.
Lorenzo
Her voice called. I closed my eyes and swallowed, frozen and entranced.
Lorenzo
The voice fluctuated, shifted. Lorenzo!
I blinked in recognition and confusion. It wasnt her after all. Madam Rabinovich?
The scenery melted away.
My eyes snapped open. Madam Rabinovich was leaning over me, her hands on my shoulders, her eyes betraying the worry that her face hid so well. We had agreed to take shifts of sleep until morning, and after much debate over the matter, it was decided that I would go first. I had been worried that I could not ward my dreams, but I had figured that all my enmities would be in the future, and I would be safe here. That, perhaps, my sleep would be safe.
You looked like you needed waking up. I never told her of my haunted sleep, but I had surmised that, somehow, she had deduced it a long time since. It is not uncommon amongst the survivors of the wars.
Im fine, madam. I reached up and mopped the sweat from my brow while beginning a series of breath exercises to get my racing pulse back in control. The images of the dream were starting to fade, but it did not matter if they disappeared entirely; the substance would remain. Just a dream. Nothing more.
She frowned, and I could tell that she did not believe it. It neither looks nor sounds like nothing, she said drily. It wasnt the Morrigan again, was it?
No, no. I gave her a small, fake smile. Shortly before my imprisonment, I had tracked down and killed an avatar of the Morrigan, an immortal terror that had been stalking the streets of Port Oakes. She refused to forgive me. It lacked her
flair. I think I have been blessed with my first normal nightmare in seventy-one years.
Small favors, she replied. Her voice was coated with honeyed sarcasm, somehow maintaining the warmth and concern. She licked her perpetually dry lips and I could see the curiosity and unanswered questions in her eyes. It was all she could do to keep propriety and not probe, to receive neither confirmation nor denial of all her suspicions regarding me and my psyche.
I felt I had to tell her something of them
at least in the abstract. Too much of the content was too personal.
It was the usual, madam, I explained, ignoring my dry throat. Old deaths and old fears. Old problems. I snorted. Old me.
She raised an eyebrow at that. How old? it asked.
Too old. I couldnt help but laugh a little. Things Ive long since put behind me but still lurk deep in my subconscious. I mean, I havent thought of Ennio in decades, but there he was.
Ennio?
I sighed. One of the men in my command during the Great War. We were ambushed by Austrians and he managed to get among them with a live grenade. He died a hero.
She caught the mocking tone of the last word and shook her head in wry agreement with the sentiment. Heroes were people who did brave and foolish things, and invariably died with great fanfare and little impact. So many more lives on both sides - would have been saved if we had simply surrendered that day.
People think in victories, not lives, and the world suffers.
The glade was suddenly illuminated with a bright light. With tangible eagerness, we tore our eyes up to the night sky, which was suddenly devoid of any stars, all of them washed out by the glaring orange signal flare. Our previous conversation was forgotten.
Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich
Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?
Chapter XLI
In Which A Greeting Goes Poorly
I woke up with a serious hangover. I couldnt remember any drinking, which meant that Id either hit it really hard, or it was just the aftereffects of that weird vortex thing that had sucked everybody up when that Herr Auer guy used the key.
Speaking of
I looked around and confirmed pretty quickly that I was alone. I was in some kind of field that looked like wheat, except that it was all green. Id only seen wheat on tv and for some reason, they always show wheat fields right around harvest time and theyre brown. I was pretty close to the edge of the field, and there was a muddy dirt road. There werent any mountains around, but I could see a village or something in the distance.
I reached up and slid my goggles over my eyes. Got to love these babies, let ya record almost everything. I took a look around, letting the goggles process light in multiple bands not just the visual spectrum. They turned up very little, even in terms of electromagnetic and radio (really, really trippy to look at this way), which I found really strange. The whole world is pretty much up blanketed in the stuff.
I turned back to the city in the distance and zoomed in. The houses were all a brown-red earthen color with flat tops, and they surrounded a single incredibly large building, which looked like some kind of ziggurat. Or temple.
I dulled the image, inserted a green filter, and inverted the colors, trying to replicate what I had seen via nightvision of the excavated Temple and it seemed to sort of fit. Kinda. Its hard to say, though, since the previous one had been destroyed, covered in dirt, and then haphazardly dug up by a bunch of Nazis straight from a bad action flick. Though I dont recall any time travel in those
I wracked my brain trying to remember what Lorenzo had said about the temple. The stupid thing hadnt been in Wikipedia at all, so I never got any good descriptions or anything in writing and my pocket computer with its dump of the wiki couldnt help. He didnt say when it was built, but that it was destroyed some 4300 years ago, so I knew I was at least that far back. That meant no internet, no cell phones, no refrigerators, no microwaves, not even indoor plumbing.
The past is a nice place to visit, but I wouldnt want to live there.
At least I had the stuff I brought with me. The pistol alone made me top dog over the natives, though I had to watch out magic was still pretty strong in those days. Stronger, maybe, if you asked certain people. These people couldnt have been that good, though, if they let their temple get destroyed. Of course, the Fifth might be running around here, too.
Where was everybody, anyways?
Waitaminute! I dug into the vest of my homemade body armor that I wore under my clothes and pulled out the radio and cued it up to our emergency frequency. I waited a bit to see if I picked up anything, then started making requests for contact in code. I got nothing but silence in response. It didnt really mean much, though, since the darn thing only operates in line-of-sight. Wish I had cell phones
Well, I didnt really have many options, and it was pretty obvious that I was on my own, which made me a bit nervous. The only thing I could really do was go to the temple and wait for the others there, since they would be doing the same and it looked pretty tall, and there werent any mountains around, so itd also be the best place to broadcast from.
I took a step forward and fell over.
What the hell?
I got up and immediately stumbled again, feeling really nauseous, too. The third time I was more careful, took the step slowly, and went fine. It was then that I realized that ever since Id woken up, I was moving slow, acting slow, thinking slow! Id lost my speed!
I looked around frantically, once again looking for signs of electrical activity. Ive been hit by Nullifier Guns and other nasty toys that have slowed me down before, but I couldnt find any signs of that. Besides, they never messed with the way I thought. Now it felt like I was in slow-motion. Worse, even! One of those old stop-motion film monsters!
But what about my other powers?
I concentrated and tried to summon a ball of flame, but only got a small fire that disappeared almost immediately after I released it. And my magic didnt seem to work at all no Mu electric armor, no dark mist, nothing! Was it because of this place? Was it a side effect of the time travel? After all, the time travelling Menders claimed that ones super-powers diminished in inverse proportion to the distance travelled, which had been true when I used their portals to travel. Id never lost my speed and fire, but admittedly Id never gone back more than 40 years. This was a hundred times that
Suddenly, that pistol Ros gave me seemed a whole lot more important. And the body armor. Oh, and the grenades, the goggles, the computer, and the combat knife. I was wishing Id brought my robot snake with me, but he was home having some bonding time with Alexs robot Blinky.
I flipped on the rangefinder and groaned. It was a whole seven-point-four-three miles to the temple from where I stood, and without super speed or flight it would take me forever to get there. Like a whole hour and a half! This place sucked.
It actually took a few hours, since the road was crappy and I kept on having to hide whenever somebody would walk past (or ride past on some donkey or another). Who knows what these native folks would think of a man decked out in combat gear let alone with hi-tech goggles on; for all I know, zippers are witchcraft! It would suck pretty hard to go back over four thousand years just to get burned at the stake. Besides, I think Sofia would be pretty upset if I messed with the time stream.
Spoilsport.
Getting into the village itself without being seen was an interesting task, since I didnt have my mist to hide in anymore. There was a big wall circling the place, with guards walking around periodically, carrying bows and axes and weird curved swords. Not a lot of guards, though, since they usually just hung around the gates and would do a sweep of the walls only every hour or so. It made sense, since the city was sitting on a mound of dirt amongst a big, fat plain and you could probably see any armies or bandits for miles away. The wall was still kinda big and Im not the best climber around (and its not like I had rope or pitons or anything), so my only real option wouldve been to go through one of the gates. I wasnt sure how Id pull it off.
And then I reached a gate and saw who was standing guard: a ******* 5th Column soldier!
I snickered a bit. I had to be careful interacting with regular people so as not to screw with the timeline, but that didnt include Nazis from the future! So I waited until he was sufficiently distracted talking to one of the natives well, more like accosting than talking, though I have no idea what they said in crazy language and ran silently to the gate. The native saw me approach and opened his eyes wide; the 5th Columnist turned to look what was so interesting.
Hi! I said happily and threw the combat knife into his eye socket.
The soldier slumped. The native stared. I pulled the knife out and wiped the blood off on the soldiers uniform. The native said something, so I smiled at him. Did you see that? Even better than Steven Seagal! Even if I was aiming for his chest
More gibberish. Um, hi there. My names Vic, whats yours?
The native turned and ran screaming. Murder probably wasnt the best way to introduce myself. And, in retrospect, as I saw the commotion start, letting a witness run away shouting an alarm was probably not the best way to silently infiltrate a city.
I turned to the side, saw an alleyway between some buildings, and took off running. The alleys in this city turned out to be narrow and crazy convoluted, winding every which way and dumping you out randomly onto the street (sometimes looping around enough to dump you out right back on the street you entered from). I started to see more and more Nazis wandering the streets and after about ten or fifteen minutes, they got calls on their little radios and started organizing themselves for a search. I wouldnt be able to run all day
I needed to find a place to hide.
Halt! I heard a shout as I passed through a street from one alleyway to another, and I turned my head. Three soldiers had seen me and were running in my direction. I entered the next alleyway, made it about ten meters, then hit a dead end. The alley was filled with a bunch of bags, which I quickly piled on top of each other, and then climbed up to the roof of the building and resumed running.
Running along the rooftops was complicated, since the buildings were of varying heights, and even though they shared walls, they all seemed to be built in a kind of donut shape, with the central gap being a kind of courtyard. Really weird. Also, I wasnt the only one who thought of this, as the regular people were milling about on the roofs, too hanging laundry and things like that.
I saw a soldier climbing up a ladder ahead of me, so stopped, drew my pistol, and fired. My little shout of excitement as he fell was drowned out by a loud howl, like from a dog or wolf.
I swallowed nervously, since I knew it for what it was. A warwolf. My pistol would only be kind of helpful there and I couldnt really blow him up with a fireball or
Wait! I reached under my jacket and pulled out a grenade. It would totally give away my position, but that would be the least of my worries if the warwolf found me.
There was a crash behind me and the roof top trembled. I span around and fired the pistol, but the gigantic half-man-half-wolf beast darted to the side and I hit nothing but air.
Dang it, Fido, stay still! I shouted, firing until I exhausted the magazine. I gripped the grenade tightly, then turned around and ran.
I saw a large shadow on the ground just in front of me, and I threw myself to the side, narrowly avoiding a huge piece of wall that had been thrown at me. It crashed through the roof and neatly took out part of the building I was now laying on. I looked up and saw the warwolf leap over and onto the far side of the building.
It, too, fell through the destabilized roof.
I laughed, scrambling to my feet, and pulled the pin from the grenade. Fetch, boy! I tossed the grenade through the hole and ran once again.
The explosion knocked me off my feet. I flipped through the air in a shower of clay brick, crashed into one of the little parapet things they used as railing on their roofs, and flipped over it. I hit the ground on the other side hard and got the wind knocked out of me. Probably broke some bones, too.
I heard frantic footsteps and the sound of rifle butts slamming shoulders as the 5th Column soldiers surrounded me and aimed down. I opened my eyes and saw the warwolf hurdle through the air and land at me feet. It walked forward slowly, glowing yellow eyes searching me for any more tricks, and then put a foot down on my chest possessively, in triumph.
I lifted my head to see where my pistol had landed before grinning at the creature, and then promptly passed out.
Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich
Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?
Chapter XLII
In Which Brotherly Loyalty Is Tested, and Caution Must Be Exercised
I stared at the orange light, thankful for the brightness, thankful for the painful colour of it. It did nicely to hide my eyes, my face, from further scrutiny. I blessed the heavy dark and the young moon, and blessed my seemingly unending control of my voice.
I wondered what Lorenzo thought it had been like, on my end. As though I could not see, or figure out, on what had been quietly going on inside his head. A fool’s hope, in many ways; the fear and grief and pain were almost palpable. When they had become unbearable, I had shaken him awake. Unable to allow, as I should have done, the nightmare to run its course. For a moment, I thought, it was all about to burst like some great worn-down dam… then I was at arm’s length again, struggling against the urge to shake somebody into oblivion.
I had no idea how long I could stand it.
Rostov’s flare had gone off in a convenient moment, truly, and I stared at it thoughtfully, trying to estimate the distance from which it had come. Distances were never my strong suit, and I turned to Lorenzo with a questioning look in the orange light.
“Perhaps a few kilometers from here,” he responded after some thought.
I nodded, and knelt to shake Garent out of his uninterrupted sleep. Our conversation, as well as the bright light of the flare, was lost on him entirely. I reached out to touch his shoulder, then thought better of it. “I think… perhaps only one of us should go fetch Rostov.”
The assumptions were obvious. Flares, after all, were ubiquitous, never carrying the identifying mark of their sender. In all likelihood, our flare-source was indeed Rostov… but that was only in all likelihood. While not normally tending to attribute this devious a trap to our current enemies, I had sufficient proof already to establish that they were operating in a manner we were not accustomed to. What if this was a trap?
And even if not, the flare was an obvious sign, written plainly across the night sky. Perhaps the native would consider it a light of the Gods, but the 5th Column would know perfectly well what it meant. If we were to be ambushed along the way – tired and weak as we were now – who knew what would happen? And, clearly, Garent could not be left alone, to die of hunger and thirst, completely helpless. I saw the considerations unfolding in my mind’s eye, and I was sure he saw them as well.
“I think that might be wise,” Lorenzo sighed and got up, “I shall return shortly.”
“Oh no,” I hopped to my feet, intercepting the unplanned escape. The idea of sitting around, not knowing what, if anything, was going on, with free time in plenty to brood about pointless things… No. “When I said ‘one of us’, I meant I should be the one to do that.”
The amount of sardonic disagreement a single well-placed “really, madam,” can convey is quite astonishing.
“Really,” I waved my hands in defensive denial. “I am the steadiest on my feet – ironic though that occasion is. It only makes sense.”
Lorenzo snorted wryly. “Perhaps you can run, madam, but I can shoot.”
“Which is why,” I said, very quietly, “you should be the one to stay. If something were to happen... Garent should have with him the person most able to get him out. Not someone whose idea of a weapon is a kitchen knife. I know you’ll do it,” I added sincerely, not just for this instance, but for all the unpleasant moments which were sure to follow. “Fulfill my responsibility for me.”
For a moment, he looked as though I slapped him, then his expression changed to something else; somewhere between amazement and discomfort. Ah, so it was that kind of dream. I knew the type. I’ve participated in the same kind of show, in dream and while awake. Trying to accomplish something impossible, by any standard, failing and then promptly blaming myself that I had failed.
“I will return shortly,” I said and ducked into the thorny shrubs,
I did not suggest he try and get some more sleep.
Rostov’s flare came from below – in the direction of the river – and a little to the side. Not quite precisely where we’ve predicted, but close enough to allow me to guess that our estimates were more or less correct. Which was both comforting and disheartening; comforting, because not all our assumptions have been turned into smoke, and disheartening because… well, because of everything else.
I angled towards Rostov’s flare, trying as best I could to memorize the way I took. It would be a sad eventuality, if we were to be separated into different groups by my inability to find my way back. I looked up at the sky, where the orange glare was rapidly fading, and the moon and starts slowly shining through the haze, to try and orient myself. I saw little in the way of familiar stars or constellations, which, in truth, meant absolutely nothing. I have never been much of an astronomer; my ability to recognize the sky map limited to the Orion belt – not present in view at the moment, perhaps occluded by a cloud – and the Big Dipper – a little less recognizable in these parallels and, at this time of year, sliding toward the horizon.
Lorenzo was sure to be able to orient himself in the night sky. He could probably also tell whether, and how much, it had been changed from the sky we know.
I broke out onto the trail shortly after I had abandoned the bushes, and climbed onto the level ground outside the depression in which the little clump of bushes and trees surrounded a tiny rivulet and we found our shelter for the night. The trail snaked between mountains, taking the path of least resistance – or, in this case, the levellest – and compensated for the length of it by the relative ease of walking which it had afforded.
Rostov sat on a boulder about twenty minutes' further walk, playing with his old silver coin. It glinted in the moonlight.
He looked very ordinary, though decked out with a large amount of firearms – comparative to, say, Lorenzo's one pistol and my absolutely nothing – and he had one of the guns across his lap, and another one laying on the ground next to his right hand. The gun across his lap was picked up immediately as soon as I made appropriate noises of scuffling, stepping and leaf-rustling, and aimed my way.
“Right,” I said aloud. “You're really you and I won't have to kill you from ambush.”
“Wow, Sofia,” he put his gun down and beamed at me, sharp canines and all. “You sure can sneak.”
“I did it on purpose, you dolt,” I approached steadily, not believing for a moment that the lowered gun could not be picked up in an instant, or the other gun snatched instead, and stood before him to examine him warily. The lack of magic altered Rostov subtly, though unmistakably; his eyes no longer glowed in the dark. I wondered whether he noticed anything, yet, but he seemed relaxed and at his ease, so, clearly, not.
“Okay, if you're offending me, I guess you are not your evil clone, either,” Rostov looked around. “So where's everybody else? And where are we?”
“Well... Garent and Lorenzo are back a ways.... Resting. We decided splitting up would be wise. As for where we are... we rather have a few guesses, but we're not altogether, proof positive, certain.”
“Garent and Lorenzo? What about Vic?”
Rostov was nothing if not loyal, and his responsibility to his younger brother transcended into the realm of the paternal. His was an odd, rather ruthless sort of parenting, alternating between fierce protectiveness and outright indifference, and, sometimes, active tough love to the point of danger, but it was no doubt Rostov felt responsible for his little brother, and intended fully to see that he turned into his not-so-little brother. I shook my head sadly, regretting to be the bearer of bad news to him.
“We think he will have been elsewhere. Appearances seem to depend on the position one was in when one left, and Victor, if you recall, was on the other side of the room.”
Rostov swore. I gathered up my patience, and did not attempt to shove a rag in his mouth, telling myself that such a reaction was understandable, and, perhaps, even laudable. And did not last very long. I opened my mouth to utter some dry, pointed remark, then cut off in mid-breath. Rostov did the same in mid-word.
There was the distinctly audible sound of hooves on dirt. Which is far less distinctly audible than hooves on stone, or concrete, but nonetheless can be identified as a sort of thud. The hoofed animals were moving at a walk – which rendered them quieter still – and were slowly approaching us from behind a curve in the road.
I grabbed Rostov's arm and dove for the nearest likely shelter.
In the dark, it was a mound of rocks obscured partially by more thorns. The second half of our shelter decided to avail itself of the bare flesh of my lower arms, hands and face, as well as insinuate itself under my skirt to gnaw at my ankles, but it was preferable to dealing immediately with the danger on the road.
“Hey! What--” Rostov did not approve of being dragged and hidden. “Why are we hiding?”
Magic unavailable, psionics curbed to a fraction of its power... We did not, as yet, test the effectiveness of gunpowder and grenades, but this was not the appropriate time to discover whether or not they worked. Not if discovering meant a hole in Rostov's hide he could not repair.
“Just stay low.”
The riders passed in front of us, moving slowly and deliberately. I had to smirk a little at the absurdity of the sight. The 5th Column soldiers rode a pair of rather runty-looking horses, their sleek, high-tech uniforms shining far more than the animals' coats or gear in the scant light. They carried torches inside close lanterns of thick, coloured glass, and looked immensely displeased at the notion. They also carried a set of ultra-modern rifles. Incongruous didn't even begin to cover this.
They never slowed nor stopped by our boulder. Carrying torches in this sort of night was not, actually, very wise; they were blind to everything and anything outside of their circles of light, and the shadows and darkness concealed us well despite my white blouse (or perhaps because at this point it was more gray, or brown). After a few minutes, the clap of hooves almost disappeared in the distance, and Rostov and I emerged out of the brush.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter XLIII
In Which We Light A Fire, And A Firefight
“What was that all about?”
Rostov shook off thorns and leaves and bits of grass. His vest and high boots were, on the whole, more conducive to the environment than my classic, European, urban dress. I had little excuse for destroying some of my best apparel; I had, in my bags, stuff that was more appropriate for walking across mountains and running around dense briars, though I had not expected to need such things. But then we had, literally, jumped off our plane and stumbled across a campful of soldiers in the desert... Time to dress was not a luxury I had, unfortunately.
“It was about not getting killed, if you must know.” I finished brushing off my own clothes, for the Nth time, as best I could.
“You always fret,” Rostov grinned at me. “There were two soldiers, on horses. Big deal...”
“Rostov,” I said evenly, clamping down on my anger. “Try a spell.”
“What?”
“Try a spell. Anything. Shadow tentacles, pulling the life force, anything. Try it on me, right now!”
Rostov blinked, and raised a hand, as if to pull something out of the ground. He frowned. Tried again. As I expected, nothing happened, and his brows drew in a frown, his eyes getting an odd, inward look. Searching, I supposed, for his demon. There was nothing so overt as a gasp, but even the unflappable mercenary's eyes widened a little when he had, apparently, found nothing there to answer him.
I could not quite quench the small stab of self-satisfaction. Without the terrible shock that Garent's condition induced, and the inability to muster any sort of malicious glee at his situation, I allowed myself the momentary vengeful feeling. Not charitable of me, perhaps, but only human. I spent most of my late life surrounded by people who, by sheer, raw power, were magnitudes over my head, fighting for equality and approval. Which was different from the first half of my life hardly at all, though perhaps in a different context.
I had contested my ability in an uneven field, and contended against blasé attitudes, erosion of caution and people whose conception of danger was practically nonexistent. They relied on their abilities completely, and these abilities never failed.
Now it did, and my dismissive friends were finally learning the lesson. It should have brought me far more unholy joy, but for some reason, it didn't.
Rostov was scowling. “What the--”
“No more rapid healing,” I told him, a little smugly. “No more mists, no more fear spells, no more immortality. Garent had a nasty shock.”
“Damn,” Rostov pronounced thoughtfully, contemplating, I hoped, just what this meant for his vitality. And comparing the decision versus the two soldiers and their rifles and horses. His face hardened into something not entirely unfamiliar but, on the whole, not often seen. Rostov always prefers levity to seriousness; now, some measure of that levity was gone. I imagined I was seeing the younger Rostov – the person who had gone out to the desert, and returned bearing a demon with him.
“And, to add to the joy,” I said nastily, though my ire was not, at this time, aimed at him, “we are not going to find infinite ammo for your guns anywhere. What we have is what there is, period.”
“Until we get back.”
“That's right. Right now, Rostov, we have no resources beyond what we carry, no food, no water beyond what we find, and no weapons beyond what we already had.”
rostov rubbed his chin thoughtfully, staring after the two departing soldiers with a languid expression. “But they do.”
“Pardon me?”
“They have resources, right? Food and water and uniforms and, heh, guns...”
I caught onto his intentions quickly, the practical details of our situation have been a tremendous concern to me for the last twelve hours and Rostov, in possession of a practical mind intent on survival, surely was disposed to view matters in the same light as myself. If our enemies had possessions, and we had not, it only made sense to summarily relieve them of such, and, in the best Russian tradition, repossess them for ourselves.
“Eh, it’s probably not worth it. I didn’t see any city lights for miles; I bet the Column’s stationed too far for us to bother with.” Rostov looked around at the dark night with vague discomfort. Like most people in our times, he was entirely used to the constant background of electronics, and its absence disconcerted him somewhat. I thought to the realities of the time, the distance to the city, and shook my head.
“I think you are wrong. I think that if we hurry, we shall find their outpost… somewhere by the river.”
Rostov blinked.
“It only makes sense, to guard the largest waterway in the area,” I pointed out to assuage his mercenary, strategist’s senses. He nodded at that. “And it occurs to me that they must have been expecting us to come after them, realizing, perhaps, the same thing we did concerning the time vortex. The spacing out. I’ve… no real notion,” I added warily, “of how accurate their calculations must be, but surely they have an estimate.”
“Right,” said Rostov, shrugging slightly, and we started walking.
We caught up to the 5th Columnists after about half an hour. Caught up, of course, was something of a relative term; we could hear, in the distance, the sound of low voices, and see the glare off of many torches’ fires. An obvious flattening of the ground indicated, even in the dark, that we were hitting a small valley, or perhaps even coming out to the banks of the river – the Euphrates, I corrected the indefinite absently – and encountering ground perfectly situated for a campsite.
We perched above it, and a little to the side, well beyond the rings of torches and light the soldiers have set out around the perimeter of their post. The horses – two of them, looking, at least in this light, rather dispirited and ill-groomed – milled about on the edge, tied to stakes in the ground.
“Damn. This is smart.”
I nodded. The rings of light would make sneaking up directly to the three soldiers sitting warily by a small fire almost impossible. The horses, picketed on the outside, would also serve as a sort of impromptu alarm. “May God grant me stupid enemies.”
“Heh.” Rostov pulled a set of light binoculars – nothing more than some lenses in a cylinder, I felt sure – and pressed them to his eyes. “Oh yeah. Dinner in the good, fresh air… I could go for some myself.”
“Here,” he handed me the binoculars. “You watch for anything funny. I’m going to go deal with our two nice friends, there.”
“What, just like that?”
“Yup.” Rostov discarded his rifle at my feet, and stripped himself of a few more items of weaponry, variously distributed throughout his vest, and was fitting a silencer onto his pistol. “No reason to get complicated. Complicated plans get messy.”
“Fine,” I stared at him for a while,, holding the binoculars in one hand. When no explanation followed, I sighed in exasperation. “And?”
“And what?”
“What do you intend to do, and what am I doing while you are doing it?”
“Sitting here, watching for trouble. Not,” he added, “that I think there’s gonna be any. We saw two guys, and here they are. I’m going to just walk up to the fire, and shoot them both while they aren’t looking. Got everything right here,” he tapped the side of his temple, indicating not, unlike what one would think, his mind but the cybernetic implant in one of his eyes. I rolled my eyes in exasperation; no matter how many years we’ve been acquainted, I could never get it through his head that I had, indeed, seen war… from the losing end. I suppose two alien invasions do not count for ‘combat experience’ in his eyes.
I shrugged and pressed the binoculars to my eyes, examining the packs, the two men, and the picketed horses. “Don’t damage their uniforms, we’ll want them.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He vanished off into the dark. The binoculars, not being supplied with night vision filters, were not helpful in spotting him move quietly along the road. Occasionally I could catch a sort of whisper along the path, but even I could not truly determine whether it was Rostov moving forward, or perhaps some leaves on the dirt. Rostov really was good.
There was a light clap, and one of the guards fell down. The second, still very much alive, grabbed his weapon and turned, firing wildly into the darkness. There was no outcry, so I assumed Rostov survived. The second guard, realizing that the torches have become from a ring of protection into an impediment, rapidly tipped over the line nearest him, sinking the place into darkness and rolling away. I thought, in the last glimmers of the torches, that I saw him reach towards his helmet.
Rostov’s infra-red will most likely be messed up by the residue from the burning torches, but this guy had night vision.
Lovely. I dropped the binoculars and slid off my rock, landing on the path with a light thump and a painful twist of the ankle. Then I ran off towards where the sounds of shooting were occasionally very much audible.
I grabbed one of the still remaining torches and, crouching low to the ground in a well-considered attempt to actually stay alive, dove for the row of extinguished wood, where I thrust the flame at hemp clump after hemp clump. The night lit up again. I spotted Rostov appearing momentarily from behind the shelter of a wide rock, pulling something out of a vest pocket, and then the oily gleam of the Columnist’s uniform a little to my left. Prudently, I dashed out of the way, still clutching to my torch.
Rostov pulled a fuse, drew back and let go of something round that sailed through the air to land in the middle of the lit circle.
I covered my ears, and screamed for all I was worth; equalizing the pressure in my eardrums a second before the flashbang went off. I think I must have passed out for a second, because I found myself on the ground, ears ringing wildly, momentarily disoriented and dazed. I hoped, when I regained my sanity, that the soldier was suffering a similar reaction, and that Rostov was not.
They both were, I saw, when I picked up my torch and crawled to light it again, but Rostov had come about first.
Now the soldier lay on the ground, a hole through his neckguard which had severed the artery, and Rostov was sitting nearby, grinning like a madman and shaking his head. He wouldn’t be hearing anything for an hour or so.
Like these hoofbeats, coming rapidly down the road.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter XLIV
In Which Soldiers Go For A Swim
I hissed, much too pressed for time to explain, and grabbed Rostov’s pistol, rapidly checked the cartridge, turned on my heel and fired at the approaching rider. The latter, still struggling to bring his rifle to bear from his position in the saddle – thankfully the 5th were not trained as cavalry, nor were they, it appeared, particularly expert riders – was, for the moment, defenseless.
I had, of course, missed.
The soldier was now rapidly dislodging his rifle. It must have been already prepped – a sensible measure – and the magazine inside, because all he had to do was aim and pull the trigger. I dove under a rain of automatic fire, but the soldier was a better shot than I, and his bullets would have flown true if he had not forgotten that he was sitting, not a jeep with a trained driver, or even a plane, but a skittish, half-wild horse.
The animal reared and went into a frenzy, dancing around. The bullets rained at my feet, around my head, whistling horribly right by my ear. I dropped, crouched, waited for a brief interval in the endless stream of bullets, then rolled away and sheltered behind a boulder, peeking out and preparing to fire again. Probably just as unsuccessfully.
I did get my point across, though. There was a crack, the whoosh of a bullet over my shoulder – almost nicking my ear – and the rider was slumping in his seat, grabbing for his stomach. I fired again, catching him in the leg. Another shot from Rostov, this time squarely in the head, brought him dangling off the horse. The frightened animal galloped frantically back and forth, buckling and shoving, trying, in its half-wild panic to dislodge its rider. The body came loose and the horse, tangled in its own bridle and the corpse, fell over heavily.
I lunged for the animal’s bridle before it could hurt itself or, worse yet, us.
Don’t get me wrong; I like my animals about one eighth my size, cuddled on the rug in front of the fire, or on my knees, and purring for what they are worth. In short – I am a cat person, not a horse person. But animals are animals, and I tend to do well enough with most (snakes are not pertinent to this story, thank goodness, so we will leave them out of this). I grabbed the bridle, and pulled with all my strength, yanking the horse’s head towards me and staring it in the eye. After a few minutes it slowly calmed down, and could be gotten up to be examined. A quick survey of its legs determined that it merely stumbled, but wasn’t lamed.
I dropped the reins, breathing hard.
“Hey, not bad,” Rostov said, loudly enough for me to cringe. “Pretty good shot too. Um... Which way were you aiming?”
I rolled my eyes. “Let’s just get their uniforms, shall we?”
“What?”
“Uniforms!” I raised my voice, and started tugging off the Columnist’s extremely tight outfit before he had time to stiffen. “And everything else. We can put it on the horses.”
We stripped the soldiers bare with brisk, cool efficiency. At least, with Rostov, I would not have to hear complaints about robbing bodies, touching corpses or otherwise taking possession of what belonged to the dead. All the more convenient because, frankly, I was not altogether satisfied with the corpse-robbing myself. There is something genuinely disconcerting to all humans in the disgracing of their dead. But, at least in certain cultures, there is in humans a far greater respect to the idea of not becoming dead.
I was rather a partisan to that.
After that, we spent the time collecting bags of goods, torches and pre-cut hemp, and ammunition and weaponry. The whole collection, including the stripped-off uniforms, was packed away and put on the backs of the horses.
I couldn’t say the food seemed appetizing though I did not eel the urge to complain; there were sacks of milled grain, beans and some sort of dried mushrooms (which, I hoped, were not hallucinogenic), not much else. Potatoes, the staple food of all camping trips and main dish of soldierly diet, I reminded myself, had not been invented yet. A small stash in a tin can (brought, obviously, as reserves from our time) in the corner revealed a treasure box of modern dry goods, carefully wrapped off and sealed.
“Ooh, whisky,” Rostov declared happily, examining a bottle. I tolled my eyes; the man had some alcoholic tendencies, curbed by his discipline and, perhaps more so, his metabolism. For a brief instant I considered telling him to put the beverage away, or accidentally breaking it, but was forcefully reminded of Lorenzo’s curbed night sleep. Perhaps sufficiently intoxicated he could sleep through anything. I waved the contents of the box in their entirety into a larger, roughly woven bag.
Now all we had left was the ring of burnt ground where the fire used to be, some sticks used for torches, and the bodies of three soldiers.
Rostov looked around. “I guess we’re done.”
“Not quite,” I indicated the bodies. “I want those,” I transferred my finger slowly to the left, where the moon and stars shone off of a large, sleek river, “over there.”
Rostov groaned, but picked one of the bodies by the armpits, and started descending with it to the riverbank. I started slowly, and with considerably more effort, dragging another soldier by his feet in the same direction. Soon, three splashes and a slight noise of running water were all that was left from our erstwhile enemies.
It was a small deception, barely worthy of its name, but worth our while, perhaps. With the bodies drowned, nobody could hope to distinguish between wounds made by arrow tips and wounds made by bullets. I snatched a torch up again and, while Rostov was beginning to haul supplies – sometimes muttering disappointment at the contents – I knelt down and carefully picked up bullet casings, grenade shards and telltale pieces of metal armour.
When I was done, rubbing my strained, tired eyes against the flicker of torchlight, only a very attentive forensics expert could have said for certain that the deed was done with modern firearms.
Certainly not a perfect crime, but I would go down trying. Even though, I strongly suspected, Auer would not take long to see past the deception. That, however, assumed Auer would come down here personally, or bother to act instantly. And that last I felt inclined to doubt. Surely, we were not the only ones who had to deal with the rigours of the time.
I eyed the horses warily. I’ve actually been on a horse before… once, maybe twice. These animals were not exactly like the horses I was used to seeing; a quick mental comparison brought forth the conclusion that they were smaller, shorter – though still slim – and did not seem nearly as strong. These were not beasts of burden as we knew them, and they did not seem at all comfortable under the weight of a saddle. They made me wary and nervous all at the same time.
“They are kind of pitiful,” Rostov agreed, contemplating his mount with a dubious expression. Rostov is a heavy fellow. “I’m kind of surprised the 5th didn’t get anything better.”
“I am not,” I put a hand on the horse’s flank, and it quivered. “Horses haven’t been invented yet. Like potatoes.” Rostov stared at me. “Nevermind. These are almost wild horses, with no generations of domestication behind them. If our time estimates are right, they weren’t even used for riding until the 5th came. Just for meat.”
Rostov looked disgusted.
“I think perhaps we’d better lead them, for now.”
The way back took, not surprisingly, longer than the way there had. The horses, tugged along by their primitive harnesses, half the time seemed more inclined to bolt for their lives than to follow the humans. I could not imagine, poor rider that I was, managing one of them on my own.
We walked back to the campsite, with me leading the way. I did give Rostov a synopsis of where we were – or thought we were – and what the vortex did – or we thought it did. That made the matter with Victor self-explanatory.
Mostly, though, I was tired and severely deprived for caffeine, and feeling childishly cranky after a long day without sleep. So the way back passed in relative silence.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter XLV
In Which Help Comes From an Unexpected Quarter
I had a series of weird feelings and sensations, like I was warm and cold and fuzzy and hung over, and my ears were hearing sounds that I couldnt understand. Somebody said something, and suddenly everything came into focus.
Hell be awake in moments, sir.
Good.
They were speaking English, and they werent voices I knew that I could tell too much, since it sounded like they were speaking on the other side of a thick glass window. And there was this ringing in my ears
There!
Odd. Didnt Nazis speak German? Did I get rescued from the 5th? I opened my eyes, but everything was fuzzy and orange. There was a black blob in front of me, and a smaller black blob behind him.
Very good. Now leave us. Stay outside the door in case I need you.
Yes, sir.
The black blob moved out of vision. I tried to turn my head to follow it, but my head wouldnt move at all.
Good morning, young man, the small blob said. I am sad to inform you that we have felt it necessary to completely restrain you. Dont be alarmed by your vision, either; the drugs my men used to keep you unconscious have a few side effects. They will pass.
Wheh wamai? I asked. I felt like Id just been to the dentist or something, and my tongue was swollen and unwilling to move. My mouth didnt move much either.
Side effect. The blob moved closer. You took a nasty fall, Mister Kushan. You will be happy to know that I had the foresight to bring a medic with me, so you should heal properly with no lasting damage. There was some internal bleeding and a minor surgery, hence the drugs.
Mister Kushan? Only two people every called me that Lorenzo and Sofia and it didnt sound like any of them. This guy had some kind of European accent. But who would know my name? Ooh aw ewe?
You should refrain from speaking until you are able to do so with clarity.
Uh ai-
Nuh uh uh. The blob came closer, filled most of my vision, and put a finger to my lips. Doctors orders. Instead, I will take this time to fill in some gaps in your memory, to give you some ground to stand on in the metaphorical sense, of course.
I nodded. Kind of. Stupid restraints.
We are at some point during the 23rd Century before Christ. Roughly. There was a sigh. It is hard to track down the exact year, especially since the calendars have changed so much that retroactive dating is an inexact science, at best. You are currently situated within a house in the small city surrounding the Temple of Anshar.
I knew it! Wed gone back in time and the temple was here, still standing. But where were the others?
Ah, yes, you recognize the name good. I was afraid that the blow to your head might have caused some memory loss. Do you recall what has happened since you were thrust back in time?
I nodded again. I could remember the dig, the vortex, the field, the city, the chase, the Nazis surrounding me, the Warwolf
Either Id been rescued by this guy, or he was a Nazi and I was in their hands. The glassy effect was fading, though I still had the ringing in my ears, and he was starting to sound a little familiar.
Aueh? I asked.
Of course, Mister Kushan, he replied, but do not worry. You are in good hands. Consider me a friend.
I tried to escape, to run, to break free, to throw a fireball, to do anything, but I was held pretty damn good. All I could do was scream and shake the chair.
I understand your anxiety, my young companion, Auer went on, once I got too tired to scream, but you have no real choice at this juncture but to do as I tell you. It is the only way that you will come out of this alive. I have told the 5th Column that you are a valuable hostage; they wish to kill you, Mister Kushan, but I mean you no harm.
Why ohm I bewieve you? Hey! My lips were moving properly. Awesome!
Why dont you indeed
Auer mused. I understand your reluctance to deal with the 5th Column or with a European academic who has chosen to ally himself with their cause, but what cause do you have to distrust me? I have personally done you no harm have actually helped you and saved your life and yet
You face me simply because Mondavi tells you to. Because he pays you?
I shrugged because saying Not just was impossible.
The largest wallet is a very poor method of measuring a man, boy. He laughed, but it was kind of hacky and phlegmy. He mustve been a smoker. It tells you nothing of character or morality. I could pay you far more than he ever could. But you wouldnt change sides even if I offered you such, no. Youre young and idealistic and you still believe in bad guys and good guys and the 5th must always be the bad guys. The blob swiveled a bit, and I could tell he was shaking his head. Did you ever stop to ask yourself why Mondavi wanted to find the temple? He didnt chase down the clues in order to stop us; he wanted it for himself.
Made sense. I shrugged again.
The Time Gate. The Gem of Etnekhsa. Those are what he was after: artifacts of incredible power, such that humanity has rarely known and always to its detriment. And I wouldnt trust them into his hands anymore than I would trust them into the hands of Nemesis or Recluse. Do you even know the kinds of evil your patron has inflicted upon the world?
I blinked. Evil? The crusty old magician was scary looking, yeah, but he didnt really seem to do much. He liked his books and his collection of old junk, but Id always figured he just had them to look at. Kinda cool for an old dude, but
evil? I couldnt see it.
I see by the look on your face that you do not. It is not surprising, really; Mondavi has been manipulating people for a hundred years. What chance do regular people like you and I have? Auer sighed. If he gets the Gem
None at all. He tried to destroy and remake the world at least once to wipe the surface clean of all that offended his sensibilities but was stopped on the eve of his success. If Jonathan Hale hadnt trapped him in the spirit world, millions billions, perhaps of people would have perished.
Wait a minute. Hale? Reverand Hale? Bros friend that he calls Smokey? Why would bro be working for somebody who used to be Hales enemy? Hale hasnt been around in a long time, so maybe he never told bro about Mondavi.
No. This cant be. Auer must be lying.
There was a long pause. I could feel him staring at me, and it was uncomfortable like I was naked or something. He finally continued: You dont have to believe me, Mister Kushan, though I give my word as a gentleman and a German that everything Ive said to you is the truth. If we were back in our time, I could give you a book written by an eyewitness that describes it all. Your employer did try to wipe out millions upon millions of people, and he was stopped and banished to another plane, and I truly believe that he is simply biding his time to try again. With the power of the Gem, he could bring his own Flood; like God before him, he could wipe the Earth clean of all that he contends with.
As for me? His tone lightened. I will use it to end world hunger and poverty, turn back the clock against global warming. Everyone will be in debt to me and to the 5th Column, and we will usher in an age of peace and prosperity and honor, with us in control.
Auer reached forward and rested his hand on my shoulder. I want you to think about this. Ill have some food sent to you and you can rest, and we will talk later. Good bye, my young friend.
Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich
Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?
Chapter XLVI
In Which An Expedition Is Gathered Up
When we reached our little wadi, I left Rostov to handle the three now somewhat calmer horses, and went ahead on my own. I slid down the little crevice which, just a few hours before, we barely negotiated, and quietly went through piles of rocks and trees towards the slight whisper of running water.
The moon was slowly dipping west.
“Lorenzo,” I called softly, and stepped through crackling, swishing underbrush.
He was leaning with his back to a scraggy acacia, holding a pistol casually in one hand. The casualness was deceptive; he was fully attentive to the direction from which the noises came. I hoped, for his sake, that he was not standing there like that since I left. Gaarent was seated with his knees drawn up, still draped in Lorenzo’s coat, staring – well, not really staring, but appearing to – off into space.
“Madam,” Lorenzo dropped his arm and stuck the gun back into his pocket. “Finally. We were getting worried.”
“I had a detour,” I said apologetically, and went to kneel in front of Garent “I see you’re awake.”
He shook himself like a man coming out of a trance. “Yeah. I woke up a bit ago. Lorenzo said you went to get Rostov. You brought him, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes,” I grinned, addressing both men. “I brought him. And breakfast. And transportation.”
“How—“ Lorenzo cut off when the sounds of three horses trampling through dry thorns became audible. Rostov was taking it slow, pulling them out into the area where the three of us were, and the horses were prancing nervously. “Goodness.”
“Hey!” Garent dropped his hand to the ground and blinked. “Horses? Where did you guys get horses?” I gave him my patented ‘good pupil’ look.
“Courtesy of Herr Auer and his minions,” I said smugly.
“And what are these minions doing now?”
“Swimming,” Rostov smirked. “Pretty bad at it, too.”
Lorenzo was unaffected by our enthusiasm, though Garent seemed happier. He shook his head, eyeing Rostov with a frown that could indicate concern, displeasure, a slight headache or a combination of all three. “Was this your idea, Mr. Kushan?”
“Sofia’s.”
The displeasure rotated one hundred and eighty degrees.
“The supplies are a good idea,” I pointed out. “Food, uniforms, ammunition. Coffee, Lorenzo,” I added breathlessly. “They had coffee.”
Brought from the future, obviously, since the nearest coffee beans to us were about a continent away, somewhere in central Africa. I will point out one thing, to dispel any misconceptions. While the majority of modern men are coffee addicts, I am not; I actually don’t like the stuff. I am a tea person. Yet I was acutely aware of the blue circles forming, once again, under my own eyes, and was seeing a sort of sagging weariness in all the others’ faces. Caffeine was a stimulant we could hardly do without.
All right, so maybe I am also a caffeine junkie.
In any case, that notion made even Lorenzo look a little happier. I guess he was just as tired as I, and was not altogether anticipating the upcoming day. “Well, I trust you were circumspect.”
“That is why they are in the river.” I shrugged the obvious.
“Well, picket these horses somewhere. I don’t suppose they come with horse feed as a package deal?”
Rostov smirked. “It’s a one-time special. Kill three Nazis and get three horses, free. But the horse-chow costs extra so we didn’t include it.” He poked with a booted toe at the straggling tufts of spring green grass, hedging out from underneath rocks and struggling valiantly in a losing battle against thorns and bare ground and more rocks. “But I bet they’ll graze.”
“I suggest we take a bit before the sun rises to make use of that coffee, have breakfast, get warm,” I advised, and there were no disagreements. Rostov, who dumped some of his arsenal out onto the space blanket still spread on the ground, and was cleaning his pistols, pulled out a large, curved knife from the top of his boot. I knew that knife; in its time, it was a highly magical item – a sort of dangerous demon-slayer knife, capable of killing immortal creatures. Now, it was simply a large piece of good steel with a nice handle, and Rostov used it ruthlessly to chop off branches.
I stood up and left Garent to help with the fire, moving, conveniently and unobtrusively, out of his telepathy range. Which was, so far as we knew, practically zero; I tended to keep a hand on his shoulder or something along these lines during conversation, to make the nigh-onto-impossible merely very difficult. I circled to where Lorenzo was carefully arranging branches into a triangular, well-ventilated shape.
“How has he been?” I nodded towards Garent, a slight, almost invisible gesture while picking at a large clump of dry thorns – I wiped the blood off my hands on my skirt clandestinely – with my own small utility knife.
“As you see.”
“Ow,” I winced. Garent was never what one would call bounding with enthusiasm or pep, but this listlessness was certainly new. I carried the easily flammable brambles and stuffed them between the longer-burning branches. “All right, who has the matches?”
“Um…” said Rostov helpfully. Lorenzo and I looked at each other and exchanged rueful looks. The absence of matches was bemoaned earlier the same night. We both looked at Rostov rather accusingly. “But we could rig a flare.”
I laughed. “That seems like overkill.”
“Okay, we can go hungry until we find the nearest matchbox, you’re the boss.”
“No, no,” I chuckled harder. “We’ll do it your way, and then perhaps remember to put our hands on a flint. Come on, Garent,” I snapped with renewed energy, anticipating the small comforts of rough outdoorsy camping with explosives. “Fold up that blanket you’re sitting on, pick up everything that’s still on it and we’ll move out while Rostov blows things up.”
“Are you serious?” Garent stared at me – or at least in my general direction - with vacant eyes.
“Totally serious.”
“Fine.” Garent grumbled, but moved off the blanket and started carefully fishing for bits of plastic and paper before folding it up. He was slow, of course, but he was moving of – more or less – his own incentive, and spent the time muttering under his nose rather than staring into space.
The bang was spectacular as usual. The fire crackled away merrily, caught the dry thorns and consumed them while we were still gathering warily about the place, all – including Garent – rubbing our ears with pained expressions. Rostov, for whom this was the second close-range boom of the night, did not look pleased. The horses were positively frantic. The 5th obviously did not have to do much shooting, if they managed to retain such skittish animals.
We crowded up about the fire like primitive man who had, for the first time, been grateful for the lightning; it was a similar effect, after the cold and miserable night, the crack of the flare going off and then the warmth and the platonic idea of cooked food. With that platonic idea we had to content ourselves, because the reality was a little more meager. Most of the things the 5th left in their bags were much too much effort to cook and serve, but I did make Rostov race to the stream below and, while refilling every plastic bottle and hollowed-out gourd we had – grab water for our coffeepot (literal pot, made out of clay) and to mix with the flour.
I made pitot; basic, blending water and flour together to make coarse dough which I flattened and tossed on a heated surface of a rock, without even salt. Nevertheless, they were the first sandwiches, and nobody complained, not even Garent who chewed the piece I put in his hand with an expression of suffering.
“So,” Rostov said after we settled down to a rather haphazard breakfast of items that normally do not go together in any cuisine. “What’s the plan?”
“We go to Shubat Anshar,” Lorenzo voiced the obvious, “and find a way back. Preferably after finding Victor. I assume we have a few days before the rest of the 5th Column realizes we were here and have taken some of their uniforms.”
“Less,” I said, waving a piece of bland cheese around casually. “Perishables.”
Lorenzo was the first to catch on, as was appropriate to a man who spent the first part of his life with domestic mechanized refrigeration only then coming into use. Rostov nodded shortly afterwards, only Garent, the true child of modernity among us, remained confused. “Without refrigeration, nothing keeps,” I explained. “But here we are, eating cheese. Which means supply convoys, maybe as often as every day. If we are lucky, every two days. So we have… today, and perhaps tomorrow, or the day after – depending on how fast they were expected to return – before we have Auer on edge.”
“Then we start out early, and go quickly. We have three horses,” Lorenzo eyed the animals for a moment with the same expression Rostov and I had displayed earlier, “Madam, you will take Mr. Ward with you—“
“Um,” I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat. “Better not.”
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, I’ve been on a horse a dozen times… if you count in binary. Let’s not put some innocent bystander with me in charge, shall we?”
“I couldn’t ride even when I could see where I was going,” Garent added, comfortingly. “Fly yes: ride – no.” We ran the options quickly. With all our packs on the third horse, the human cargo should be distributed more or less evenly.
In the emerging light, before the sun had even thought of climbing over the river, we packed our camp. All our worldly belonging now fitted with relative comfort onto the back of a single mangy horse. The animal did not seem overburdened. Our little refuge for the night displayed nothing of our presence – I made everyone pick up even the smallest trace of garbage – except for the wide circle of a blackened out earth where the fire’d burned. It was time to leave.
Rostov grabbed the bridle of one of the horses, and leapt into the flat pad the 5th Column named a saddle. The accommodations, of course, were extremely primitive – though far beyond what the natives would have – as bits, bridles, stirrups and other tack items were millennia away from being invented. Then Lorenzo swung Garent up to him.
Rostov caught him effortlessly, and plunked him in front of himself, wedged at the edge of the saddle, wide-eyed and slightly panicky, clinging to the horse’s neck. Then it was Lorenzo and my turn. Our lives were a little more complicated. For one, the difference in weights was not nearly as significant, nor was his strength cybernetically enhanced. He could not simply lift me off the ground and catch me in mid-air. For another, the bad knee made his life difficult and, though he would not admit it, he was not ‘getting used’ to the pain as he so brashly claimed he would.
I grinned, amused, as he winced apologetically, and knelt to give him a hand up. He was fast, to my infinite gratitude, and my cupped hands only hurt moderately badly. I dusted off my red, swollen hands, and the hem of my skirt. The calf-length, high-quality fabric was rapidly turning from brown into gray, acquiring the same tint as my blouse.
I stared at the folds of cloth, imagining myself riding a horse in a skirt not at all fitted for it, with a man looking over my shoulder. My brain could not decide, for just a split second, whether the idea made it swoon with anticipation or embarrassment.
“Sidesaddle,” I muttered to myself. “Definitely sidesaddle.”
Then Lorenzo leaned down and helped pull me up.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter XLVII
In Which a Loose Tongue Tells All
After a meal of some meat and ground vegetables, they took me to a room which was supposed to be my cell. The Nazis treated me pretty well, which I guess I can thank Auer for, and let me walk around without ropes or anything even my hands were free. If Id had fire powers or my super speed, Idve been out of there, but
I couldnt even summon the mist or the dark blades.
And the Nazis had guns. I didnt. So I walked along like a good boy. I made a few jokes, but they ignored them. Suck. Nazis have no sense of humor.
There wasnt much in the room, and it seemed more like a summer camp bunk than a home crappy little bunk for sleeping, a little table, some pottery. And there was no electricity, just a weird looking lamp thing that smelled weird. I waved my hand through the fire a few times, trying to get control of it, but the most I could make it do was flicker and wave. Having no powers sucked even more than humorless Nazis.
I tried to remember what bro had told me when he was trying to teach me to be a soldier. He kept insisting I learn to do things without my powers, even though some of our friends thought it was stupid - Not so silly now, huh, Yaphie? The first rule was to take inventory. What did I have? Squat. Not even my computer and guns. The Nazis even stole my friggin wallet, the thieves!
So, outside of throwin and swingin pottery, I had no weapons. If I could take down one soldier, Id get a rifle and maybe I could take some of their body armor; no dodging bullets anymore. But that wouldnt stop the warwolf Id need a rocket launcher or something. Bro probably had some silver bullets, but who knew where he was.
I decided that I wouldnt be able to escape yet, and resigned myself to sitting and waiting and looking for an opportunity. Maybe if I let him think I believed him about Lorenzo, hed help out a bit, let me get out
Yeah, thats the ticket.
I settled onto the bed, which was actually pretty comfy, and happily went to sleep. I had a plan.
The Nazis woke me in the morning to serve breakfast and I spent the morning sitting in my room, wishing I had a book with me. Around midday (there were a couple tiny windows that I could see the Sun from), they finally took me in to see Auer again.
Good day, young man, Auer began affably when I entered his room, I hope you slept well.
Like a rock, I replied and looked around the room. It was much smaller now that I wasnt all hazy and drugged and could gauge distances. He had some books mostly in German, darn and the same lamp things lighting the room. There was some electric lamp thing, like the kind used in an emergency kit in a car, but it was sitting in a corner unused. A bit hard to charge batteries these days, I guess. They just dont make them like they used to.
Please, take a seat. He waved to a chair and sat down across from it. A large desk sat between us, and I idly wondered where he got it from. He mustve noticed me looking, because he answered, Its amazing what one can create with a little ingenuity and a lot of wooden crates. In time, once we arrange for wood from Damascus to be brought here, well make a better one.
Why from Damascus? Cant you just get more wood from the future?
Not yet, no. He sighed. In this time, the Key is already in place and cannot be removed. The mechanism is silent. Of course, the priests know nothing about the Time Gate, but in time I will decipher the text to unlock its mysteries.
I wasnt sure whether this was good or bad. Maybe Lorenzo or Sofia could figure it out, or maybe even bro, but unless they showed up to rescue me, my only way back would be with Auers help. Definitely bad, I decided.
So, what, youre just kickin it here in the meantime? I leaned back and put my feet up on the desk. He glanced at my shoes, gave them a dirty look, and I smiled.
Something to that affect. He looked back at me, decided to ignore my feet on his desk. Changing history is a dangerous affair, but we have one advantage: the city of Shubat Anshar was destroyed will be destroyed at some point in the next century. So whatever impact we have here will disappear in that time. We may act freely.
Huh. I scratched my head. Im no expert on such things, never have been, and Im usually told that Im irresponsible and likely to break history if I messed with it, but his logic seemed sound enough to me. Theyre all going to die anyway? Wait, that sounds kinda cruel. I dunno. Somebody might get out
Then they get out. They dont understand guns and they cant create them. He laughed. Therell just be stories about strange, tall men who could kill people by looking at them, and a horrible man-beast. The kind of myths that show up anyways.
I snickered. Maybe the tales of werewolves come from people who saw your warwolf.
He snorted. No, no. Werewolf is Germanic, from Old English werewulf from the prefix wer meaning man and, of course, wolf. Man-wolf myths show up everywhere, though, and given the kinds of things that you and I have seen, perhaps some of them werent myths, eh?
Yeah
But enough about that. He clapped his hands once. Lets talk about something more pressing and interesting: you.
Me? Im not interesting
Why would he want to talk about me? I thought his beef was with Lorenzo
Not every young man walks around with custom-made hi-tech equipment and throws fireballs. He reached down behind the desk and pulled out the goggles. These are a marvelous piece of engineering, the kind of work that modern militaries would kill for. Or pay handsomely for.
Er, um, thanks
He waved his hands grandiosely (thats a word, right?). Makes me wonder why youd go hire yourself out as a common thug; you could be sitting pretty at the head of your own scientific corporation, like Crey and Aeon. Or the lead scientist for an army, like Nosferatu.
I scratched my head. Nosferatu? Isnt he that crazy vampyr with the big gloves?
He is now. He had that look in his eye that Sofia and Alex and Lorenzo and
well a lot of old people
get when they know something I dont and are about to lecture me on it. He was the 5th Columns leading scientist the Councils now and he developed the process to create the vampyr and the warwolves. A great deal of the super soldier work is by his hands.
I guess you learn something new everyday, huh? Wait a minute
Are you offering me a job?
And they didnt believe me when I said you were smart! He exclaimed. I couldnt tell if he was sarcastic or not. You need to think about your future. You need to decide whether or not youll even have a future. Right now, you are only a bargaining chip for Mondavis inevitable appearance. What happens if he fails, hmm? Or if we restore our connection to the future?
Uh
We go to Disneyland?
He sighed and shook his head. Dont be obtuse, Victor. You know what I mean.
Yeah
I swallowed. Bullet to the forebrain, probably.
And thats assuming Mondavi tries to rescue you. He leaned back, a pleased kind of look on his face. Knowing the cold, calculating pragmatist, he might just write you off as a casualty of war and try and level this entire structure to stop me.
Nah, bro wouldnt let him, I quipped, and immediately realized my mistake: Ros very well might, if I screw up enough!
Your brother? He raised an eyebrow and leaned forward, steepling his fingers. Yes
I do see the resemblance that bodyguard of Mondavis. A family business, then?
Ugh, I hope not. I groaned. I thought it might be fun, but we just run around in forests and dirt and get creepy looks while he makes us learn how to shoot guns and stuff. I only wanted this job because Lorenzos kind of cool for an old guy and the last time I went along with him we saw all kinds of crazy awesome and super dangerous things.
He was listening very intently, and I stopped. Stupid mouth! Id forgotten bros rule about not ever answering questions and not ever volunteering information! Here I was, talking about all kinds of things and even gave away that Ros was my brother. Sheesh
Im sure you did. He turned on his chair and waved a hand conjecturally. I assume he had some kind of obscure and vague reason behind his activity. Something which sounds strange and irks you as stupid, yet somehow stands up to scrutiny? He probably used you then for some nefarious purpose or another that you will never, ever discover. That is his way.
Seriously, where do you get off thinking hes so evil? Making up stories
I rolled my eyes. Bro and Sofia are both good friends of Hale and they like Lorenzo a lot!
He lowered his hand slowly, suddenly very serious. What did I say? Oh geez, names again. What was coming over me? Stupid headache
Sofia? Your girlfriend?
Eww, no. Ugh. I gave a face; he ignored it. Shes like forty years old and kind of boring sometimes. And shes married. I shrugged. Besides, she goes for old smart guys like Lorenz-
I clapped my hands to my mouth. Did I just say that? And to Auer? Ohgodohgodohgod
Really? He drew out the first syllable, sounding kind of like an old Jim Carey with emphysema. A love interest, Mondavi? I never wouldve expected
Though I should have how typical for the Italian to go for a married woman. Please, my friend, tell me more.
Nuh uh. I shook my head furiously. No more talkey.
No? He sighed. Very well. We can talk more tomorrow, if you are feeling up to it. It is probably time that I returned to my duties.
Wait, what? Thats it? I looked around suspiciously for some kind of trap. No tortures or truth serums or interrogations?
Youre my guest, Mister Kushan, he replied calmly. I am trying to save your life, not destroy you. He stood up and walked over to the door. Two soldiers came in as soon as the door was opened. Im a patient man, and right now, Ive got all the time in the world
Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich
Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?
Chapter XLVIII
In Which Hindsight is Twenty-Twenty
It took us two days to reach the fields surrounding Shubat Anshar, despite the fact that we had acquired mounts. Instead of climbing the hills as we had done previously, we were forced to follow the winding trail that led between them; while the 5th Column had created makeshift harnesses and bridles, they were forced to do without horseshoes. In their defense, ironworking was still a thousand years away.
We had no encounters during that leg of the journey, which was both fortuitous and disturbing, depending upon the context. The lack of enemy soldiers raised our hopes that our assault on the outpost had yet to be discovered; the lack of civilians travelers fueled our fears that the 5th Column had established a stranglehold on the city and its inhabitants
And had done so for some time. We still did not have any serious guesses as to when the 5th Column had shown up, but given the outpost and the horses, we were already looking at a period of weeks or months.
And most disturbing of all was the lack of any sign of young Victor. Rostov Kushan had a handheld radio set to a predetermined emergency frequency, but our inability to recharge the battery meant that we had to conserve the charge and could only send and receive for minutes at a time. Our running theory was that the closer one was to the Key during the vortex, the earlier in history they appeared; Victor was closer than any of us, and should have arrived some time ago.
Sad to say, our biggest hope was that the 5th Column had captured him and was providing for him in Shubat Anshar. With such a language difference and a lack of powers, his chances of surviving on his own in the area were rather slim.
Well, were going to want to survey the city anyway, right? Rostov Kushan asked shortly before we passed the hills and entered the great plains between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. He always tried to maintain a rough and nonchalant appearance, but we all knew that he took his role as the elder brother very seriously. Even more so, given that their father was dead and their mother a lunatic that had abandoned them. Victor was still mostly unaware how much his brother had done for him.
Of course, I answered.
So well just ask around and see if anyone has seen him.
I sighed. I have studied Akkadian a great deal and can read the texts, but my knowledge only goes that far. This is a language that hasnt been spoken in thousands of years.
Give us a month of combined work and phonetic notation, Madam Rabinovich added, and Ill bet you anything I can present a credible program to work from. Akkadian is a Semitic it cant be that hard.
I gave her a wry look. That is assuming, madam, that we have a month of work uninterrupted by such minor nuisances as gunfights, captivity, dehydration, and exposure. If only I could
I grumbled slightly. A long time ago, I had created a small ritual that allowed me to steal some parts of a persons being, giving access to certain mental and mechanical skills including languages as well as some of their metaphysical abilities. A good deal of Mu and Oranbegan magics had to have been learned in this fashion, since I do not carry the blood of either nation.
So, basically, were screwed.
I gave Rostov Kushan a long look before replying: Mister Kushan, it merely changes the nature of the challenge and the complexity of the solution. Instead of asking around, we will have to infiltrate and investigate for ourselves. The uniforms that you and Madam Rabinovich acquired will do wonders for the plan I am considering.
Unless the 5th walk around without their helmets, Mister Ward announced, interjecting his usual criticism. And if Auer is as smart as we think he is, he might have them do so. At least when word gets round about the 5th we killed.
Kushan snorted. Then we beat up some poor sod and take his clothes.
Oh sure, thatll work, came the sarcastic retort, Im sure the 5th Column soldiers will just think youre an abnormally tall, healthy, and strong Akkadian who doesnt speak the language. Were in the past! Youre probably a foot taller than the average height, and have twice the muscle.
Not him, Madam Rabinovich said quietly. Me.
What? Rostov reared. No way.
Listen to reason, she said under the surprised glances of everybody well, almost everybody, Mister Ward was not truly glancing, and I was not surprised. You cant go. You will stand out. Nobody looks at an old woman. Its true even in our time, and its even truer here.
Shes the best choice for it, Mister Ward supported her. Even Lorenzo is too tall. Im not, but I
He gave a face and shrugged.
We stood in uncomfortable silence as his disabilities hung over us.
All I will need to appear invisible is a scarf and a shuffle, Madam Rabinovich added calmly, not to mention that, in linguistic terms, I am as well-equipped as anybody to pick anything up.
I saw the wisdom in her decision. She could easily walk around with obscuring garments and have it be considered merely a cultural fashion. She was short and, above all, Semitic. Her blond hair and pale complexion would stand out, but that was nothing that couldnt be fixed with some creative applications of makeup.
Exactly, she confirmed after I told everyone my thoughts on the matter. We discussed the plan further as we broke camp and began the final trek to the city. Once we lost the cover of the hills, we would be hard pressed to push ourselves all the way to the gates, unless we were lucky enough to find some kind of settlement or farm where we could hide from any observers.
Shubat Anshar sat in dirty folds and mounds over the broad expanse of the surrounding plains. It, like all cities of the Levant, had been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, so each house sat on the crushed and ground remains of its predecessors. This resulted in the city being slightly elevated over its surroundings on an artificial hill, with the Temple itself sitting just off center. The Temple, being the only stone structure, was comparatively tall and massive, and its base completely occluded by the gradually rising buildings.
Madam Rabinovich pointed in the direction of the various patches of discolored flora that could be nothing but farms, and I nodded in understanding. Specifically, she was pointing at one that looked like an orchard of some kind, and which had a squat structure sitting amongst it. That would be what Semitic languages referred to as a shomera: a sort of house-***-lookout post that was used by the owner of the orchard during harvest season to protect his investment. During this time of year, it would be empty.
A bit exposed, isnt it? Rostov said nervously.
We can hide all our packs in the building, Madam Rabinovich responded wearily. And if someone comes, hide inside as well. Build a fire on the cleared space, hide from the wind. Honestly, Rostov, were finished. We cant go any further.
She was right, I realized. She looked drawn with fatigue, and I myself was feeling the aches of the journey significantly. I hadnt ridden a-horseback in well over a century. Madam Rabinovich, I realized, was doing us all a kindness by taking the burden of admitting to weakness onto herself, where Mister Ward and I might not allow ourselves to do so.
We stop here, I decided, and we led the horses off the trail and into the bare trees.
We put the pack with what little food remained into a corner of the structure, and made a fire, meanwhile successfully turning the floor into an insulated area by placing down Madam Rabinovichs convenient space blanket and adding on a pair of ragged, rough ones that came in the 5th Columns appropriated packs.
Madam Rabinovich set about attempting to improvise dinner, with myself and Rostov dealing first with the horses, then with other small camp arrangements. Mister Ward, unable to help in any significant way, due more to extreme tiredness than his present condition telepathy must have taken its toll in energy our poor food supply could not replace seemed to be drifting off into half-doze by the fire.
While we were lucky in finding a place to hide, we could not rest on our laurels, and after making camp, we set up a rotation for the watch. Mister Ward was growing increasingly irritated with his inability to assist in such matters, but none of us were willing to deny him his right. Hopefully, he would come to realize that his brain was an asset as much as anything else, and that his insights were useful all four of us had different approaches and different methods of thought, and when we sat together and planned, we were able to hammer out all the kinks.
Sadly, I couldnt tell him this without going through Madam Rabinovich, which I felt would be inappropriate. It is only with hindsight that I realize how foolish that sentiment was.
Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich
Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?
Chapter XLIX
In Which A Man Takes The Road Less Traveled
So far, the past was making a really bad impression on me. Mostly it was dark, and quiet. It's been dark and quiet for the last two days. And that is pretty disconcerting when you're not used to it anymore. I mean, the last time I saw – well, didn't see – the world like that was when I was three years old, bumping into my mom's furniture and playing with toy hero figurines, but hey, we all have to grow out of our bad habits sometime, right?
I could do conversations okay; even though everything went like an echo in Sofia's head, I had no trouble telling who was saying what when. I guess now I know why she's a linguist, because people still came through as themselves even inside her head, accents and everything. It's not like she had to put on chat tags for my benefit. But, on the other hand, she wasn’t running a full out closed-caption commentary on everything with little notes like “birds chirping” in brackets. So aside from conversations everything was pretty boring.
I spent most of my time feeling mopey and tagging along, wanting to go home where I could actually do some good to anyone. I guess now I also know why Sofia's so big about competence and doing everything; being seen as a burden is the worst thing in the world, even if nobody will outright tell you so.
Anyway, for the last couple days we were riding. Riding sounds like fun, but turns out to be a pain. You sit in the saddle – or whatever the 5th substituted for it – and the horse walks along, making you dizzy with going up and down, and your leg muscles hurt from sitting on its back. I wound up riding with Rostov, which is kind of a dubious honour anyway, and half the time I was too far from Sofia to tell what she was thinking, and Rostov didn't bother to include me.
When that happens I really have no way to tell what's happening, and that makes me really nervous, because for all I know the 5th could ambush us and kill everybody and I wouldn't even know it until they shot me. A lot of the time I could only tell that we were going, or stopped, and that it was getting late because the air cooled a lot. I basically spent most of the time wishing quietly that I could go home.
On the evening of the second day of this, when we were supposed to be getting towards Anshar, I was so tired I couldn't find anybody's mind even if I tried. Sofia came to help me down; I didn't need to read her mind to tell it was her because she has really small hands with nails in terrible shape. Every time she holds my hand, I can feel the callous by the thumb nail. Rostov has paws like a bear. It's pretty amazing what sort of thing you pay attention to when you have essentially nothing to look at otherwise.
I got a little nervous for a bit because I had no way of telling how high up I was. I was pretty sure the horses weren't that tall, but nobody likes just jumping off into what is, essentially, a dark pit, even if it turns out to be a really small dark pit. I hesitated until the toes of my shoe hit Sofia's arm a little below the shoulder. Sofia is very short – shorter than I am, and that doesn't happen often – so I knew I was fine. I slid off, and landed okay but then felt almost like I was seasick; all that day sitting on top of a swaying horse made my head spin. Sofia put an arm around my shoulders and walked me somewhere I could sit down, by a fire, I could feel the heat slowly rising as it took.
I’m pretty sure I drifted off to sleep until Sofia came to find me again.
It must've been some time, because I was a little less tired. I actually scraped up the effort to go hunting for her thoughts. Normally, Sofia is impossible to read; she dodges telepathy, it just sort of slides off of her. She really doesn't like the idea – which made me grateful that she would actually let me ride pretty much constantly in her head – and I think she actually needs to put in effort not to let it slide off of her. She was holding very still (metaphorically) for me, so I only needed four, maybe five tries to hunt her down.
“What's up?” I asked when I was sure I finally had her.
“Come have dinner,” she said.
I made a face, but obeyed anyway. The idea of food still seems gross to me, in a lot of ways, and the food was pretty bad. I mean, when we were in Paris Sofia took me out to a restaurant and I had some soup; it wasn't the height of my experience in Europe, but it was okay. This food just honestly wasn't tasty, though I couldn't blame Sofia. I guess, like so many things, tasty wasn't invented yet. And Sofia had to help me with the plate and the food, which was insanely embarrassing, but I ate anyway because now I would actually be affected by going hungry.
Apparently, I was still pretty tired because I kept losing the conversation.
I know there was a conversation of some sort, because I felt Sofia's hand move abruptly, like she was emphasizing a point, or debating, but I really couldn't tell you any more than that. This is the worst it's been, though, so I couldn't complain too much, even if I thought that complaining was a good idea in the first place. I ate the food quickly, trying not to taste it too much, and then everything faded away.
When I woke up again, everything was much, much colder, and felt very still. I'm not sure how to describe it because noise or quiet didn't really factor into it, but I could tell the difference anyway. It's how nobody around you is moving. I was pretty sure that it was night and most everybody was asleep. I, on the other hand, was wide awake, and really bored.
I poked out of Lorenzo’s heavy coat and carefully moved my hand forward until I met the wall.
Whoa, building. Sofia didn’t tell me anything about a building. Or maybe she did and I simply didn’t catch it. I wanted to look around a little more, but stopped myself just in time. I figured the others were asleep somewhere nearby, and getting an elbow to the face in the middle of your nice dream probably isn’t the nicest thing in the world.
Instead, I pulled Lorenzo’s coat around me from the cold, and slowly and carefully sat up in place. Then I sent my mind out, probing carefully.
Okay, here they were. I couldn’t tell exactly where they were in terms of space, but they were pretty close. I could get to both Sofia and Lorenzo from where I was sitting. And they were both asleep, and both dreaming. It’s a good thing I barely moved, because Sofia is an insanely light sleeper. The only way to prevent her from waking up from every tiny little noise is to cast a sleep spell on her, and I was notably short on them.
It was kind of funny that they even managed to coordinate their REM sleep.
I felt my fingers itch. They were both dreaming, and I knew I could peek into their dreams. I also knew that they would hang me upside down and cut off my ears one at a time, regardless of whether I was blind and pathetic or not, if I were to actually start rummaging in their psyche. Lorenzo would suck my soul out, and Sofia... Sofia was too scary to think about, really.
On the other hand I was seriously sensorily deprived. I haven’t been seeing anything for days, and dreams would have things in them. Shapes. Colors. Maybe sounds, though dreams usually tend to be visual only. All the things I couldn’t get out here. And, honestly I was seriously tempted.
After all, dreams are just stuff the subconscious sort of throws out to the garbage. It’s not like I was going to prod their deepest, darkest secrets, right?
I sat there for a bit, contemplating, then let my mind slide into Lorenzo’s dream.
Okay, sudden light hurt.
The moon hung in the sky indecisively, as though it were unsure of its direction. It was unnaturally large, and ominously close to Earth. Occasionally, it blurred along the edges of the dream and became smeared along the horizon. The entire place was full of dark shapes and nightly sounds, the whisper of trees that were not entirely trees, and critters that could not be identified in any world encyclopedia.
There was something distinctly odd about the place, and the feeling of deep discomfort it aroused in me, but I could not put my finger on what precisely it was. I decided to explore further.
I hovered, momentarily as indecisive as the moon, observing the empty space all about me uncertainly. Then my eye detected the dark opening of an underground tunnel, and my mind, tied now to the dream, confirmed the certainty that this was where I should be headed. I concentrated and advanced rapidly towards the opening, through it, and along the tunnels inside. The place was permeated with the sensation of loss; as though death had stalked these ominous ruins for centuries and so made them poetically, almost canonically appropriate for what was about to occur.
I froze in place. I had never had a thought like that in my life. I shook my head and the tunnels were suddenly just long tunnels leading to a central spot, slightly dark and a little damp.
Dreams are rarely concrete and discrete, with entirely realistic and meaningless matter filling the landscape; dreams are fraught with meaning and emotion, highly stylized like some avant-garde film, with some objects being blurry and unobservable and others rendered in magnificent detail. The rocks of the tunnel wall, for example, were almost impossible to make out and the cracks were faded. The strange brick that lined the floor, on the other hand, drew the eye to it with fine lines and vibrant, almost living color.
And… I was doing it again. The dream and Lorenzo’s impressions were clearly messing with my head. I was getting the kind of backlash that I hadn’t experienced in dreams for years; I seemed to be getting Lorenzo’s feelings, his poetic outlook (I hadn’t even realized he had one before). I even appeared to inherit his absurd, antiquated vocabulary! Maybe the dampening of my telepathy was also affecting my psionic defenses?
Bad news.
I took a deep breath and centered myself, then returned to floating down the tunnel. The brick floor, which I now recognized as Oranbegan in design, would randomly go hazy at branches, an obvious sign that those particular paths were unimportant to the dream at large. How convenient for Lorenzo to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for me.
But not convenient for anybody wanting to follow Lorenzo normally; the tunnel split at numerous points, twisted into weird labyrinthine contortions, and periodically opened up into large caverns full of Oranbegan ruins for people to get lost in. I hadn’t seen a single soul anywhere – Circle of Thorns or otherwise – and it was obvious that “getting lost” was exactly what Lorenzo wanted. He definitely didn’t want to be followed.
Finally, the tunnel opened to a massive chamber – a large circular room with a domed ceiling that opened to a view of the night sky at the top. People stood frozen in tableau throughout it, all their attention focused on the large pillar of fire that rose from the center. As I flew up and over the crowd, I could see that fire rose from the center of what appeared to be a gigantic summoning circle. No, correction, a large circle seal which would imprison anything inside it. Or both? I’d never seen anything like it.
I looked at it with interest. It was magic on a serious scale. I never really did anything on that kind of scale, myself. I probably could, but I didn’t have the experience, and never had the need. I went in closer, to look at it, and saw that it was precise, very intricate work. The magic ring itself was made of weird liquids which were burning, creating a circle of fire a foot high. Inside it stood a pile of broken crates ornamented with a variety of spell components and small artifacts, and this pile was being completely immolated in the pillar of flame. The pillar, as well as the circle of fire, was frozen like the people, a single snapshot – an instant of time.
Obviously Lorenzo’s circle. But where was he?
Movement drew my eye. I flew around the circle, and found him standing on the edge of the magic ring, with one foot on each side and the flames licking his polished black shoes. In the dream he looked pretty much like he did in real life; he, like Sofia, appeared to be one of these people who see themselves pretty accurately, and represent themselves the same way in their dreams. He still had his fedora, something of a trademark piece of clothing, but his trenchcoat was replaced with an old style three-piece suit, the kind of thing Al Capone might wear. He held in one hand a large silver pistol similar to the one he had been given by Rostov, and in the other a long, pointy object – an Oranbegan spirit thorn – which was completely covered in blood. The dripping of the blood onto the floor was the movement I had seen.
Oookay… Creepy. And Lorenzo was, well, I can’t really say fuzzy, but hard to capture in my eye. Almost like he was both there and not there at the same time, like Schrodinger’s Cat. Or like the moon from the beginning of the dream. I looked up, to where the pillar of fire shot up through the hole in the domed ceiling, and saw that the night sky and the moon were both gone. Instead, the hole was filled with an eerie purple light and a darkness that sucked at my eyeballs. It emanated emptiness and fear, and a mindless terror started to pull at heart. I tore my eyes away.
And I suddenly knew where I was. I’d been told that Lorenzo had been trapped in some sort of Dungeon Dimension for the last seventy years, a place like that rift in the sky above, after Reverend Hale and his friends stopped him from some mad plot or another. This must be the point where he failed; where the people he had betrayed foiled his plans and inadvertently sent him to some kind of living hell. I could still feel the malevolent presence of the rift above, and realized that I’d never gotten a grasp of just how horrible a place it must have been, or how frightening. At least to Lorenzo.
I looked back at him and saw that his gaze, which was previously fixed on the spirit thorn in his hand, was now pointing forwards, into the crowd of people that surrounded him. The crowd itself had been ill defined when I had entered, more a feeling of a presence of people than any actual people itself. Just a nameless crowd of thousands – no, millions – that impossibly filled the chamber.
All the invisible masses I couldn’t say anything about were pressing close, but now I could make out individuals – people with detail and features. I didn’t know who a lot of them were but in the front was a guy in another old style suit who looked beat up, and there was another guy, who, even though he had the pallor of death and a gunshot in his head, stood and stared accusingly at Lorenzo. Next to him was Hale, without his hat. After that came a flurry of dead people. I didn’t recognize any of them, until I came to the very end.
I stopped. There were two people there whom I definitely recognized. The first was me. I had no idea how I was supposed to be there in the 1930s and dead, but I most certainly was a corpse, standing there and glaring. Next to me was Sofia. She stared with dead eyes, and there was a hole right through her heart, the blood dripped down her blouse. She was reaching out with blue fingers looking like she was trying to grab the circle.
Lorenzo’s big plan, I remember Sofia telling me, was to create a weapon that would kill off anything magic (including magic users). To free humanity. She didn’t entirely disapprove of the idea, she said at the time, just of the method. That’s why I was there, very dead. Sofia wasn’t magic, and shouldn’t be here, but I don’t think Lorenzo’s subconscious entirely figured it out. His head jammed it all together, all the important people who would die because of him.
And I was one of them now? Drat. I wasn’t sure how I liked that, I was always kind of a jerk to the guy.
The thing lasted maybe five more seconds, with Lorenzo looking, first at the thorn in his hand, then at the purple scary glow, his face tense with contemplation. Then he made up his mind, and turned around. The purple light suddenly shot down the column of fire, engulfing it completely and obscured Lorenzo. The circle shattered, the dead people disappeared, and the world fell melted away, leaving nothing but purple light and expanding darkness. For a second I saw weird patterns, things which I couldn’t follow with my eye without losing them entirely. Feelings of terror and dread engulfed me and I could feel the presence of… things hidden in the abyss. Things which pulsed with curiosity, hunger, malevolence, vengeance.
I could feel my control slipping, and knew that my mind would soon be overwhelmed by Lorenzo’s dream. I scrambled to hold onto my mental defenses, and pulled myself out of the dream entirely.
I found myself in the dark again, rattled and uneasy. The blanket on which I was sitting suddenly stirred. I quickly lay down and hid under my – Lorenzo’s – coat. I must’ve woken Lorenzo up by worsening his nightmare. Considering the movement, I woke Sofia up too. She would sit with Lorenzo, so that was okay.
The dream was symbolic, that was obvious. I didn’t know enough specifics about Lorenzo’s history to tell exactly in what way. I wished, almost, that Sofia were there (alive, obviously) to tell me who was who, and what was going on. Even so, I could figure some things out pretty easily.
I remembered Sofia telling me, way back at the beginning, that Lorenzo alone and out of his time was dangerous. “If you want to prevent him from pursuing his plans,” she said, “you must tie him to the world.”
I guess, in a weird way that’s exactly what he didn’t want, and that’s exactly what happened. It was weird to discover I was important enough a tie to have a face. Sofia, sure. But me?
I lay in the dark for a while, thinking, until I finally drifted into sleep again, and slept until Sofia came to shake me awake in the morning.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter L
In Which Preparations Are Made, and Robbery Is Practiced
“This is it?”
I held up the offending garment by my fingertips, and stared at the fluttering fringes despondently. The natives of the period, both male and female, rich and poor, wore essentially the same style of garment; a wraparound skirt with a large amount of artistic curls, and a shawl – a sort of poncho – to cover the upper body. Artistically sprinkled with a large variety of fringes.
“Hey, I got it off some pretty rich lady,” Rostov smirked. “Had her own donkey and everything. Don’t scoff.”
“Am I permitted to at least shake the vermin out of it, or am I supposed to keep the company for authenticity?” I inquired sweetly, beating the skirt vigorously against a tree trunk. Bits and pieces of twig, dirt and other things I didn’t wish to contemplate fell out of the thick cloth and wafted in a cloud.
“Is it really that bad?” Garent was peering sightlessly at me from under his tree. He singled the place out as more or less his own since we made camp, and I could tell he felt more comfortable with something solid at his back.
“Yes. You should see this,” I was forced to laugh almost despite myself, “You’ll have nightmares for weeks.”
I brought the skirt over to him, and draped it on his knees, unable to contain a smirk. Garent ran his hands over it, fingers snagging over the tufts. The skirt was about ankle length for the woman from whom it was taken – knee-length for me – made of undyed linen, and bunched all over with the typical, Sumerian decorative rings of rounded cloth, reminiscent of oiled, sleeked sheep wool. The impression was as if a little girl had decided to sew a ball dress, but couldn’t figure out that ruffles went all the way through, and had simply tucked them onto the straight cloth in circles.
“Wow, you’re kidding, this isn’t real.” Garent was grinning horribly.
I grumbled.
“Oh man, I want a picture for future reference. Please tell me someone has a working cell phone with a camera. Please.”
“Sadist,” I informed him, grabbing the skirt from his lap with finality and pulling it away. I wrapped the skirt carefully, pinning it into place with the long, sharp bronze pins that were lodged in its waist, and draped the poncho-shawl around my shoulders without removing my blouse from underneath. The edges were just long enough to conceal my rolled-up sleeves and, while ancient Mesopotamia was a fairly hygienic land where people understood the notion of bathing regularly (more or less) I refused to put another woman’s rarely-washed garment over my bare torso.
I used my own wide, brown skirt to wrap my hair. Sumerian women did not wear head covers regularly; they coiled their long hair around their heads in braids, and wore ornaments. Even the poorest woman would have beads, maybe cheap trinkets, over her hairdo. The scarf would make me stand out, but blond braids would be even worse.
When I was finished with the complicated process of winding up my long hair and tying it away, I stepped out uncomfortable to face the men’s scrutiny. Rostov looked like he was about to laugh. Lorenzo looked on disapprovingly.
I cringed. I’ve never been a good-looking woman, and I did not deny that. The only looks I’ve drawn from men were dismissive ones; even my husband had, first, looked at me like that. The only way to deal with this circumstance was to allow myself to turn into a frump, or to compensate with clothing that was meticulous, tailored and classical. It was a measure of my pride, perhaps, that I’ve chosen the second method. Sometimes, I sincerely wondered what certain specific people thought of my appearance. Most of the time, I even more sincerely didn’t want to know.
Right now, I desperately wanted to escape the scrutinizing glances.
I made myself go through my farewells slowly, instead of simply dashing off into the sunrise.
“I’m going to try and barter off some of these glass bottles,” I sorted carefully through my bag of medications, piling out small heaps of colourful pills. “Small, brown glass bottles aren’t that much of an anachronistic stretch, and they’re probably expensive enough to buy half the empire.”
“We could do with more food,” Lorenzo agreed, “Just make sure you don’t trade anything with labels on it.”
I cast him a disdainful look, trying to figure out what to use for a pocket.
The poor woman Rostov and Lorenzo had robbed carried a pouch, I discovered after some search, on the inside of her shawl. There wasn’t much in it except some trinkets which, for all I know, were the woman’s entire worldly possessions. Not entirely likely, though; she traveled alone, and to find a woman unmarried in this society living the quality of life this one enjoyed would be impossible. More likely she was the wife of an artisan or a trader, for whom the garments on her back were not the sole property. So I hoped when I remembered to feel guilty.
The two of them took off with sunrise, while I – with occasional help from a slightly surly Garent – made breakfast from the remainder of the anachronistic coffee and two fish. I was fully content to leave the logistics of acquiring the necessary gear to the men.
Finally, I was settled. The sun stood only a little over the horizon – trapping a traveler in this fairly populated area did not take long, or require much effort – and I could take my time on the road, examining the place and the people as well as the roads in and out of the city. It was a good thing that I was always a fairly observant person; now my skills of observations would truly be tested. I rather hoped that they would not fail me amid the strangeness.
“Come on,” I told Garent, tugging him to his feet. “Let’s go take a walk.”
“What for?”
“You sit around too much. You haven’t even been around the camp. Come on. Up you get.”
“Oh, Great,” he grumbled. “Now I have an exercise maniac.”
I grinned and guided his hand to my elbow. Before grabbing it, he ran his fingers along my arm. “You feel like a sheep.”
“I feel exactly like a sheep,” I said emphatically, and added solemnly, “Baaah.”
We walked around the campsite in a tight circle, from the vineyard to our right over to the orchard on our left, over the small irrigation canal which, despite my warnings managed to soak Garent’s shoe in warm water and along the firepit where a small fire from breakfast still steamed and smoked. It would be useful for Garent to know the layout of the camp; even if he didn’t yet realize it himself, it made him more confident and considerably more able to run away, or otherwise simply manage on his own. Besides, the walking, useless though it seemed to him – like the little chores – shook him out of his sullen depression.
“You’ll watch out for Lorenzo for me while I’m gone, won’t you?” I asked once our short round was done.
“Me? Are you sure you’re talking to the right person?”
“Depends,” I frowned at him with a theatrically puzzled expression which, I hoped, leaked into my thoughts. “Is your name Garent?”
“I’m pretty sure it is.”
“Then I am definitely talking to the right person.” I grabbed his sleeve. “You’re not the only one for whom this is difficult. I leave things here in something of a disarray, in a manner of speaking, and… well…” I did not state the obvious caveat; that I might very well not come back, or not come back on time.
“You’ll keep an eye out, won’t you?”
Garent’s eyes narrowed, and he frowned deeply, looking uncomfortable. He cast a brief look in my direction, and shook his head to himself, as though his inability to read my expression bothered him for a change. Then his face smoothed out so rapidly I was almost uncertain I’d actually seen what I thought I’d seen. Something which he was not inclined to share.
I was not sure why, but, just as in an eerily similar conversation a few nights before, I appeared to have struck a chord of which I did not previously know. That’s always an issue with psychology; sometimes, you simply tread on a person’s sensitive spot, and after the explosion comes you simply stand there throwing your hands in the air asking yourself ‘what did I just do?”. I always seemed to have a gift with people’s feelings; not by sparing them, but by deciphering their small, hidden agendas, the root causes of their neuroses. I am a diagnostician, and I am good at it, but here even I was at a loss.
Sometimes it’s all just guessworok.
“Okay, Sofia, you got it,” Garent said wryly. “I’ll keep out all the eyes I have.”
Ten minutes later I was striding on the road to Shubat Anshar, the thin, almost papery, soles of a strange woman’s sandals making my feet ache.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter LI
In Which a Use is Found for Beer
Thirteen days passed since I woke up in that wheat field outside Shubat Anshar. I dont have any pen and paper and they still wont let me use my computer, so Ive been keeping track of the time by making notches in the wall, like they do in prison cells in the movies with a screwdriver I stole awhile back. It takes a little bit of doing, since the walls are stone unlike the clay ones in the other buildings in the city, but Ive got plenty of time.
Theres been no sign of the others, which is making me pretty worried. If theyd remained in the future, then theydve rigged up a time machine and wouldve been waiting for me in that field, so I can assume they got snatched up in the same vortex. But if so, where were they? The vortex was pretty inaccurate, it seems, and dropped us off all over the place hell, the 5th got here a few months before I did! but was it simply that the others hadnt appeared yet? Or did they got dropped off hella far away? Were they lost?
Well, wherever they were, bro would get free and get to me. And the longer it took, the more pissed hed be
I wouldnt want to be a Nazi when bro gets here.
Speaking of, it was almost time for my daily chat with Heinrich. Well, report. With the others still missing, Id decided to try and weasel my way into working with Nazis (ew, I know) in order to find a way to escape. It turns out that their engineers are pretty crappy, so Ive been doing a lot of maintenance on their tech. Thats how I got that screwdriver. Among other things. So old Heinie likes to talk shop and see if Ive gotten any of the generators and whatnot to be functional. Theres not a lot gasoline in these parts, or fissible materials, so Ive been trying some alternate solutions. Im this close to making them run on the natives weird barley beer - which, by the way, is disgusting but gets you drunk good.
I waited impatiently for the guard to open the door and permit me to leave the room, and busied myself by drumming my fingers on the little table and whistling Time in a Bottle.
Oh, god, not that song again
The soldier muttered as he escorted me down the hall. Cant you do something else? Like nothing?
I turned my head and whistled louder. He growled and tried to grab me, but I danced away, trying very hard not to ruin my song by laughing. I might not have my super speed, but Im still faster than most of these jerks, super soldier or no. He tried again and again, and I hopped further and further back down the hallway.
And backed right into another soldier.
Hehe
I snickered, and looked back over my shoulder. You got my back, pal?
Im not your pal, the second Nazi growled, and kicked my legs out from under me. I fell hard on my side as I tried to catch myself, and winced. There was going to be a nasty bruise on my elbow from that one.
Thanks
I started to pick myself up, when my guard grabbed me by the collar of my uniform and yanked me up to my feet. The Nazis didnt bring any civilian clothes, and I couldnt just keep wearing my own, so Id been given some of their uniforms to wear, and I kept mine at the foot of my bed. Heinrich didnt allow people to wander through the temple wearing a helmet, so I was never given one. Too bad it wouldve made for a great disguise.
Come along, brat. I glared at my guard, who now kept a firm grip on my upper arm as he guided me down the rest of the hallway.
Thats good, Victor, Auer said when I told him about my idea with the barley. Thats very good.
I couldnt help but to smile back; at least somebody appreciates my work. Anybody who isnt also a mad scientist just gives me weird looks.
I have to admit, the lack of generators has caused me significant frustration, he went on. Our batteries can only last so long, and Ive had a variety of ideas about how to impress the populace beyond brute force.
I snickered. They remember the warwolf plenty, though.
Heinrich sighed. Yes, yes, but I am beginning to doubt the wisdom in utilizing him in this position. You see, due to the amplification effect of the Gem of Etnekhsa and the Magen Anshar, hes unable to transform back and its starting to get to him.
So, what, hes going wolf? I asked, while filing away this whole amplification effect thing. I dont know what a magen anshar is either, but apparently its behind my power loss. Good to know.
Hes certainly losing some of his humanity
He waved a hand. Nevermind. Once youve got the generators going, we can put on some spectacles of our own to keep the masses enthralled.
Heinrich didnt have much else to say today, which was good because it meant I could spend more time working on the generators. I did get something of a vague promise from him that Id get access to my computer next week in order to help with the work
It was really hard to do any good engineering when I couldnt run calculations and do some complex schematics. Or any schematics, really no pen and paper, remember?
On my way from the meeting to the makeshift lab, I knew Id get jumped again. The signs were obvious: a mysteriously empty hallway without the normal patrols, some of the torches dim, the doors closed, and footsteps behind me.
I started to run.
One of the doors ahead of me swung open and somebodys arm came swinging in a clothesline, but I ducked under it. Another door opened on the other side, immediately after, and I tried to dart to the side, but I was going too fast and crashed into it. I bounced off the wood and fell backwards, and somebody grabbed my shoulder and tossed me to the ground.
I raised my arms to protect my face and the kicking started.
Heinrich was right when he said that most of the 5th Column guys wanted me dead, and they went to crazy lengths to prove it to me. At first it was just growls and name calling, and later it moved on to practical jokes and accidentally tripping me. It was only in the last week that they started picking fights. Mostly I was too fast for them and when I won the fist fights (or successfully ran away), they started the ambushes and beatings. After they broke my nose, Heinrich yelled and screamed and punished them, but that just seemed to piss them off more. At least now they aimed for my sides instead of my face, so that it wouldnt leave so many marks.
Boy, am I glad that the uniform is built with a silksteel weave that absorbs some of the impact. Those jackboots hurt like hell.
Soon they got tired, yelled some stuff at me, spit a few times, and ran off. I rolled over and lay on my back for a bit, staring up at the ceiling and trying to catch my breath. My sides hurt, but I could still breathe without pain, which was good. Broken ribs would totally suck. After a bit, I got up to my feet and stumbled to the lab.
My days went mostly like that. I was safe in my room, in the lab, in Heinrichs office, and whenever I was under escort. Outside of that, I ran and hid and dodged. I tried to spend more and more time in the lab, since it was safe and, best of all, it meant I was building stuff. I could ignore the Nazis and the bad food and the hot weather and all the stupid time travel so long as I had tools in my hands and a halfway working machine stripped and exposed on a table in front of me.
The guards in the room just glanced in my direction as I entered, and didnt say anything about my injuries. They didnt care. Nobody did, except Heinrich. At the least, he needed me to keep the generators going and to come up with maintenance tools for all the machines they had, and for some reason he liked to talk to me. He said it was because the Nazis were mostly uncultured, uneducated pussies or something (no, he didnt use those exact words), and at least Id read some books.
God, I missed books. There were a couple with us, and Id already read them all a dozen times. I needed to get home if only to find something to read.
Home
Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich
Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?
Chapter LII
In Which Jewels and Farm Animals Provide A Disguise
This would not be the first time that I would be spying in a city in the past. Time travel, ironically, became almost a routine vacation of sorts for me, and, at this point in my life, I think I entirely lost the ability to be amazed. Nonetheless, some things would be different.
I will admit; I was nervous.
I have never gone this entirely alone. I have always had at least one another person – someone I could trust entirely – to watch my back, prevent foolish slipups and, let’s be sincere, provide the raw power that I always lacked. Even when I played the brains of the outfit, it remained to somebody else to be the brawn. Now I had none of these things, and the absence was worrisome to me. That worry was what I turned into my ultimate disguise; it is easy to shuffle and look small when you are frightened, and I looked very small.
The biggest worry was the unknown. What would I be walking into? Would I somehow, by my mere appearance, break an unwritten, or proscribed, law? If I stand out, the result will most likely be immediate capture. And we could not afford that. I hated leaving the men behind – hated, most of all, leaving Garent behind… Nonetheless, the information was necessary, and we all knew it.
The only thing by way of safety I had on me was one of Rostov’s small knives. Even so, we all knew that, if I pulled it, I’d already lost.
Shubat Anshar is a city of mud and dust. The Ancients, having just escaped nature’s perils, and discovered the notion of civilization, haven’t gotten the memo regarding the building of gardens and central parks, and were perfectly content to let themselves live in what, to the modern man, would be dreary uniformity. The Sumerians were big on uniformity. The city looked like an American middling town without the little amenities of suburbia. The place was stretched on a grid of squares and rectangles, compartmentalized neatly. The city’s wall was low and thick stone – presumably, they had no one to be afraid of – hugged on one side by a dirty, almost sluggish outshoot of the Euphrates, and behind it the poor people’s dwelling huddled in a mass or dirt and reeds.
I edged through the little alleyways that served the poor quarter as streets, avoiding as much as possible rivers of some unidentifiable liquids I could only guess at the origins of, and stepping busily around flocks of dirty, almost naked children. Poor areas have not seemed to change in hot-climate countries for countless millennia, only the housing had improved. These people lived in shacks that the wolf from the children’s tale could, quite literally, huff and puff at.
All around me there was a bubble – or perhaps a Babel – of conversation. The words floated in midair, and dissipated into nothingness. English was a distraction. I blinked and shifted; the babble gained sudden structure, verbs and nouns and prepositions and affixes falling neatly into place. I still caught no more than a word in ten in the rapid stream. But the sentences were no longer random.
First task on my personal list, together with mapping out the city’s quarters and roads, was to find the marketplace. Which was easier said than done.
Getting out of the poorest quarters, such as they were, did not constitute a problem. I navigated between screeching children and hassled women with reed baskets towards the wall of Shubat Anshar proper, and passed through the open gate. On the inside of the gate, lounging in the shadow of the walls, were two 5th Column soldiers, helmets staring with bug-like indifference at the oncoming traffic.
I ducked my head, and drew my makeshift scarf over my forehead, hiding the pale skin and atypical face. Lorenzo said I look like a Semite; actually, I don’t – I look like a semi-Semite, nobody else in this city, except for the faces hidden under the helmet, had my wide, prominent cheekbones and wide forehead. I stood out, though not sufficiently to draw more than fleeting glances.
The soldiers were checking people at the gate. At the moment, they were occupied with a tall, lean man in his middle age, coming into the city with a donkey heavily burdened with sacks. He looked dusty and even I could figure out that he has arrived from far away. I sidled towards the wall, lurking in the shadows, pretending to tie up the broken string of my sandal, and watched the proceedings. The soldiers, incautious in this time and place, spoke to each other openly.
“This one got no necklace.”
“Berg says Auer says he stays in.” the second soldier poked his head from behind a shabby, wooden gate, holding up a tag of some sort in one hand, and a gun in the other. The traveller’s eyes widened in horror as he examined the new thing, and found it not at all to his liking. “You get his name, write it down. I can’t wrap my head around this language of theirs.”
“Sure, sure,” the soldier removed his bug-eyed helmet. Underneath, he was quite young – thus, it seemed, was his facility with languages. He peered at the traveler oddly. “Nibu u’shum abak,” he intoned, trying to put the emphasis exactly where it did not belong.
Okay. I smirked to myself. At least I was not completely out of my wits as yet; name and last name. And, I thought to myself smugly, the little linguist got the possessive suffixes wrong.
Linguistic musings aside, I considered, watching the man give his name, the name of his father and the name of his kin as well as his business (tamkaru – a merchant, unless I completely misplaced my roots, a fact which went right past the soldiers’ head) and bewilderedly watched as the two carefully wrote it down on a piece of office stationery.
I frowned. It would be foolish in the extreme to get all the way here, and be caught at the gate like an idiot because I did not possess whatever token the Fifth used as a sort of improvised pass for the illiterate. I fumbled in the pouch under my shawl. A few trinkets, strings of copper and beads meant to serve as hair ornaments, and, yes! A long necklace of much finer make than a woman of my apparent stature could hope to own, braided silver.
I put it on, and tied the ends carefully, feeling strangely comforted by the metal on my neck. Before leaving to the city, I had removed and left my own necklace, the small, delicate silver work and the pearl pendant were much too anachronistic. But I had worn it for many years and it became almost a replacement for a wedding ring – an article that I as an EMT, considered much too unsafe – and I felt oddly exposed without it.
Now I had my pass but, nonetheless, I felt it preferable to avoid being inspected by curious soldiers from the future. A single misstep, a glimmer of understanding, a smile or too forward a look, would be sufficient to expose me entirely.
I looked around. The street, coming to the gate, was emptying rapidly. There was the unfortunate traveler, still marooned with the soldiers at the gate, a befuddled expression warring with fear on his face as his incomprehension of these barbarians gave way to cautious dread. There were some women carrying baskets – they would not do, they were much too short, and seemed much too friendly. A stranger couldn’t slip through the group without standing out.
I ducked between two men leading laden mules; both were about my height, with large, disheveled, oiled beards and long hair tumbling darkly onto bare backs. The mules and their sacks seemed reluctant to go into the gate, and one of the men was tugging at the rope of his mule, yelling a string of offences of which I caught maybe one word out of twenty. They and the mob gathered around them stumbled along slowly, and I drifted unnoticed through the guarded gate.
Inside the walls, the atmosphere and look of the city changed drastically. If it weren’t for the construction of the houses and the material, I mgiht’ve thought I was in the financial district of New York.
The Sumerians, and the Akkadians after them, in an atypical move to the dwellers of the Middle East, liked their streets and their houses and their squares entirely straight. The houses were laid out in dried brick – not nearly as efficient as its modern, baked counterpart but, I figured, in the heat of the Fertile Crescent it was bound to do – and the streets were wide enough to accommodate carts.
The citizens, too, had become much neater, their clothes upgrading from a shade of indescribable brown into something that looked considerably more off-white. Now came the hard part; Akkadian cities were notoriously compartmentalized, each district specializing in its own, particular occupation. Most of the administrative work, temple duties and even some of the workshops would be located at the ziggurat, but if I wanted to pawn off my modern glass bottles, I would need to look for merchants.
I lifted my eyes up, scanning the horizon.
The ziggurat in all its ancient glory was the first thing I saw in front of my eyes. It stood out, huge and tall and somehow more massive than reality should permit, against the blue sky.
Last I’d seen it, it was drawn faintly against a ragged, desert sunset, its structure crumbled and, while still clearly recognizable, lacking entirely in its former impressive outlines. Now it stood starkly against the bright light of day, and sloped up…. And up… and up….
I stared at it with the hatred of an old enemy and the wonder of a village girl first time in the big city. There is something about ziggurats; say what you will about the ancients’ culture, civilization, or institutions, they understood what impresses people, and used it to the hilt. The ziggurat drove it home, above the mud huts and the clay brick houses and the narrow streets, that the gods, whoever they were, were not to be trifled with. Nor should the people sitting in the temple.
Right now, that was the 5th Column, which made this sentiment truer than ever before.
Just one more thing for me to pay attention to. But first,, I had to find the market.
Rationally, it would be located close to the temple, perhaps at a large plaza. Yet, despite the square nature of the city, I could foresee a long and tiring trek looking through streets and access ways.
I had no mood for that sort of chase. Instead I looked about me again, spotting the unfortunate merchant, holding to a necklace and a tag in one hand, and to his donkey in the other. He would be bound for the marketplace, or, at the least, to the merchants’ district.
I nodded to myself and followed suit.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter LIII
In Which A Shopping Trip Is Under Way
The market of Shubat Anshar was a teeming sort of place. I found myself cringing in horror from a mass of pushing, yelling, adamant humanity, all elbows and knees and braying donkeys and huge baskets and wheeled wooden platforms.
The place reeked of rotting fish, salted pungent meats, overripe fruit and vegetables sitting too long in the sun, and the pervasive odour of sweat wafting from thousands of hot, moderately unwashed, extremely unperfumed bodies. Markets in their old-fashioned, Mediterranean form are places with which I have a complex love-hate relationship – wavering between the pricing of obscure delicacies and the penchant to quench an impulse to hide in a dark corner – even in modern times. This corner of chaos was, for me, a nightmarish encounter.
‘My’ merchant had long since swerved into one of the narrow, smelly alleys off of the main plaza. I sheltered in the wide shadow of the ziggurat itself and tried to visually get a grip on present circumstances.
The Akkadians did not use coinage, although their system of trade was as punctiliously set as any modern economy. Though the base unit in the Middle East has, since even earlier antiquity been the silver shekel – a word basically meaning nothing more complex than ’weight’ – the majority of trade among the simpler people in the market did not see much in the way of silver pass from hand to hand. People used small amounts of copper – the penny to the silver dollar, I smirked to myself – or measures of barley and fish, all carefully laid out on the scales, product to product.
I wished I could pick up conversation. The hum of people was, aside from a word here, a sentence there, almost entirely incomprehensible. Without the chatter of people I could not – having no basis for comparison – assess accurately the city, its mood, and how it deviated from normal.
The people around me did not, in fact, seem more scared than one would expect a complicated, loud crowd at a marketplace to be. This was a population resilient to the whims of petty tyrants. Even such basic liberties as the code of Hammurabi were many centuries in the future. But that could also, indicate a sort of benevolent dictatorship on Auer’s part. So long as no one rebelled – and why should they, really? Up till a certain point in history the general population on the whole did not see itself as affected by the civic affairs of the states they presumably lived in – he could maintain a distant approach. Perhaps I considered, Auer would not wish to interfere in history.
I wandered around the market slowly, keeping out of the way of irate men with heavy loads. At least in one realm I had been entirely right; nobody looked at me twice. Occasional glances and raised eyebrows at my looks were present but aside from that I more or less blended into the crowd – a slightly taller than average woman with a slightly older face and a slightly bizarre tendency to hide her hair.
The stall selling little glass trinkets and beads as well as a few carefully placed perfume bottles of opaque, dirty glass was actually a little shop, with walls of stone and a roof made of beams and thatch and mud, leaning almost against the wall of the immense temple itself. It was placed between shops of like value, crammed in the middle of a row of counters presenting copper, silver and bead jewelry, and sacks of pungent spices. The man behind the counter was strong and prosperously corpulent, obviously well-fed compared to the peasants and petty traders, and in possession of a large proportion of his teeth.
After a certain amount of observation, I advanced upon his shop purposefully, and hovered expectantly in his line-of-sight until the image finally resolved. He barked something at me which, by the tone and context, was an irate variation on ‘what do you want?’.
I glanced about quickly and, not noticing any 5th Columnists about, drew the glass bottles out of my pouch.
I put them down on the counter, and held the trader’s gaze with a smile. His face was arrested. Imagine yourselves, for a moment, that someone’d just showed up at a used car dealership with a flying saucer. Hold the image firmly in your mind, and, while it is fresh in your imagination, apply it to glass. He picked up the small pill bottles with thick fingers, weighed them on his palm, then used a nail to flick at them. He weighed and measured them and, finally, conceded to give me his offer, grunting something which I eventually parsed as “two shekel.”
I laughed in his face.
“Kama?” I couldn’t help inquire with overt astonishment, and added to myself mentally ‘not in my life!’ before countering with “arbaa.” That wasn’t Akkadian, and it drew a frown of discomfort from the man, but I knew it was close enough. As much as I wanted to limit my communications with the natives – after all, the Hebrew I was using was not invented yet – the notion of selling prime glass so cheap grated on me horribly.
The bargaining session which ensued was fit for a silent film classic. The merchant balked as I played the primadona by gathering my merchandise and intending to march away and we both in general behaved like little children having a tantrum. The civilized notion of set prices, I confess, has much to say for itself by cutting this specific idea of supply and demand out of the loop. In the end, the merchant sighed heavily, and pulled out his large balance scales.
The market went deathly silent.
It was like a wave rippling along the place behind my turned back. Every gaggle of voices, every little activity, every tinkle of glass, clack of hooves, grating of wheels, ceased instantaneously as though cut with a knife. I turned around rapidly, seeing people prod each other with faces contorted with fear, and the crowds melted into the stonework.
I could not have believed that thousands of people could simply disappear like that yet the marketplace emptied almost magically. The wave of fear struck from the temple outward.
My merchant, scales still in hand, gulped, his rosy, tanned face going gray and flabby, and drew back into his stall with the alacrity of a much thinner man. I moved out and looked about me, confused. Then I saw it.
A wall slab opened slowly, majestically, in the side of the temple away from the main gates. I would not have seen it if I were not standing alone in a depopulated market, and, entirely by accident, looking directly at the corner of the temple furthest from the populace. Nonetheless, I felt sure that, somehow, with a sense of self-preservation born from life under many petty, arbitrary rulers, the denizens of the city knew instinctively that something was coming at them.
I looked around me frantically, searching for shelter and could not find any. ‘My’ glass merchant had conveniently slammed a thick wooden door in my face. From inside, I could hear him muttering what sound like fervent prayers. I darted off towards the nearest alley when a female hand reached out from one of the tiny, dingy shops littering the crannies too despised by the important traders, and pulled me behind a smelly, half-torn curtain.
Inside, I huddled with two more women, and a gaggle of children, as the sound of metal and well-shoed footsteps pounded across the street. I moved closer to the curtain, shaking off the concerned hand of the woman behind me, and peered out through the folds.
A Warwolf and three more soldiers, bearing large ultra-modern rifles, marched in stride along the marketplace. The Warwolf’s face was expressionless, devoid of canine joy or wrath, and the bug-eyed helmets of the soldiers behind him were equally unrevealing. The set of their shoulders, however, indicated a sort of relaxation that people worried about being shot with a bronze-tipped arrow in the back wouldn’t display.
The 5th marched through rapidly, stopping here and there only occasionally to peer inside shops, obviously on a surveillance mission. The stalls into which they peered erupted momentarily with fearful exclamations though – to their credit, or perhaps to Auer’s, no further carnage ensued.
The Warwolf poked his head into the shop of the glass merchant. There was a tinkling, and an indignant cry. The fat man stormed out, face red and arms waving. The Warwolf stared down at him, and growled, grabbing him by his tunic and lifting him up in the air. Then he motioned with his free arm – Warwolf throats were not well-suited to commands, I thought with wry amusement – and the soldiers marched in to the store. There was the sound of a massive amount of glass shattering and breaking and crumbling as the 5th Columnists searched the place and the Warwolf held up the choking, twitching man. Then they marched out, flinging the door shut behind them.
The Warwolf eyed the man in his fist thoughtfully, then dropped him down. The merchant groaned, and lay immobile.
The soldiers laughed behind their helmets. One of them prodded the man with the tip of what was obviously a painful jab to the ribs. Then the entire squad cleared out.
Slowly, hesitantly, people started poking their heads out of their hiding-holes. Two of the glass-trader’s neighbours dragged him away and sat him up, half-panting half-sobbing, in the shade.
As soon as the heavy, booted footsteps of the 5th soldiers receded, I escaped the women and their wailing, upset children. I flung back the curtain, drew down my scarf and, huddled in the shadow of buildings and straw roofs, rapidly followed the disappearing patrol. The men and the wolf took their time scanning through the market, occasionally going into random shops, obviously in search of hidden weapons, instigators of disorder, and time travelers. After about a half hour, however, the marketplace appeared clear.
We – the 5th leading, me following silently behind – have arrived in the main square. The booths and stalls and shops ranged all about the place, but it itself remained clear except for rapidly moving shoppers. Now that the 5th appeared, they, too, have largely disappeared, choosing prudent caution over curiousity. Obviously, the inhabitants of the city were already more than familiar both with the intimidating Warwolf and the Column’s automatic weapons. The square itself, as appropriate, lay right before the main entrance to the temple of Shubat Anshar with its large, carved doors. The place was guarded by four more soldiers, lounging about, who waved at the patrol lazily.
One of the soldiers lifted a radio speaker to his lips while another carefully extracted and activated the transmitter – the 5th, too, appeared to be in short supply for batteries – and the soldier spoke into it briefly.
“Everything’s clear. We’re ready for you, sir.”
Uh oh.
I drew back further, tucking my bag of bronze and occasional silver slivers deep under the long, fringed poncho of a local dweller, huddling in on myself in the corner in a stance that attempted to make me almost invisible against the stone and fluttering cloth behind which I concealed myself.
Just in time it appeared, because the vast doors of the temple slowly swung out.
It seemed that Auer was about to have a meeting.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter LIV
In Which a Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste
I will admit, I was nervous. Madam Rabinovich, while being the most suited of us all to blend in amongst the natives without being discovered, had gone unprotected into unknown territory with unknown threats. We were altogether unsure of what kind of presence the Fifth Column had in Shubat Anshar and what sort of condition the city was in. Had it been turned into some kind of ghetto, where the people were starving and somehow both isolated and crowded together at the same time? Would there be laws regarding movement in the streets and hours of activity which she might easily break? And would the punishments be severe and executed on the spot?
The variables were many, the dangers were high, but the need was great. So we waited.
The nervousness was exacerbated by the boring tedium of our wait. Mister Ward was completely sullen and withdrawn, huddle in a corner, while Mister Kushan restlessly moved from place to place, observation point to slitted window, trying to keep watch in all directions simultaneously. At any moment, he seemed to expect the owner of the shomera to return, or for the Fifth Column to start scouring the countryside after the outpost fails to respond to their radio calls.
The discovery that the Fifth still had working radio here had disturbed me. Yes, it was completely standard for all military squads to carry some form of portable self-powered communication equipment, but they required batteries to run; batteries which could not be recharged or purchased here in the past. For the soldiers in the post to have kept theirs in standby mode for an indeterminate amount of time meant that they were unworried; either they had a significant number of replacement batteries stored somewhere, or they had some means to recharge them.
Yet, they used torches instead of flashlights or portable electric lamps.
It was one of the many conundrums that kept my mind occupied during those long hours. If we had Mister Rabinovich here or even young Victor then I mightve gotten a satisfactory answer; my own knowledge of electric generators and rechargeable batteries was, admittedly, pedestrian.
Im going to go try the radio again, Mister Kushan announced suddenly, breaking the unnerving silence. There was still no sign of his brother and it was putting him on edge; at first he was content with sending out an SOS message once a day, but it had recently been upped to two times. This would be the fourth time today.
Watch for patrols, I replied automatically and he rolled his eyes at the useless, obvious advice. If he was going out, though, he would be trying to reach a high point to broadcast a hill or one of the other small towers used as observation points by farmers and Fifth patrols. While youre out, perhaps you should do some looking around? Maybe venture a little further than normal. At some point, the Fifth will send a patrol to investigate the outpost.
Sure, Ill keep an eye on the pass. He tapped his temple, indicating the cybernetic implant.
I gave him a half-smile and rose to the bait. I would rather you keep it inside your head and merely watch the pass.
He started to laugh, then suddenly went sober as we were both reminded of his brother, the incorrigible punster. I grimaced and started to make an apology, but he had already spun on his heel and quickly left. It was unnerving to me to see the normal calm and callous Rostov Kushan in such a mood, but completely understandable. We were all being thrown off balance by these circumstances.
Who left? I heard Mister Ward whisper. Apparently, he could feel our footsteps through the ground or the movements of the air, and the mercenarys quick departure had drawn his attention. Anybody still here?
I stood up from the lotus position I had been using for meditation and made deliberately hard steps across to Mister Ward. His head snapped to my direction and he stared blankly at me. I took off my fedora and dropped it on his lap.
Oh, its you, Lorenzo, he said, no longer whispering. I guess he had been afraid that we had run off to stop some patrol nearby, so he had been silent so as not to be heard. I guess that was Rostov who left, then. He snorted. I shouldnt be so worried; hes probably just going to use the bathroom or something, huh?
I sighed heavily. This was stupid; here he was, forced to guess at things and have empty conversations and untold worry, all because I was reticent to have somebody reading my thoughts. Unlike him or Madam Rabinovich, my only psionic defenses had been a well-organized mind and strong will, and a hefty layer of magical shielding. The shielding was now gone
I kneeled in front of him and grabbed one of his hands.
Whats going on? He asked, then swallowed heavily. You dont know sign language, do you? I learned as a kid to read sign language done in my hand, like Helen Keller.
I reached out with my other hand and tapped him on the forehead.
Seriously? You want me to- ow! Perhaps the thump I gave him on the forehead the second time was a bit too strong. Alright. I cant really do much beyond read surface thoughts. So you can either think something strongly, or if you talk or subvocalize, I can catch those as-
I know. Madam Rabinovich told me.
He scrunched up his face. You even think of her as Madam? Sheesh. Dont you think thats a little overboard?
No, Mister Ward. The title and last name had been, at one point in my life, the proper thing for a gentleman to use. Nowadays well, in the early 21st century it was a quirky little anachronism that drew a look or two until people got used to it. For some reason, the more I modernized, the more important I felt it was for me to keep this up. A last bastion of resistance, I suppose.
Wow, I never thought of it that way.
Startled, I released his hand.
Wait! He lurched forward, grabbing me by the wrist. I dont have any range whatsoever.
Im sorry. You merely read a thought that I hadnt intended for you to.
Oh. He looked down sheepishly. Im sorry. I thought- With Sofia, all I can hear are the things that she specifically gives me; her mind is too slippery otherwise. So I was just figuring that whatever I hear is okay
Perhaps you can listen a little less well, I replied, still on edge, with annoyance in my voice. I have no idea how well that translated into thought.
It translates pretty we- He cut himself off and groaned. That was a private thought, wasnt it? Geez, do you have to think so loud?
I laughed. You arent the first to ask that. Normally, I have defenses which prevent it from being an issue. I generally think clearly and strongly as a way to organize my thoughts
I shall be more careful while we maintain contact.
You can try
He reached up and scratched his head. My thoughts turned momentarily to the possibility of lice and fleas; a common problem in a society like this without much of a cure. He grimaced and I couldnt help but laugh.
Whered Rostov go, anyway?
To do some scouting and try to radio his brother again.
Vic
He shook his head sadly. Our best is that the Fifth Column snagged him and are keeping him alive as a prisoner, isnt it? Hows he taking it?
Not well, then I added, for a Kushan. Hes upset, but you wouldnt be able to catch it if you didnt know him.
Mister Ward nodded. Were all like that, rea-
I put a hand over his mouth and turned to the entrance. I could hear someone running outside. I drew my pistol and waited patiently as the steps approached
Then thought better of it and took out the swordstick. If it was a Fifth Column soldier, I might have little choice but to use the gun to get a first strike, but otherwise, it would be better not to have a loud gunshot give away our position.
Its me
Rostov Kushan announced before coming in, thus voiding all my preparations. I saw a patrol.
Where?! Mister Ward and I asked simultaneously, causing him to give us a weird look.
Not here, but coming down the pass. He jerked in the direction of the destroyed outpost with his thumb. Pretty determined looking, too.
Lovely. I looked back and forth between my two companions. We had hoped wed get at least one more day before someone reported in.
But why not radio it in? Mister Ward asked. Why are they doing it on foot er, horse?
Maybe they dont have one strong enough on hand. Kushan grinned, baring his fangs. We kind of disabled the one there.
That meant the soldier would need to be within a few kilometers of the city and free of any obstructions. We could easily move to intercept him and stop the message from getting back.
But wont that give things away?
I glared down at Mister Ward, who grimaced, then turned back to Kushan. If we do nothing, then they report in and the Fifth find out now; if we stop them, then the Fifth will have to wait at least a few more hours before deciding the patrol has disappeared and isnt just late. I would like to buy Madam Rabinovich as much time as possible before she can no longer move freely.
The look on Mister Kushans face was positively wolven. Then lets go.
Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich
Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?
Chapter LV
In Which A Show Is Staged
I had last seen Auer in the dark, blinded by a bright spotlight. The sunlight had not been charitable to the man. He was still pudgy and flabby and elderly, his hair shining grayly with sweat. In the sun, he looked drooping, as though his skin has become a few sizes too big for his body, and the wrinkles deepened. Even so, he was far from laughable.
He strode out into the square determinedly, escorted by a pair of tall Columnists, with more tall, helmeted shapes following suit. The Warwolf stood at attention together with his contingent, and Auer nodded to him cordially. I wondered how the soldiers managed to swallow the unprepossessing academic; I had had trouble enough commanding respect even when I could summon fire on a whim, as Sofia Rabinovich the 'hero', not to mention in my persona as Dr. Rabinovich, PhD. Auer appeared to have little trouble. Perhaps due to the deference the huge Warwolf regarded him with.
There was something almost... canine, I thought, in the huge beast's stance. Auer was clearly the pack leader.
Auer, just as the rest of the soldiers, was not dressed to blend in. He had, apparently, felt no necessity to cater to the local style of kilts and shawls which, considering his physique, was perhaps for the best. It did, however, tell me something surprising; Auer was not a fool, and that he did not care about historical anachronisms and continuity told me... something.
People were gathering in the square now. Or rather, I reconsidered when several more soldiers strode in, rifles held loosely in their hands, were gathered. I counted bodies rapidly; it was not an easy task, as the mass of uniformed men kept shifting about, extra people coming in, some leaving. I could not make heads or tails of the precise forces but, even so, one thing was potently clear – we could not hope to engage this force directly, we simply hadn't the ammunition for it. Our only hope was stealth.
“You two,” Auer commanded crisply, “make them form some sort of square around here. We cannot have a mob.”
Two soldiers detached themselves from the contingent, walking back and forth along the gathering lines of people, for all the world like police at a mess event or a celebrity showing. The Akkadians displayed no more inclination than the common American to hang back and keep order.
“Have the generator set up in the corner farthest out; we want as few people as possible to see what it is.”
The Warwolf nodded, growled a sort of acknowledgment, and loped off, returning shortly, followed by a boxy aggregate on wheels.
Behind the wheeled machine came a small, thin figure.
I frowned. The person lugging the generator together with the huge Warwolf was much shorter and smaller than the run of the mill Columnist. He wore no helmet, and there was a shack of wild hair sprouting from his – or her – head. The person did, however, wear the uniform. I couldn't make out facial features – he was turned the wrong way, and the light angle was poor – but I did note with amusement that the small figure had had to roll up the sleeves of the tight shirt and wad them at the cuffs to leave the hands free.
I stared at this new addition to the ranks fixedly. Could this be...? The suspicions were making me breathe shallowly and lose any minimal grip I had on conversations.
It was hopeless. I could no more make out definitely from where I stood than I could hope to pounce Auer and throttle him. The latter was not in my plans, but the former had to be accomplished, even if some risks were to be taken trying.
I scooted out of my corner slowly, sidling inside the crowds. I lost track of Auer and his Warwolf and soldiers, the low murmurs of the silent crowds obscuring their speech entirely. Cautiously, I edged through ranks of men and women, dodging where I could and gently pushing through where I couldn't, until I made my way to the southern end of the square and ducked out of the crowds at the corner of the temple's walls.
The generator was now right before my eyes.
It was a makeshift construct. I was never the expert on technology my husband is, but even I could tell that it would be, compared to the generators I was used to from home, low-power and finicky. It was a jumble of parts; the magnet was suspended over the wooden frame with rods wrapped in isolating material, and the spool of copper was wrapped on a hollowed-out wooden cylinder. Somebody was running about behind the generator, stretching out wires and clamping down metal switches.
Auer and his Warwolf were walking over, as well, ready, it appeared, to inspect the generator. Just as they approached, the tangle of wires suddenly and surprisingly – as though of its won free will – sorted itself out, and the small figure of the technician darted out to stand before them.
I gasped inaudibly. Victor Kushan was thinner even than I remembered him, and looked almost as sallow as Auer.
We'd hoped, quietly and out of Rostov's hearing, that Victor had been gathered by the 5th Column as a hostage. A presumably valuable prisoner. The alternatives – any that we could think of in our petty, pessimistic minds – were all worse: that he would starve attempting to survive in the wild; that he would be killed by angry natives, unable to cross the language barriers; that – whether worst or best I could not tell – he would be killed by the Column outright, shot on sight.
Apparently Auer realized the potential of his young hostage, and did him the favour of keeping him alive and useful.
It did not appear, however, that the Column was doing him any unrequited favours. There was a livid bruise on his face, and he was walking a little stiffly, even when he ran around – not at his usual eye-blurring speed, of course, but rather awkwardly and quite detectibly – as though his ribs hurt.
“... they are at it again!” I heard Auer comment indignantly as they approached. “You must make your men stop this nonsense. The boy is the most useful asset we have.”
The Warwolf growled lowly, clearly displeased.
I was not much pleased myself, though for reasons different than the wolf's – whatever these were. That Victor had proven an asset to the Column was not altogether surprising, but that he was so willingly – even eagerly, I scanned his face closely under hooded eyelids – helping them in their task was... unfortunate. Their task, I thought vaguely, their uniform, their goals? I couldn't know. Not from this distance, and not in so short a time. Psychologically, Victor was certainly prone to suffering the effects of prolonged loneliness and alienation. If Auer had been smart – and I could see he had been – Victor was a plum ripe for the picking.
“Mister Kushan,” Auer was polite and formal, with a note of almost patronizing parenthood. “Is the generator ready?”
“Yeah, you bet! I got it all right here and I only need a minute to hook it up.”
“We are bringing out the prisoners now, Mister Kushan,” Auer gestured at the vast doors of the temple. “Please be sure that the generator is ready when they – and I – appear.”
I recognized, quickly and unhesitantly, the trappings to a scam. Even if Auer had not set himself up as a god, he had been shooting high and, perhaps, hitting higher. Victor darted off at a sort of awkward jog and I felt momentary pity towards him, tangling in the endless copper wires, stumbling on the rough cobblestones, unused still to the new slowness of movement.
Auer strode off, disappearing behind the generator and out of sight. The Warwolf shrugged his massive shoulders, glared at Victor – who grinned back impudently – and stalked off to menace occasional passers-by.
A moment later the temple doors swung out once again.
Vic darted, and the light of a projector suddenly sprang to life, illuminating the square – already bright and washed with sunlight – still further, vanishing all shadows entirely. The people around backed instinctively, and I reminded myself, just in time, to follow suit and cower together with them.
The doors revealed a long line of men, shackled together. They strode out, pursued by the customary rifle butts, and stood blinking in the immense light. The projector was directed right in their faces. The crowd, silent and obedient, neither cheered nor jeered these men – mostly men; I saw a woman sobbing silently at the end of the long tether.
There was a massive, unanimous, vastly impressive cocking of rifles. The click reverberated along the square, resounding on the walls. Then, out of the sole remaining shadows by the generator – right next to me, I noted, pressing slightly back – Auer materialized out of a cloud of smoke.
Lorenzo would be impressed, I thought to myself, regarding the theatre of special effects and cunning psychology. Say what you will about Auer, he was a showman, and he put on a superior sort of entertainment.
He strode past me, seeming to be taller and grander than he really was in the brilliant light. And then, just for a moment, as though in slow motion, something pulled at his attention. He halted his advance, swung on his heel silently, and turned around.
And then Auer's gaze met my eyes.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter LVI
In Which Understanding Dawns
The sunlight reflected brightly off the face of my pocketwatch and I winced, hastily tucking it back into my jacket. The occlusion of all reflective objects is a basic rule of fieldwork, and I chided myself for not being more careful. I did a quick inventory of my apparel, and was quite pleased to find that even the metal buttons would not give me away, as dull as they had become from several days of dust and dirt without cleaning.
Im still not sure I like this plan, Mister Ward announced quietly as he sat on the ground, leaning against a palm tree. Being a short man even when standing, he was now hidden almost completely amongst the growth of fronds and grasses that surrounded the base of the tree. Or were part of the plant itself? I am not an expert on date palms, sadly.
If you can provide us with a better alternative, I replied, we will gladly take it under consideration.
Mister Ward sighed, obviously unable to come up with something else. Safer plans had been discussed, but they always came down to the issue of trying to eliminate the 5th Columnists before they could get a single shot off. Our ambush point was located at the beginning of the hills, out of sight of Shubat Anshar and its surrounding farms, but still close enough that any gunshots would be heard from the city. Furthermore, we only had the one suppressor at our disposal, so Rostov Kushan alone would need to shoot four men on horseback fast enough and clean enough that none of them would get a chance to pull a trigger.
We all hoped they had left their safeties on.
Frankly, with Mister Kushans cybernetically enhanced skills, it was well within the realm of possibility that he could succeed and eliminate them all singlehandedly. We had only come along in case there were complications though, to be more accurate, I had come along for that purpose and brought Mister Ward along because I wouldnt dare leave him alone in the shomera and if we had to give up on preserving stealth, we would have them trapped in a pincer.
I peered around the tree, trying to find our associate hidden in the orchard on the other side of the road. He was very good at this, even without the use of magic to cloak himself, and I probably would not have spotted him if I didnt already know where to look. He caught my eye and gave me a thumbs up.
A rustling sound came from behind and I span around quickly, preparing to draw my pistol. Much to my surprise, instead of wandering supersoldiers, I was faced with a group of Akkadians, wearing very little and armed to the teeth with what I surmised were peasant implements a sickle, a pickaxe, a mattock, and some kind of bow and arrow. The latter already had an arrow drawn, though the man was pointing it down at the ground.
One of the men shouted something at me in Akkadian and I sighed as my brain tried to parse it. Given the armaments, it was unlikely that these were bandits, and far more so that they were somehow related to the owner of this orchard. They probably thought that we were bandits. I couldnt shoot them, as easy a solution as that would be; my gun was not silenced and would immediately ruin our ambush. I couldnt really chase them off
What do we do? Mister Ward whispered. The men stared past me at my companion and made agitated sounds at each other. He gulped. Oh no
They must think were with Auer.
That settled it. I had no real choice
I took a few steps forward, making a show of using my cane as support. One of the men the one I figured to be the leader shook his head and shouted a command. This word I knew, even though it took me a bit to get past the pronunciation: stop.
I halted and lifted my cane in the air. In what I hoped to be a universal sign of a gift, I extend my hands palm up, with my cane draped across them. They exchanged puzzled looks and I resumed taking slow and measured steps, keeping the cane at chest level, trying my best to ignore the complaints of my knee.
For you, I declared in a feeble attempt at Akkadian. My pronunciation might have been kilometers off, but it is only a single word in the language and hopefully the meaning would become clear.
Gift, I added helpfully.
Lorenzo? Mister Ward asked plaintively, his voice touched with worry and fear. I had stepped outside of the range of his telepathy. You okay?
The Akkadians attentions all turned in his direction, the man with the bow and arrow raising it. Taking the minor distraction as my cue, I tripped the spring-load on my cane, and lunged. I struck first at the man with the bow and arrow, cutting a tendon in the arm to render it useless, and then moved on to the others.
These men were not fighters and probably had only used their tools as weapons when dealing with wild animals your average bandit probably ran away. They were slow, inaccurate, and had much shorter reach than I; to say that they had much of a chance in a fight would be quite forgiving. Even if I was fighting on a bad knee.
Lorenzo? Mister Ward called as I returned to him several minutes later. What happened?
What do you think happened, Mister Ward? I replied, wiping the blood off the blade.
He stared in my direction for a few long moments before replying darkly, Theyre all dead?
Indeed. I looked over my shoulder at the four corpses. Well, three of the corpses; one of them had attempted to run but a thrown cane had tripped him up before he made it more than a few meters. I had little choice. I had nothing to gag them with and I couldnt let them ruin the ambush by screaming.
I guess
He sighed and looked up from the ground, where he had been idly drawing symbols and shapes in the dirt, and tried to stare in my direction. That doesnt mean I have to like it.
I calmly slid the blade back into the sheath and began leaning on the cane once more. The change in stance drew further protests from my knee. I gave him a critical eye. What makes you think I do?
Huh? He scratched his head. It never seems to bother you. How many people have I seen you kill, anyways?
As many as I felt necessary, Mister Ward.
He pointed an accusatory finger in my direction. And if what you felt necessary always came to pass, the world would be a very different place, wouldnt it?
I felt as if I had been slapped, though I set my jaw to keep my composure something I immediately felt silly doing with my blind companion. He was, quite obviously, referring to the incident in 1938, where I decided to destroy all magic on Earth. The plan was relatively simple: the creation of spirit bombs (called an arcano-bomb these days) large enough and numerous enough to bathe the planet in spiritual fire harmless to normal matter and life, but deadly to magical ones. I would free humanity from the curse of ghosts and the influence of dark gods at a cost of countless lives
Tens perhaps hundreds of millions of people who carried the blood of the Mu or had other magical genes would be as susceptible as the cult members of the Banished Pantheon or the demon serving Oranbegans.
In fact, my first target was to be the Spirit Tree and the ghosts that tended to it. But old friends of mine came to the Nerva Archipelago and interrupted the ceremony, causing an explosion that ripped a hole between this dimension and the astral plane, where I was trapped until only recently.
In the last seventy years, magic had grown and become more of a part of human affairs and culture. Magic had even played a vital role in saving the humanity from the Rikti, building a barrier around their dimension and ending the devastating war. As international travel eased and globalization increased, the blood of the Mu became more widespread. I am told that as many as one out of six people alive carry it now, in some small fraction or another
people who would not exist if I had succeeded. Like Garent Ward.
I had been so sure, so certain, that I was doing what was necessary. That freedom from the shackles of hungry gods and vengeful spirits would be worth any cost. The survival of humanity depended on me! Even when I was inadvertently summoned to the present, I had thoughts in my mind of continuing what I had started
The Blood Book was still around, and the Circle of Thorns had even created a ritual that would allow the complete annihilation of magic users in one fell swoop. For a time, I even had enough pages of the Malleus Mundi to reshape humanity! And yet
I
I swallowed. I never claimed infallibility.
He gestured in the direction of the bodies. Im sure theyre comforted by the knowledge that you might be wrong.
I do regret the necessity of their deaths, Mister Ward - and I did, yes, even if I saw it through the lens of a soldier but in this I had no other options. If I had magic, yes. Or even rope and some cloth for gags.
If we had magic
He mumbled, sounding wistful and subdued. The stark contrast between his fiery accusation and his sullen musings struck me with some force and I was
concerned.
The sounds of hooves in the distance interrupted these moments of mutual understanding and I knew the time for the ambush had come.
Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich
Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?
Chapter LVII
In Which A Show Plays Out
I am not altogether certain what drew his attention. Perhaps I forgot to slump, perhaps the light reflected too brightly off of my pale face – compared to the rest of the crowd, mostly suntanned and naturally inclined to a darker skin I was an anomaly – perhaps it was precisely the observation skills of a proficient historian who noticed the appearance and carriage of a lady rising out of a tradeswoman's garb. I am not certain, and I never did find out. I can merely deduce and rationalize his behaviour in accordance to my own. He did almost precisely what I would have done and so, perhaps, had noticed what I had noticed.
I should have looked away. I should have looked horrified, or at least awed. But, in the second or so it took for me and Auer to stare at each other all I could think of was him, and us. Trying to get past the skull and the flesh and the nerves and touch the essence of my enemy's mind, that disembodied no-substance that governed his deeds and thoughts and abilities.
Auer frowned, and I woke up from my daydream. The entire incident was a mere seconds' length, and as ephemeral as the air, yet I was not in a position to expose myself, not even by so minor an infraction as a glance, or a breath. Afraid that Auer will notice the unusual blue of my eyes, or, perhaps worse, read the hidden, simmering anger in them, I lowered my glance first. He blinked, and sought me out, but I was already stepping back into the crowd, concealed by large hairdos and tall hats, by the bodies and faces of other men and women.
I saw Auer shrug slightly, and turn away. Apparently pulling someone from the crowds suddenly was not a part of his theatrical routine, and he was not much for improvisation. So much the better for me. I faded further into the crowds.
The momentary hesitation had not detracted from Auer's performance any. In fact, it gave him a more sinister air s he slowly strode along, and stopped – together with his Warwolf – in front of the line of prisoners. He spoke to them curtly, and most of them, except the woman, straightened up abruptly.
The warwolf growled lowly, and swiped an eloquent claw in the air. Auer smiled, a thin and unamused smirk. “Patience, my large friend,” he patted the warwolf's arm familiarly. “The niceties must be observed.”
He turned to the audience, spread his hands in a dramatic gesture, and began speaking in a deep, sonorous voice indicative of an experience as an orator, or vocal training. Perhaps also indicative of smartly concealed microphones and amplifiers, though I had no real way of knowing that.
His Akkadian, from what I could tell with my limitations of phonetics and lack of vocabulary, was superb, although I could clearly hear the Germanic accent underneath the Semitic consonants. He spoke just a little too clearly and precisely – a person speaking a foreign language – but I had to admire the man's facility. He was not beginning from zero for, as a collector of antiquities and connoisseur, he might've learned it before, but it is seldom that an adult can learn a language well in a matter of months.
In fact, I only knew of one person who, in similar circumstances, could have done a similar thing; myself.
I tore my eyes away from him, and looked over at the group of people the Column dragged out of the temple and put on display.
I knew what was coming. I had known what was coming from the very beginning. This was no mere social display – Auer had n interest in such – this was both a courtroom and an execution.
I examined the ten or so men and single woman with academic interest. The woman, who drew my attention first, was not remarkable in any way – a fact that made her, and this performance for the public's delectation, quite remarkable. The ornaments that must have been in her graying hair were removed and she looked sallow. But, contrary to my expectations from the vast majority of the Columnists, her clothes were altogether intact; the small rips and tears in them more likely the result of everyday erosion and a spot of rough living than actual manhandling.
The men were all different. It was impossible to tell by sight who and what they were, except for one very large, gloomy fellow with a severed hand. I couldn’t recall offhand any statute of punishment in the Hammurabi Codex (which wasn’t written yet anyway) but handless lunatics tended to have been found guilty of theft.
Immediately next to him was a small, cowering, nervous man who, for al his waxed – now slightly rumpled – Sumerian beard, looked nothing so much as an accountant, or a clerk. The large chain with which the prisoners were connected to each other dangled off of a spindly, thin leg, and almost dragged him down bodily. I snickered, imagining his verdict: executed under the offence of punctilious bookkeeping.
To say that my sympathy towards the prisoners was overwhelming would, frankly, be an exaggeration. To say that I was inclined, even for a moment, to abandon my disguise and rush to their aid would be folly. I could not even – since I didn’t understand Auer's speech – form an opinion as to these people’s innocence or guilt. I did not know these people's sins, but I knew how reigns of terror looked and this was not it.
How inclined would a newly established dictator, in order to appear benevolent, be to at least mix his political opposition in with real criminals? I would. I reflected with a modicum of amusement, that Auer was clearly taking a leaf out of Pratchett’s book – books, actually – on how a tyrant today would ensure his own employment as a tyrant tomorrow.
I narrowed my eyes against the glare of the projector and the sun, and clasped my hands behind my back to watch.
By the end of Auer's speech, the men looked frightened, and the woman was hysterical. He stepped back from the light of the projector and into relative shadow, motioning for the warwolf to advance. I heard him say, quietly, though audibly above the murmur of the crowd, “the woman first.”
I was expecting a firing squad. There were enough men with rifles there to lay waste to the pitiful throng in seconds, but that was not what happened.
The warwolf loped towards the prisoners easily, the remnants of humanity in his face filled with dreadful exhilaration that made me both wary and ill. He extended a large, muscular hand, claws outthrust, and swiped once. Cleanly as an executioner's axe, with the efficiency of a guillotine, the woman's neck was severed. The wolf's claws had gone through flesh and artery and the fragile bones of the spine, emerging in the back, covered completely with rapidly darkening blood.
There was an audible gasp of – appreciation? Fear? Maybe both – from the crowds. The woman’s head rolled and bounced off the cobbles, stopping almost surreally a few centimeters in front of the sandaled toes of the first line.
Blood spurted from the woman’s severed neck, and coloured the cobblestones crimson.
The line of prisoners shuddered. The Warwolf turned, and swiped again. A man’s head rolled off, mouth open to scream in surprise and horror. The silence in the crowd was now profound; I thought, from my spot towards the front, that people had forgotten to even breathe. I wondered at it. Surely brutal executions were part of this ancient culture which barely edged in to what we could call “civilization’. Nonetheless, I supposed, swords were nothing to this particular execution. It was more akin to the drawing and quartering by horses in its feel… But, surely, even the vilest of horses could not display such joy at their work.
Minutes later, it was all over. The small heap of severed heads, eyes open, mouths occasionally gaping grotesquely, piled in front of the line of dead bodies.
Auer turned around abruptly, and gestured. The projector light dimmed, and the square was bathed now only in regular sunlight. The soldiers, impassive underneath their helmets, hefted their rifles expectantly, but nobody made an attempt to move.
“Clean up,” Auer said in a low, brisk voice. “Dispose of the bodies. Find their families or something. Do not bother to put them up on pikes; all we need presently is an outburst of the plague.”
I glanced quickly around, seeking out the small form by the generator. Victor had been whistling something I didn’t recognize to himself before. I didn’t expect for him to do much else; he was, in some ways, the worst kind of innocent – one who didn’t truly process other people’s pain. He was not evil – that definition is much too simplistic and trite to apply to people – but the potential was there. Far greater and more frightening than it had ever been in his mercenary brother, for all his cynical, jaded nature.
He was eyeing the heap of bodies with an expression that was not frightened, but slightly thoughtful. As though they were an illustration to a point that had been made, and was not given good examples.
I turned away reluctantly. There was nothing I could do for him, either.
The crowds were beginning to scatter. Slowly, warily, people on the edges began to drift off to their daily tasks. The center still stood, but there were small waves of movement going inside. I looked round, and started threading my way between several people out to the marketplace. The 5th were pulling workers for body cleanup, and I did not want to be caught in a random work-gang under the spotlight.
The Warwolf, on the other hand, disappeared entirely.
I frowned, pushing out with my elbows, swimming with the tide of people like a sardine neatly packaged into a can, head first and eyes slightly bulging. Shouldn’t the Warwolf be out there, supervising something? Then I saw him; he was moving around the edges of the crowd, bent almost double, nose twitching.
Uh oh.
I’d underestimated Auer’s skills and memory. Apparently, the strange woman he saw continued nagging at him, at least subliminally, and he decided it would be wise to track her down, sending the Warwolf to do just that. By scent, I realized. Perhaps he didn’t quite remember what I’d looked like. With the speed of a desperate eel – the fishy metaphors simply wouldn’t leave my head – I dodged out of my path, and back towards the alleys branching from the square to the seedier parts of the market.
The show was clearly over. It was time to go.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter LVIII
In Which Brains Triumph Over Brawn
The soldiers were riding single file at a casual gait with their rifles resting lightly in one arm. With their helmets on, I could not read their faces, but they sat with an ease and confidence which initially surprised me; perhaps they had not seen the destroyed outpost? But, no, Rostov Kushan had said that they had been in a hurry earlier and were constantly looking up on the hillsides for ambushes.
I saw one of the soldiers shift and turn his head, trying to look over the trees of the orchard to the hilltop beyond.
Of course: they were still wary and suspicious, but having travelled this far without incident and with Shubat Anshar this close ahead, they had decided that the threat had passed. They would soon discover how wrong they were.
I darted back behind the tree as they approached. The sounds of the wood had died down the birds and small animals having hid and so I was left with ringing of hooves and the deep breaths of Mister Ward and myself. He could not hear these sounds, and even my running subvocalized commentary keeping him informed could not supply him with any of the environmental suspense, so he was even tenser than I.
I heard the sound of suppressed gunfire and the whinny of horses; if all was going to plan, the four soldiers would be dead or dying at this very moment. Just in case, though, I span around the tree and charged, stumbling a few times as my bad knee refused to cooperate with the dense foliage surrounding the trees. I broke through the green in time to hear the sound of an assault rifle burst.
Objective: Remain undetected
failed.
Two of the horses were on the ground and I could see another two running down the road, riderless. One of the Columnists was standing in the middle of the road, firing wildly into the brush on the other side, where I assumed Mister Kushan had taken flight after his sneak attack failed. I quickly glanced to the sides and frowned, only seeing one other Columnist, who lay in the dirt, a pool of blood growing around him.
I raised my pistol, aimed it at the soldier, and fired three quick shots. He tumbled forwards, but did not fall, so I aimed more carefully at the joint between his body armor and his helmet, and sent another rapid trio of hot lead into him. He collapsed satisfactorily, clutching his throat.
There was movement in my peripheral vision and instinct took over; I leapt backwards and behind a tree, which soon became the target of a hail of machinegun fire. Apparently one of the soldiers had been using his downed horse as cover. When the burst halted, I resisted the urge to peek out from the tree and see if he was still there; such a move would be fatal. My only hope was for-
More automatic gunfire, joined quickly by a second set, neither of which was in my direction. I now took the liberally to sneak a look and had my suspicions confirmed: Mister Kushan had swapped to his assault rifle and was now exchanging shots with the Columnist. The ground was covered with blood from his poor animal, whose flank was littered with holes from the rifle. While I was certain that the beast wouldnt be enough to provide complete protection, it appeared that it was absorbing enough kinetic energy that the bullets wouldnt be able to get through the Columnist body armor.
Very useful
I made a mental note to confiscate some of the armor. While it would be far too large for anyone except, perhaps, Rostov Kushan to wear, we might be able to cannibalize some parts to provide us with some survivability. Better than nothing at all, at the least.
I made my way through the brush quietly. So far, Mister Kushan had proven himself to be faster and more accurate than his opponent, but he had been unable to score a solid shot and I was worried that the Columnist would get lucky; we couldnt afford any gunshot wounds. If I could just get past the horse...
The rifle exchange came to a halt while I was still passing behind some dense shrubbery, the result of the battle obscured. I cut through the foliage and took a quick look, find myself near the two downed horses. One soldier lay beneath a horse, apparently crushed by his own horse after Kushan had shot it in the initial moments of the engagement. I saw an assault rifle sans magazine where the other soldier had been taking cover, but its owner was missing. Had he taken flight? I stepped out of the orchard took a look up and down the road, without any luck.
A crunching sound in the grass beside me was the only warning I had before a hand grabbed my wrist and a knee crashed painfully into my stomach.
As a young man, I was thoroughly trained in swordsmanship and was well known duelist. At Oxford, I enjoyed the rugged sport of pugilism. While I am one hundred and forty years, I have taken good shape of my body in ways both natural and magical. That was enough for me to get through a handful of starved peasants with inferior weaponry. This was a Fifth Column soldier - a recipient of a veritable cocktail of strength and endurance enhancing serums and thorough training in martial arts. He would easily overwhelm me in a fair fight.
I twisted my arm, trying to swing my pistol around to get a close range shot, while he grabbed my hand and tried to pry my fingers off the grip. I stepped into him to prevent him from being able to kick me again, but that resulted in him trying to trip me a quite painful affair putting a lot of pressure on my knee. Luckily, he soon focused on the pistol and began successfully prying it from my grip.
Dammit, Lorenzo, youre in the way! I looked across the road and saw Rostov Kushan with his rifle pressed against his shoulder.
I slipped my thumb across the catch and dropped the magazine to the ground, then kicked it to the side. I caught the eye of the soldier and gave him what I hoped was a convincing look of triumph. He screamed in frustration and let go of the pistol. With lightning speed he punched me in stomach and wrapped an arm around my neck, positioning himself so that I would remain between him and Mister Kushan.
If you dont tell him to let me go, the Columnist ordered, Ill crush your throat.
I snorted, aimed the pistol down at his foot, and discharged the bullet that had remained in the chamber.
Moron.
While his body armor could do a good job deflecting bullets and absorbing impacts at a distance, it could do little to stop a .45 calibre bullet fired from less than a meter away. He released me and I span away quickly, moving to the side. My companion quickly took the advantage and peppered my assailant with bullets, sending a bloody and silent corpse into the tall grass.
Thats four, Rostov Kushan said as he crossed the distance, swinging the rifle around as he surveyed the battlefield.
I nodded in reply. We should double-check that theyre all dead. We do not want any unpalatable surprises.
Agreed. He looked down at the man he had just killed, and quickly fired a single burst into its chest, then gave me a wink. Check.
As he went down the road, confirming the deaths of the other three soldiers, I picked up the ejected magazine and counted the bullets remaining. I had lost seven rounds today; an unsatisfactory amount, given that I had no way of replenishing the stock that we had carried. The Fifth Column only seemed to carry 5.56mm NATO rounds, which is a common round and was good for Rostov Kushans assault rifle, but bad for our pistols, including his silenced one.
And I didnt even want to think about how many rounds he had wasted of those.
Last one! he called out as he fired a fourth time, then began to collect the magazines from the bodies. We can pull these guys out, but the dead horses will be a problem.
Hmm? I looked across the corpses. Ah, yes
I do not believe we should bother. Our chance for silence is ruined anyways, so we should just scavenge what we want and make a tactical retreat; who knows how long we have until somebody comes to investigate.
Probably not long. He pulled off one of the helmets and examined it. The headshots didnt work well just knocked them off their asses
horses. See! He tapped a spot on the back. Heres where I got this guy. Nothin but a small dent.
I sighed. Now we know for the future, I suppose.
Maybe next time well ask them to take their helmets off before we fight, he laughed.
I do not think that will work, I replied, maintaining a deadpan monotone.
He bought it. That was a joke, Lorenzo. Lighten up.
My apologies. I gave him a small smile and began to walk/hobble back to where Mister Ward sat waiting with my much-needed cane.
Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich
Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?
Chapter LVIV
In Which The Inescapable Looms, and Tears Are Aided By An Onion
I dodged into an alley. The crowds dispersed behind my back, and trickled off while I stood, catching my breath from the brief but difficult sprint, and considered my options.
Not running. The short span I attempted was an apt demonstration of my disability. The long day on my feet without any support was already making me wobble and lean on walls for balance; right now, it was all I could do not to sit where I stood. Either way, even if I were my old, middle-aged academic self, I couldn’t hope to outrun a Warwolf.
No, what I needed was a plan. The Warwolf would track me from where I stood, by scent as much as sight.
I stared down at my shawl and skirt, then darted out into a wider alley.
There were people walking along the road. Some of them carrying baskets, some of them pulling donkeys or small carts on rough, circular wheels. Men carrying wide loads on their backs, and women with bags strapped on their chest. I exhaled. Sumer had not yet reached the stage in human history when the gender inequality had become such that women were practically never seen on the street. They were, of course, the property of their men, but they were permitted to walk the streets on their own.
I hunted for a woman about my size. That was more difficult to find than one would think; many of the women running busily around barely reached my shoulder. I was in a hurry, but if I were to make a sloppy job of it, the results would be just as bad as if I hadn’t tried at all. I needed a woman who would not be too small, yet not so large that she would have the advantage of me. I passed on a tall, thin woman with a donkey; the fate of anything I took with me, or left behind me, would be sordid. There was no reason to condemn the animal for life in the wild or collateral death.
Then I spotted a taller, slightly broader woman, carrying a large oval woven basket strapped to her back. The basket was full of something, and she leaned forward under the considerable weight.
I grinned to myself, looking about. Then I snatched a rock from the unpaved ground, and followed.
For a few minutes, she and I dodged each other in the crowds. That was fine; the Warwolf and his nose would be somewhat confused by the odours of people, dirt, vegetables and strong smell of fish. Then she swerved a corner, and I hurried after her.
I saw where she was going; a small, tight little passageway between houses. The place was perfect. I hid my hands under my poncho, one holding on to the rock, and the other reaching for the small knife at my waist. Then I quickened my steps to reach the place before my quarry did.
She was much steadier on her feet, but I had no load of a heavy basket to carry.
I dodged between a large man and a pottery urn, and a nearby wall, when I saw my woman leaning on the corner of a house, resting before hefting the basket onto her back again. She leaned forward, eyes downcast, and I darted inside and away in a swirl of ridiculous skirts.
The alley was just narrow enough for two people to hedge forward, breast to breast. I leapt a small pool of rank water and raced toward the bright rectangle of its other end. I spun around dangerously on my heel, grabbed a clay wall for support, and turned around just as the woman walled in. She hefted her large basket with one hand, keeping it away from the walls. I nodded to her courteously from the other end, and she made a vague motion of a hand – a sort of perfunctory wave – at me from the other. Two women, taking a shortcut, greeting each other from a distance, blinded by the light.
We drew abreast. In the narrow passage, we were practically pressed against each other. My foot went sideways. There was a loud squawk and a thump as the woman was sent face down onto the ground. The basket dropped from her back and rolled open, spilling round items across the dirt. She stirred, and started to rise. I whipped out my hand with the knife, and pressed it against the back of her neck. The woman froze. I pursed my lips, and drew out my other hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said with all the sincerity I possess. Then I hit her over the head.
There was a tiny sound, almost like a kitten, and then she passed out. I tossed the rock away, laid down the knife, and began stripping her with slightly shaking hands, with nervous glances at the entrance to the alley. From this spot, I could have no way of knowing where the Warwolf was, and how close to me he had gotten. I was not very far from the place where I had been seen – and apparently, recognized – and he could be on us at any moment.
I switched out her skirt for mine. The woman was apparently taller than the one Rostov and Lorenzo had taken the clothes off of in the first place; her skirt reached down almost to mid-calf, and her poncho, draped over my shirt, covered the palms of my hands. I left my makeshift head-cover in place – it was telltale, but my hair would be doubly so. At least the brown colour could not be detected from afar. Then I dressed the other woman in my castoffs and painstakingly dragged her by the armpits to the entrance into the alley.
I sat her up carefully and shook her by the shoulder. She moaned and stared at me blearily. Out of sheer, reflexive habit, in a gesture that had, objectively, something from the mockery, I glanced at her slightly dilated pupils, searching for signs of concussion. Then I shook myself out of my pathetic delusions, and darted over to where the basket still lay, its contents spilled about.
I knelt to gather up some of the round items. Now that I was looking, I could see what they were. Onions. Perfect.
I sliced up several of the larger onions with my knife, dropping them onto the bottom of the basket. Then followed suit with a fragment of the rest of the load, wincing at the astringent smell and wiping my eyes. Then I picked up the basket, and took a deep breath.
When I strode out into the marketplace again, mere five minutes later, I was collected and serene, carrying my much lighter basket of pungent onions prominently. I strode slowly between the stalls with my bartered purse of copper and silver, gathering up vegetables, fruit and ground flour. I skipped the meat with a shudder of revulsion, doubting anyone else would mind.
The Warwolf loped into the market a few minutes later, carried on a wave of hushed terror.
I had to remind myself forcibly to resume sorting through the lettuce batches I held in my hands. I couldn’t, however, make myself turn away from the sight.
The Warwolf sniffed delicately in the air. It hesitated, looking confused and a little overwhelmed, then started circling the market, its strides purposeful. The large, lupine head occasionally darted down to peer into a stall then withdrew, people scattering and produce overthrown.
I swallowed a bout of fear nausea, and held out the payment for my lettuces, stashing them in my newly acquired basket with hands that felt nerveless.
Then the Warwolf tensed, and darted sideways. Slowly, with a relish of deliberation, the Warwolf followed an invisible trail, coming to a halt at the mouth of the alley. There was an ear-shattering roar and it pivoted, sending a claw into the murk, and coming out with my robbed victim, hanging helplessly in mid air, dizzy and disoriented and confused, the fear turning her face into a white mask.
I clenched my teeth and moved on to a large barrel of fish.
The Warwolf carried the anonymous woman boldly through the marketplace, and the throngs of people opened before it like some macabre red sea. The woman dangled, feet bumping the ground, crying out in pain as they did. Her eyes, for the brief moments that I could see them, were wide and mad and tormented.
The temptation to turn away and disappear into the consolation of carp was tremendous, but I stood completely still, one hand on the top of the cool, wooden barrel, and looked on.
In truth, I was rather pessimistic. If I were Auer – and, it seemed, he and I were not without common traits and modes of thought – I would not for a moment be fooled by the Warwolf’s quarry.
Indeed, no. It would simply tell Auer that his enemies were nearly – or perhaps not even nearly – as ruthless as himself. Would it, I wondered, put him on edge, or would it make him more complacent and comfortable, assured that he can predict our moves merely by calculating his own?
I had no desire to be Auer’s equal.
So I stood there, and refused to turn away, hoping somehow that this alone would make me different from him.
I wasn’t very convinced.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter LX
In Which A Return Journey Takes an Unexpected Detour, and Reaches an Unexpected Conclusion
They say that one cannot ever know another person until one walked a mile in their shoes. Walking several miles in another woman’s shoes – well, sandals – made me think rather little of the Akkadians, as a whole.
By the time I had returned back to our little camp, the sun was heavily edging west, and its slant sent painful light into my eyes. I squinted against the still-too-bright sunlight, and stumbled along the main road almost in a daze. My feet, I felt certain, would not carry me any more. The only thing keeping me more or less upright was sheer determination. The heavy basket which I still held – now full almost to capacity – strapped to my back, did little to alleviate my tiredness.
I would have been home an hour or perhaps more ago, but it seemed as though some secret cauldron had boiled over, and the Fifth had spilled out of it en masse, bubbling and excited. I was dodging horse and foot patrols most afternoon, diverting my route to little paths and scrambling through brambles of thorns – of which the Middle East has a not-insignificant abundance – and palm trees.
Once, while I was resting, breathless and aching, by the side of the road in the shade of a rock, a Fifth patrol galloped on lathered horses right over my head. I scuttled back into the brush, not even needing to fake the fear and astonishment on my face as the horses’ hooves racketed and thudded in the very spot which my body had occupied moments before. I cringed and huddled over my basket protectively, and relaxed a little only after a smug, sneering soldier told his comrades they had no ammunition to spare on natives that day.
The dread that the patrols aroused in me was, frankly, downright disproportionate. The frightening notion that the three men might’ve been picked up, taken prisoner, shot, and that I was left alone to wait practically inevitable capture made me hurry along even though I really couldn’t have. So I was striding down the road to our campsite as rapidly as I could, barely looking to the sides, when a tall, male, gun toting figure sprung out at me from behind a stretch of bushes.
I threw a hand up in warning, and quickly drew down the cloth that covered my hair. The sun reflected conveniently off the light colour, and the gun barrel promptly dropped.
“Hey, Sofia!” Rostov waves at me with his free hand. “What took you so long?”
“Shopping,” I informed him blandly, and swung the heavy basket off my shoulder, stretching relieved and almost paralyzed muscles. “Here. You can carry the groceries.”
He picked up my basket with no visible effort and peered inside. “Ah, dinner. Next time, go to a supermarket, Sofia. We were getting a little edgy. We have a timetable, you know.”
I didn’t, but I would not be altogether surprised if Rostov has devised one of his own while we weren’t watching, with little taglines like ‘acceptable time without a shower’ in it. “I’ve been dodging Fifth Columnists,” I said sourly, pointing back the way I came. “They multiplied along the roads as though someone used bug spray on them. Almost got trampled by a horse. I might have the hoofprints to show for it.”
We cleared the trees and, for a moment, I felt relief flood over my gloomy mood and hover in a thin layer, like oil on water. The scene was downright domestic; Lorenzo was wiping away specks of something on his sword, and Garent was holding the sheaf on his knees while sorting by touch through a pile of cloth and plastic. There was a subtle undertone of tension there, like a coiled spring hoarding elastic energy. At the sound of Riostov and my shoes crunching through the brush they both looked up from their tasks, and I thought I saw momentary relief flash across both faces.
Garent was the slightly more obvious one; his relief, I suspected, had as much to do with his discomfort at being dependent on the two men for information about the world around him as with the fact of my safe return. I did not begrudge him the touch of egotism, though, for a moment, I felt an almost overwhelming wave of tiredness and depression. My head was not a pretty place to be in. I clamped down on the events of the day, as well as the present momentary weakness, shoving them back all the way into my subconscious, where no amount of telepathy could get at them and dig them out. Then I went over to say my hellos.
“Sofia!” Garent practically bounded up with the closest thing to excitement I’ve ever seen out of the phlegmatic temperament he naturally possessed. I caught his hand to steady him over the rough ground, and literally felt the heavy focus of his psionic concentration shift back in my direction.
“Madam,” Lorenzo dropped the cloth he was using, and I thought I could see his brows draw down as a small measure of tension left his face and rigid posture. “I hope you have good news for us.”
“I’ve got some.”
He slumped slightly. In the rapidly fading light, he seemed suddenly very tired, and beaten. In fact, now that I looked more closely at him rather than at Garent – as was my first, automatic inclination – I noticed the bruises and the scratches and the long, angry red band around his neck.
“I saw—“ I closed my mouth with a snap and dropped to peer more closely. “My God. What happened to you?”
“We had a small ambush,” he smiled wryly.
“We were the small ambush,” Garent countered stoutly, feeling around for the sword sheaf he dropped.
“My God,” I repeated again, quite unnecessarily. “And Rostov?”
“Just a few bullet grazes and the like,” he shook his head thoughtfully. “We cannot afford serious injuries of any kind.”
I shuddered. We could not. The thought of treating a serious wound or sickness all on my own with limited supplies made my face bathe in cold sweat. This anticipation of bad luck – of which we seemed to have plenty – was chilling in ad of itself. It would suffice for one of us to be off their feet, and we would all be as good as dead.
“What about you?” I spun Garent around lightly, looking for concealed signs of assault and battery, but, for once, there were none. “At least they were not stupid enough to get you embroiled in this.”
“Oh, I was along. Lorenzo took care of it,” Garent’s face registered a momentary bleakness, and he fumbled slightly, lacing his fingers together, then prying them apart with an effort of will. The gesture was small enough to be almost unnoticeable, yet it conveyed nervousness and frustration all at once. I had a feeling it was not meant to be noticed; Garent, as is sometimes the case, was losing a small part of his ability to assess what other people could and could not detect. I wondered at the details of the day, eyeing the raw, purple bruise on Lorenzo’s neck. “It seemed to be okay. Lorenzo didn’t tell me he was hurt, though.”
I shook my head at the obvious response that followed and his ‘it was nothing worth mentioning’ got somewhat stuck in his throat. In no small amount, I suspected, because the throat hurt considerably after being used for a choke-hold.
“Stay here. I’ll get my things. And get Rostov to sit in one place as well.”
Buoyed by these firm instructions, I managed to work my way to where my bag was sitting, abandoned and forlorn, rather innocuously. When I returned, the fire was slowly taking from Rostov’s flint, and my basket was busily unpacked by three enthusiastic and hungry males. Even Garent displayed more than his usual share of excitement when contemplating a meal. I sorted through my equipment, coming out with the almost completely empty bottle of ethyl alcohol and bandages, as well as a non-regulation spool of catgut and needles. As an EMT I was not supposed to sew up wounds; I was supposed to bandage them and get the patient to a hospital where more professional people than I would stick needles into them under anesthesia, but I was prone to finding myself in circumstances where that was simply not practical.
I had been in the business of fixing people up for a long time. By now, I suppose, I have the experience of several ER physicians, and the skills of at least a paramedic. If I were ever inclined to spend two years of my life getting a certificate I’d never need or use, I could easily re-qualify. But I didn’t, and I hadn’t. Instead I simply got into the habit of being successful enough never to warrant attention – or a lawsuit.
“What happened in Shubat Anshar?”
I bit off a small piece of thin line and threaded it through my needle. “Which news do you want first, the good or the bad?”
“We could all use a break from the routine,” Lorenzo said wryly.
“All right. The good news is that Shubat Anshar seems mostly undisturbed. Except for one rather public, well-staged execution, we are not dealing with a reign of terror.”
“Auer is smarter than that,” Lorenzo commented mildly as I examined the bullet graze on Rostov’s shin. It was more of a burn than a wound, for his luck, except in one spot where the ricochet sent a piece of sharp rock surprisingly deep into the leg. The small piece did not embed itself in the muscle, but under Rostov’s hastily wrapped bandage the wound was surprisingly jagged and penetrating.
I dabbed cloth in alcohol, narrowing my eyes at it in the firelight. “That was precisely my thought. Do you need an anesthetic?”
“Nah,” Rostov shrugged his shoulders with discomfort under the detailed attention lavished on a minor wound. “It’s all blocked out.”
“Boys and their toys,” I commented dryly, satisfied. Rostov’s cybernetics and modifications were not particularly extensive compared to the large amount displayed by some super soldiers or mad scientists, but they were certainly convenient. I had not inquired into the mechanics of his pain blocker so long as it served its purpose. “The other two pieces of good news I have are that, firstly, the Fifth appear to be wearing their helmets in town as well as on patrol. At least they were when I last saw them. And, secondly, there is a rather neat side-entrance into the central temple.”
“What’s this, now?” Rostov’s lazy voice became suddenly considerably more alert. His military penchant for planning, and responsibility as the group’s strategists, were now fully engaged. He poked the fire with a stick several times, and stared down at me.
“A semi-secret passage leading, so I figure, from the back of the temple. It’s not guarded.”
“How convenient,” Rostov drawled sarcastically, then hissed as I splashed alcohol on his raw wound.
“Um… Why isn’t it guarded?” Garent reached his hands out to the fire cautiously. He must have been listening in through Lorenzo’s ears while I was working and constantly out of range and out of reach.
“An excellent question.” I took a hold of my needle and drew three neat, straight stitches through Rostov’s leg, holding the flaps of the wound together with the tips of my fingers. I yanked on the needlework in one swift motion, drawing it together and tying it off before Rostov could move, or even flinch reflexively. “And so I come to my bad news. Sadly, the passage appears to be opened only from the inside.”
“What use is it to us, then?”
“We still have the Fifth Column uniforms we acquired,” Lorenzo pointed out, “And Mr. Kushan still fits them. If we plan it right, we should be able to wait for him at the right place when he opens the tunnel from inside. That is not in the nature of bad news, madam. It’s merely a small inconvenience.”
“There’s more,” I moved down along the campfire while Rostov, now deemed as healthy as he could be, returned to rummaging among the supplies. “I think – in fact, I am fairly certain – that I was seen.”
“How?”
I told them about the execution-spectacle, and about the Warwolf, omitting for some reason I couldn’t really explain the part about my escape. Perhaps it was Garent’s presence which inhibited me. He knew I was not a good person… yet, sometimes, I was reluctant to expose him to a callous reality. He was – still is – an idealist in a vast measure about everyone, most of all himself.
“So how did you get away?” Garent asked curiously.
“Luck, I suppose,” I said evenly, avoiding looking in his direction under the convenient pretext of spreading a disinfecting and anesthetic cream on Lorenzo’s neck. In a way it was; my good luck, another person’s bad luck. “And one last thing…”
I think perhaps only Lorenzo caught the small, almost inaudible note in my voice which was a warning sign for something truly unpleasant. We were, both of us, the sort of people who delivered the most unpleasant news in a voice very similar to that in which we ordered our coffee and croissant. “What thing is that?” He asked cautiously.
I looked directly at Rostov who was busy slicing up an onion with his machete.
“I saw Victor.”
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
((The Authors apologize for the delay, and blame the box invasion from outer space.
Thank you.))
Chapter LXI
In Which Carp Is A Dish best Served Cold
The air was syrupy and cold, and the fire we made, in the purplish darkness, was a little too red and eerie. Damp logs crackled occasionally with an ominous crunch and a shower of sparks decorated the night sky like fireworks, or flash grenades.
By this point, we had a routine almost as set in stone as the cuneiform of the time – it held so long as the sky was clear and no rain was imminent – in which we were all involved in dinner to our best ability. Rostov cooked, Lorenzo helped out, and Garent kept us all company. As for me…
“Sofia,” Rostov’s voice cut through my musings sharply. “You’re not watching that pot.”
I returned my attention to the wooden flat stick which I used instead of a spoon, and the crockery dish glowing suspiciously amid the open flames. “Relax. I have it on the best authority that you cannot ruin lentils.”
“Go on, walk away from there for twenty minutes, and then I’m gonna make you eat that soup. All of it,” Rostov threatened from where he was rummaging in my basket and what was left of our packs. I sighed, stuck my makeshift spoon into the pot and stirred dutifully, not really taking my eyes off of the tall mercenary’s back.
If he were anyone else, he would be hurling blunt – or perhaps sharp – objects at something, or smacking his open fist – or perhaps closed – at rocks. If he were someone else, more inclined to the expression of feelings and opinions as many men these days tend to be, he would be fuming, or sunken into a deep, helpless depression. It would not be surprising, for the reception of ill news and poor luck seldom travels through a person’s mind without a reaction of some kind. It is almost never received placidly. Always, there is an element of response; anger, silence, shock, tears.
Since this was Rostov, however, not a single one of these occurred. One would have thought – could have thought, if it weren’t me – that he was simply overhearing the reading of a rather poor, clichéd narrative, in which the characters are doing the expected deeds, taking the expected steps and, insofar as the reader is concerned, thinking the expected thoughts.
Since I am who I am, though, I was not entirely fooled. It was difficult to gauge Rostov’s reaction throughout my telling, but from the abruptness of his motions as he threw new wood on the fire, I could read some of the skillfully pent-up anger.
“You can’t burn lentils,” I informed the interested onlookers stubbornly.
“You just never tried to burn lentils,” said Rostov emphatically. “Vic can burn anything, and he doesn’t even need to set it on fire special. He thinks that a meal that takes fifteen minutes to cook is way too slow to bother with, so he decides to go do something else…”
We all – even Garent, whose knowledge of food and its preparation came entirely from television – groaned.
“He burned eggs,” concluded Rostov morosely.
There was a momentary, uncomfortable silence, during which we each prudently returned to our business; I, to adding some precious, modern salt to the soup, Lorenzo and Garent to putting away bits of cannibalized armour and Rostov to rummaging in my purchases.
“Hey. What’s that?”
Ah. Rostov discovered the beer.
I decided on the purchase after a brief contemplation and, really, for the same reason that the natives drank the stuff; the water of the period harboured its own dangers, and water filters other than charcoal or sand were somewhere in the distant future, together with germ theory and antibiotics. I did carry around a small amount of water disinfection pills – throw a pill into a bucket or crock of water and, soon enough, you get a pail of flat and unappealing liquid which tastes like chlorine but would not, presumably, kill you – but the packet in my bag was growing smaller and smaller.
Haunted by visions of anything from crippling dysentery to Plague, I finally decided that, under the circumstances, alcohol was our best solution to the problem.
“I looked for wine,” I said apologetically, “but this seems to be the season of no wine in the marketplaces. The natives must be stocked. I realize this probably isn't the best option out there...”
“Is it made of boot soles, madam?” Lorenzo sniffed at the gourd Rostov brought around experimentally.
“Barley, I think. Or maybe hair,” I added judiciously after a moment of cautious consideration and measured inhaling, “I could've misinterpreted it.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about.” He gave us a small smile and added, "I've drunk worse."
“Does it have alcohol in it?” Rostov's face was almost eager.
“It's a beer, Rostov,” I said in exasperation, and winced as he selected a large... container (calling it a glass would have imposed diminutive proportions on a truly remarkable girth).
“Then I don't really care what's it made of.”
That seemed to be the general consensus. Lorenzo and Rostov didn’t care what it was made of; they were going to drink it. Garent, from his end, displayed an equal lack of concern for the organic makeup of the beverage; he wouldn’t touch it, no matter what.
Dinner worked out. That, I thought as I nibbled at the food, was saying something, since the amount of sheer inventiveness and improvisation required in its preparation was approximately similar to that employed by NASA engineers during a crisis in orbit. We had no spoons or pots or pans or containers or forks or plates or any of a thousand little things without which the assembly and serving of a meal, even in the most primitive circumstances, was deemed impossible.
The feat was made all the more impressive because, for a change, we ate well. Our diet of the previous days largely consisted of scraps, leftovers, scrounged greens and water. Compared to the modern man, our caloric intake was rather on the slim side, and our activity had not lessened for it. We were all beginning to look a little gray around the edges without even considering disease, tiredness or combat wear.
But I could not allow such gloomy, somber thoughts to intrude upon the fish.
I reminded myself to remind Garent to be careful of the little bones – carp, as a river fish, is bony and tends to cause little Heimlich-necessitating accidents – and poked at my own crisp, leaf-wrapped half of a spectacular specimen. My mind decided that it had had enough seriousness for the day, and the olfactory centers took over for awhile.
The evening seemed to be more or less destined for a sort of denial-induced reprieve. I was not altogether certain that I approved, but a small part of my brain, tired and frustrated to the bone, was altogether pleased with the solution. I should have been worried about that; I was, on the whole, as disinclined as anyone to attempt unproductive denial. Sadly, or perhaps luckily, circumstances considered, Lorenzo had never been a man for small talk, or denial.
“You don’t think,” He said carefully, “that Vcitor’s cooperating with the Fifth is a safety concern for us?”
My mood plunged from delighted contemplation of the inherent fallacy of nihilism in the face of well-prepared fish, back to the confines of the present – or is it the past? – and the concerns therein. I took a bite.
“Hey, he’s my brother, okay? Not this Auer’s.” Rostov was unphased, at least on the face of it, as he slowly drained his container of beer and poured himself a new dose. “He can wear that damn uniform, and say the damn words, and he can do it for twenty years, but if after twenty years I show up and say ‘Hey Vic, time to go’ he’s gonna punch that sucker in the face and walk out.”
Family loyalty is a Kushan thing. Always been a Kushan thing. It was, as I recalled, on the bloody family motto. Rostov had every right to be adamant.
That didn’t mean that the rest of us should not be concerned.
It was not merely concern for Victor’s loyalty; it was also, quite obviously, concern for his health. I glanced at Lorenzo, who was unobtrusively playing with his fedora, and saw the same worry there. If Auer becomes too concerned, or feels we might be closing in on him, it would be all too likely that he would use Victor for the purpose for which he must have trapped him.
If Vic became a real hostage, what would Rostov do?
“What we need,” said Lorenzo, turning his own cup thoughtfully between his fingers, “is a plan.”
“Are you going to pull one out of your hat for us?” Garent smirked.
“Alas, Mr. Ward, my hat lacks such convenient capabilities.” He took a sip to hide a smirk. “It would not even fit a rabbit, much less a plan.”
Rostov gulped his drink down again, and reached for the beer. “But it’s such a nice hat.”
“We all have our limitations, Mr. Kushan,” said Lorenzo sadly.
I frowned. Something was nagging at the back of my brain. Something about pulling rabbits out of hats. My memory is excellent – not Lorenzo’s eidetic ability, but near enough to suit my everyday needs – but it was human and thus associative. Even the best of memories tend to have an occasional problem calling up the right facts at the right time. So what was it about hats?
I stared at the bearer of the hat, eyes unfocused, nibbling gently on a somewhat dirty nail, and allowed my associative thinking to kick in. I always thought the hat and coat attire was… I blinked.
“If your hat can’t provide us with a plan,” I said in a faintly-mocking faintly-reproachful toe, “could your coat try?”
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse
Chapter XXXVII
In Which Many Questions Remain Without An Answer
By the time we had reached the top of the hill, I was wiping off sweat discreetly, and breathing hard. Garent wasn't; but then, he was not doubling his labours by contending with unsteady feet and the necessity of seeing for two people.
The sad part about it all is that I am, really, quite physically fragile. I am no longer young, and even in my youth I was not known by my stamina and sportsmanship. The Chernobyl catastrophe, and the severe damage I took less than my husband's, to be sure, but nonetheless not negligible contributed little to my well-being. It was no good news for our little company, and for the suddenly complicated situation we found ourselves in, that I was already dragging myself on sheer willpower.
Garent had no reason to know this, however.
The hilltop proved mildly windy, and the heat which was slowly rising with the (noon, I grimaced and adjusted my internal clock) sun was less oppressive when one stuck to the shade. Lorenzo was leaning on a rock, staring out to the horizon, looking tired. He turned around to the sound of gravel crunching underneath our heels.
Ah, madam. I see you've... handled the situation, somewhat, he eyed Garent, attached to my arm, seriously.
Oh, hi, Lorenzo, Garent supplied his own solemn reply. Yeah, I'm better now.
Lorenzo's brows shot up.
Hah, I said with bitter satisfaction, so we both made the same assumption. Telepathy, I informed him, works.
If you can call this working, Garent grumbled. It's like a mad scientist's invention; it explodes in my face two times out of three.
Still, we must be grateful for small favours, Lorenzo sighed, whether in relief or in simple exhaustion I was hard-pressed to tell. I, too, have some news for you. look over there, he pointed behind his back, to the panorama opening underneath our little hillock. I gently detached Garent's hand from my elbow, placed it on the rock outcrop and went to stand beside Lorenzo.
The panorama opening from our hill was complex, and indubitably strange. The land underneath was a lush, fertile valley, albeit set in a hot climate. It reminded me of the Jezreel valley, with its geysers of hot water and wide, open fields; the land of kibbutzes and little villages as almost nowhere else in the Middle-East. Yet this was very clearly not the familiar little strip of land. For one, it was much bigger; it stretched out and out until it was lost in the blue haze of the horizon, merging with the sky. A river, rather large and full of water at this time of year, at least, coiled through it, and irrigation channels, sparkling in the sun, streamed away from it into the fields. There was the hint of mountains beyond the horizon, and another hint of a large body of water perhaps a lake, perhaps a sea cost further to the south. It was very beautiful I actually smiled in pleasure and very disconcerting.
I saw what he meant at once. Fields, I murmured. And terraces. And... a road?
So I surmised. And a city, as well... though, I confess, my vision is not sufficient to say much about it. He pointed to a brown blur. I squinted at it dubiously. Vision has never been my chief sense; I have the singularly keen hearing, capable of picking tiny distinction, characteristic of my profession, but my eyesight is... average. Still, I thought that I could make out the cityscape beyond the fields, blocky against the blue horizon. Blocky meant construction. I pursed my lips, wishing for binoculars or a telescope.
I turned around slowly, processing more of the view. The hills were very green, positively verdant, and the fields were obviously fertile. Olive groves too early in the year for fruit, I thought, considering the colour of the leaves, and maybe grapevines.
Civilization of some kind. Either very rural, or very ancient, but civilization nonetheless.
It did not take a genius to see where this was going, and we both understood it. The key, and the gem, were together a magical focus and an artifact of climate control. Or had been... sometimes in the days of the Akkadian empire. The land about was vastly different from what we have seen... then, I concluded reluctantly. Remove all the plants, add several millennia of harsh desert erosion, and the lay of the land would change drastically.
Two possibilities, Lorenzo echoed my thought. Either we have gone to some alternate dimension or to a time and place where the gem was still active.
The key seems to have affected time, as well as space. Which speaks for option A but one would not wish to be exclusive. I whirled. Garent. How much time passed between the vortex and your being here?
There was no answer. Garent? I touched his shoulder.
Hm. What? He blinked and shook himself awake from an apparent daydream.
I, uh... guess you didn't catch the question.
I didn't hear anything, he confirmed. Were you guys saying something?
I stared at him for a moment, figuring this out. When he said he had no power or range behind his telepathy, I suppose he truly meant it. I resolved to stand very close to him next time I was inclined to have him participate in our conversations, and repeated the question.
Time? None. I was there, and you were grabbing my hand and then I think I blinked and I was... here.
Lorenzo and my palms hit our foreheads at the same moment. I dropped down to my knees, clearing a patch of ground hastily with a hard. Lorenzo followed to better see and, I strongly suspected, get off his hurting knee. If this is indeed our focus then we showed up here, I marked the epicenter and a second spot. And Garent I put a third spot down. Here
About an hour later, Lorenzo said quietly, completing my thought.
I drew over the dots gently; first concentric circles, then a rapidly expanding spiral, dots falling onto its arms. Tighter rings by the centre which widened as they went. It fits. I would bet that, if we had more data, we could graph the correlation. Dammit.
Okay, I lost you again, Garent was bemused. Why is this a bad thing?
Because, Mr. Ward, Lorenzo elaborated, the people who were nearest the center were Auer and his soldiers. That implies. He added after a look at Garents still confused expression, that they must have landed over there in the city, that is, he shook his head ironically at his pointing finger, and must have done so much earlier.
How much is much?
That is impossible to say. A day? A month? A year? I would give much to know.
As would I. Time was in time travel, time was everything. And I was growing almost deathly certain that time travel was, indeed, what we were faced with. It would explain the queasy sensitivity I had for the effects the almost material sensation of weight which, in this case, was nothing but a metaphor, yet was interpreted by something my mind? My soul? and the drastic change in surroundings, the odd skip from night to daytime without the memory of anything but the briefest of bouts of unconsciousness. My brain has been shooting off little bells of alarm in that direction I am sure Lorenzos was, too but I had been far too cautious of unbased hypotheses to venture a premature guess.
By this time, they could do anything, Lorenzo was saying, ruefully. Set themselves up as gods
Surely not, I objected mildly. Your friend, Auer, did not seem a fool. Godhood tends to backfire.
His eyes flashed momentary anger. Heinrich Auer is not a friend of mine.
I acknowledged my error with a defensive gesture, palms out, I do apologize. I meant it. My apology was not only for the nature of the jibe itself, but also for making it. I knew Lorenzo well enough to know what sort of associations his rival our rival would bring up in him. It was part of our arrangement; certain things a number of things were never implied.
Im sorry, madam. You of all people I should not be angry with. Nevertheless, while the god stratagem has a finite limit, Auer might be planning for a middle-term goal. He may consider this ploy to suit his ends. Whatever they are.
And just what are they? Garent asked curiously.
I still cannot tell you that. Beyond the generic notion of restoring a world order which was doomed in the first place.
We all contemplated this for a while. Each of us must have had his own visions. I dont know what Garent saw most likely, infinite darkness, stretching forever but Lorenzo and I surely had the same visions. He had seen them happen in reality; I had them ground into my marrow and blood. A different history and a different humanity. It was not impossible, though it was not pre-determined. Nothing was ever pre-determined, but that, after all, was the entire point of mankind as I saw it, and the very thing Auer must have sought to change. I believed I began hating him, then, though in reality I hated him much earlier it simply took me a while to see it as truth.
So what do we do now?
I rubbed my eyes. We still have to find Rostov and Victor and, I must point out, resources. Food and water will become highly pertinent issues in a few hours. Speaking of which, I drew a large water bottle from my bag, and proffered it. Drink.
I dont need any Garent was waving me off.
Yes, you do. To my surprise, Lorenzo was the one who came to my aid. You no longer have your magic to support you through dehydration, Mr. Ward. This may not be the Arabian Desert anymore, but the climate is still Middle-Eastern. We cannot afford you collapsing or going into seizures.
It was, I observed as Garent dutifully drank his share of the water, convenient to have company who knew the region as well, if not better, than I. after Lorenzo had also taken his turn, I pocketed well, bagged the remainder of the precious little we had left again. The physical load on my shoulders lightened considerably; the metaphysical one grew only heavier as time went.
I dont believe that I can do much regarding resources quite yet, Lorenzo commented. But it seems to me that finding Rostov wont be quite as hard as we think. I am not the mathematician your husband is, madam we stared at the spiral together, each running, I was sure, through the same set of mental approximations, but it occurs to me that he would be somewhere behind us, since that is where he stood. If we crest the ridge to the opposite side from the city, and wait, we might see him appear.
Cynics of the world, unite!
Taking Care of the Multiverse