Ryk E. Spoor's Blog, page 11

LEGEND: Chapter 17

 

Jennifer does some shopping, and then meets with someone unique...

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Chapter 17.

Jennifer shivered as she shook the sleet from her coat. As she went to grab a basket from near the door, something bumped into her hard, making her stumble against the handrail that led down the ramp into the Co-Op. "Hey!"

Instead of an apology, the bearded man who'd jostled her continued what was obviously a heated argument: " . . . poisoned the water and the air, we don't deserve to live!"

"You're welcome to believe what you want, Mr. Kantzman," Mack, one of the Co-Op's regular volunteers said. Her round, slightly red-cheeked face showed the professional politeness of someone used to many years of retail. "But when you start harrassing our customers and passing out your brochures, you're not welcome to stay in here."

Kantzman's brown eyes narrowed. "I shop here—"

"And that's wonderful. And if you'll put your Center for Human Extinction folders away we'll be happy to have you continue shopping here." Mack shoved a stack of glossy brochures with a red CHE on the cover into Kantzman's hands. "If you don't, then get out." She glanced at Jennifer, who was finally righting herself. "And apologize to this woman."

Seeing he wasn't going to win this argument, Kantzman stuffed the brochures angrily into his coat, mumbled something that vaguely resembled "sorry, excuse me" in Jennifer's general direction, and slammed his way out of the store, almost knocking someone else down with the door on his way.

"Whew," Jennifer said.

"Sorry about that, ma'am," Mack said. "Dr. Hsui, yes? He used to be better than that. He's just been getting stranger over the last few years.

She successfully prevented her brain from trying to run through the multiple potential causes of such a new obsession. "Did he always want to wipe out the human race?"

Mack shook her head, following Jennifer as she went towards the produce. "No, he was always one of our most green advocates, but he used to just be really into sustainability. He lost someone in his family a few years ago to something that could have been prevented—a spill, I think—and it bent him." She shrugged. "Anyway, I'm glad you weren't actually hurt when he ran into you."

"No, just startled, that's all. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Where's the little girl?"

"Yuki's probably just waking up and asking Gran where I am," she said with a smile. "After her trick-or-treating, she and three of her friends had a sleepover Halloween party that lasted until almost midnight. Last I saw she was hanging half-off her bed, still asleep in her Densetsu costume."

"Oh, god, that sounds so cute. Well, have a good time." Mack waved and went back to the counter as Jennifer began her shopping.

It took a few moments to shove the encounter with Kantzman out of her head; partly it was just the jolt anyone had from a sudden and unpleasant confrontation, and partly the strain of trying to keep from analyzing people who weren't her patients and about whom she knew almost nothing. And it's not like I need more patients!

The basket filled quickly and she finally gave in and got a cart; the Co-Op stocked some things like garlic that were just better quality than supermarkets, and others like organic sprouts she couldn't get anywhere else. At the bulk foods she decided to look to see what she might pick up for Yuki later, got some dried cherries and apricots, and noticed a dried fruit she hadn't seen before . . . but it still looked familiar. "What's a golden berry?" she asked one of the volunteers.

"Oh, that?" He picked up one of the wrinkled orangish fruits with the yellow-gold sheen with tongs and dropped it into her hand. "They're a South American fruit with a lot of other names. Very healthy, lots of good stuff in there—take a look at the label on the bin!"

The dried berry was chewy and had little tiny seeds that crunched, and an interesting flavor. She smiled. A surprise for Christmas. She always liked coming up with some new little treat, and given what they looked like, this would give Yuki some fun over the holiday. Thanksgiving was going to be at Gran's, so getting her overexcited there wouldn't be wise; the little dried fruits could wait in the back of the freezer where Yuki couldn't see.

She glanced at her watch. Don't lose track of time! She wasn't used to making mysterious appointments, but if she was going to keep trying to analyze Legend she supposed she had better get used to it—and never miss them.

She hauled her groceries to the car and put them in. The sleet was trying to change to snow, but the lighter sky in the west showed that this was probably a doomed effort. Which was good, since she didn't particularly look forward to driving in snow.

The small park in Troy was almost deserted—which was hardly surprising given the cold and off-and-on sleet. She looked around and went to the indicated bench. I hope to God whoever it is doesn't take too long, I'll freeze to death.

"Dr. Hsui, thanks much for stoppin' by," a voice said.

She almost jumped off the bench. The voice had come from behind her, where she was sure there hadn't been anyone before, and certainly not the person whose voice she'd instantly recognized.

Taller than almost anyone she'd ever met, wearing a coat and shirt of a bygone era with old-fashioned trousers with red, white, and blue stripes. America looked down on her with the kindly, sharp-eyed face that recalled both Uncle Sam and Abraham Lincoln, below the brim of a striped top-hat that should have been ridiculous, but instead seemed dignified beyond words. "My apologies for startling you, ma'am," he said. "Please, sit back down. If you'll allow me to join you?"

"I . . . of course."

The hero called simply America sat next to her, not too close, not too far. She noticed that it seemed somehow warmer around them, as though the comfort of a summer evening surrounded the archaic-looking man. "I understand you're interested in talking with those of us familiar with Legend."

She shook herself. You really need to get over these reactions. You might end up talking to dozens of these people. "I am, very much. He has described some very interesting . . . issues associated with the transformation he undergoes to become Legend, and how that affects his life. But—forgive me—is this a safe place to talk? We're awfully exposed."

America smiled. "Perfectly safe for now, ma'am." His voice held just a trace of New England twang, a hint of the South, perhaps a tinge of the West, too. "I'll know if we're being watched. And it wouldn't be polite of people to eavesdrop on us as they went by."

"And you're sure everyone's polite?" That seemed a dangerous, not to say foolhardy, assumption.

"Well, Ma'am, most people are around me," he said.

Obviously he's been able to keep his true self a secret for a long time; I'll have to take his word for what's safe and what's not. "All right. I'm trying to get as much perspective on this as I can. You know Legend well?"

"I know the boy very well, yes. Both Legend and Ben."

"You know who he really is?"

The familiar smile showed white teeth above the short beard. "That's a danged hard question, Ma'am. Even he doesn't know who he really is, not yet." He chuckled. "But yes, I know both of his identities well, and he knows where I go when I am not in my role as protector, too."

"So he trusts you."

"I hope so. I trust him, after all, and he's done well to repay that trust."

"Which do you think of as the real person? Legend, or Ben?"

America looked up into the sky, staring into the sleet as it came down. "That's no simple question either, ma'am. Seems to me, we're all a lot of different people inside. You're a doctor who looks at people with problems and tries to help them – and tries not to judge them. You're a mother with a little girl that you're trying to raise alone, and you're scared every day that you'll make a mistake, that you have made a mistake. At a conference you're Doctor Hsui, a warrior of words armored with charts and statistics and data, and fighting not just against other charts but against colleagues who see your face and body and not your mind. And you're a little girl looking in a mirror and seeing an adult look back, wondering where all those years went. Which one's the real Jennifer Hsui, ma'am?"

The words themselves weren't the key; it was the way he said them, as though he knew exactly what she went through when she saw others look at Yuki and give the expression that meant 'that poor little girl, how can her mother let her run around like that', or when another researcher would carry out a conversation with his eyes constantly flicking downward instead of meeting her gaze. "Are you trying to . . . what, show off?"

"What? Lordy, no, ma'am, sorry if I offended. I can't help it, sometimes. But it gets across what I mean, doesn't it?"

"I . . . suppose. You're saying that you see Legend as just a part of Ben, a mask Ben wears?"

"Or maybe you could call Ben the mask. Or they're both masks and the real Ben Stephens ain't so easy to pin down, which is really the way I see it."

She was still somewhat disturbed by the effect his earlier speech had had. "That makes sense, I suppose. Not necessarily very useful sense, though." She looked at him narrowly. "I have to wonder who the real 'America' is, too."

"The real America?" he waved his hand in a grand circle. "That is, ma'am."

"Yes, but you aren't that."

He blinked and looked at her mildly. "Actually, ma'am, I am exactly that. I am America."

"One old white guy is America?"

He laughed and suddenly the laugh was a lilting soprano, the face a Japanese face surrounded by a wash of night-black hair, a face she saw every night in the mirror, and now she felt a chill go down her back. "You are America, Jennifer Hsui," America said, looking at her with her own eyes. "You, and Ben," and now the face was the same as the confused boy she'd seen in her office, "and Jack Morriman, Sylvia Stake, every person you see on the street," a blur of faces, men and women and children, black and white and dark Middle-Eastern brown and the reddish tinge of a Navajo, young and middle-aged and old, "every person who—for a moment or their lifetime—believes in who I am, in what I am, in the words that made me and the dreams that birthed me. I am America, ma'am, and how I came to be, now, that's the secret Legend holds for me."

"But . . . but then . . ."

"I wear this face," and he was back to looking down at her with Lincoln's eyes, "because it is the very symbol of America to the world, it is the image you—all of you, for these two hundred years and more—have built. And so that, Jennifer, is just exactly what I am."

"So . . . you know everything about me?"

He shook his head. "No. 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.' I can know very little about someone that they have not made public, for it is not my right to know more than they would allow others to know." He smiled wryly. "How much easier it would be if I could grasp and use all knowledge of all the people; how easily I could find those who seek to do us harm. Yet if I did that, how would I truly be upholding the principles that made me?"

"You seemed to know something about me," she insisted. "Something more than you ought to."

He shrugged. "If I sit very close to someone, and I have some reason to make an impression, I may find myself speaking as I did to you – but that's something I don't control, and it is, I think, more you speaking through me, to convince you of the importance of what I might say."

She thought about that. This was in some ways the most frightening thing she'd learned. A concept had become a living being. The ideal of America was now embodied. That perhaps wasn't so bad, but it implied some things that would be bad. Very bad. "So you aren't a . . . person originally, at all?"

"Not in the sense that Legend, or Fireflux, or Admiral Twilight were and are, no. But we were all . . . born from very much the same things, if you take my meaning."

She thought she had some idea of what he meant. This was probably not the time to pursue this any farther. "Are you aware of Legend's . . . problem?"

He thought a moment. "None he's clearly told me. But I know what I see, and I see a boy being chased and trying to figure out why he should run. Or why he shouldn't."

A succinct description. "And what do you think about it?"

"Not for me to judge, ma'am. Plenty as have been married were way too young for it, and plenty as have been old enough didn't make a go of it, either. Some of your friends' grandmothers were married when they were twice your daughter's age, married to men twice their age, and raised families well. Others much older were sure they were ready to be wed, raised nothing but sorrow. I'd say it does Legend credit that he worries about it, and it's also the law he needs be concerned with. I'm bound by spirit and the most basic law of the land; he's bound by himself and sometimes by more temporal law."

"You have no judgment on the matter?"

"I am not vested with the power of God, just of America. I say that age isn't the question, just wisdom. I don't know if either of them have it, but maybe, ma'am, you can help them find out." He stood and smiled. "You might have to talk to her too, you know. If you'd like, I'll suggest she have a talk with you. Can't make her do it, understand, but usually she listens."

I'd bet she does. And I definitely want to talk to her. "I'd appreciate it if you could."

"Then I'll ask her the first chance I get. Been very nice talkin' with you, ma'am, and I'm glad Legend decided to go to you. I think he needed it." He tipped his hat to her, turned and walked away. For a moment she thought he had stopped, and then she realized that she was looking, instead, at the statue of Uncle Sam, through which the mysterious hero had vanished.

"If I drank," she said to no one in particular, "I would be going to get smashing drunk right now."

 

 

The post LEGEND: Chapter 17 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Legend: Chapter 16

Here, we learn a little more about America... and Virginia!

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Chapter 16.

America looked up at the white-cloaked figure, surrounded by swirling gold-touched clouds, with hair of gold and eyes of sapphire, that held a glittering sword in his hand, shimmering bright against the night sky. He makes a lovely picture of a hero, America thought. It's a danged shame that beauty exterior does not guarantee beauty interior. Though if it did, I suppose ugliness would guarantee evil, and that wouldn't be fair to anyone.

To one side of that figure was a ring of golden fire . . . a ring that surrounded a nearby building, a mosque, and was closing in on it.

Virginia was vaguely, vaguely aware she was dreaming . . . or watching. But mostly she felt . . . almost like she was America.

"That's enough, Righteous," America said mildly. "I've told you before, it's one thing to talk about putting the sinners to the sword, it's entirely another to try to put that into practice."

"If you truly were the representative of America," Righteous responded, and his voice was as beautiful as his face, "you would be helping me. We were founded as a Christian nation –"

But that's just wrong! Virginia thought. We weren't. The founding fathers were very clear on that!

As she thought that, it seemed as though she was even more with America, and she opened her mouth, and America spoke. "I'm afraid that's not even close to true, Righteous. Neither Christian nor Jewish nor Islamic nor any other religion upon the face of this world, not now, not ever." She felt America's sorrowful anger within her, and heard his thoughts . . . or were they her own? . . . echoed in his words. "You're right fond of quoting the words of the Bible, and the Founding Fathers, when they suit your purpose, son, but 'the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion'; John Adams, second of our Presidents. 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion – our Constitution.'"

"Or prohibiting the exercise thereof!" Righteous snapped. "If you would quote, finish the quotation! My religion demands that the righteous triumph over the wicked, and if necessary that shall mean the fire and the sword!"

Victoria gritted her teeth in her dream. She'd run into people like Righteous – some of them who hated her parents, or the two men who lived next door, for reasons that had to do with twisting the words in the Bible.

She felt America's jaw set at the same time, and the tall, lanky hero took off his jacket, folding it with micrometric precision. "Your right to free exercise of your religion ends where the noses of everyone else begin, Righteous. Told that to Jihad, last time I kicked him back overseas, and I'm telling it to you. One last warning, son; shut down that ring of fire, or I'm going to have to shut you down." He unsnapped his cufflinks, pocketed them, and began to roll up his sleeves. "For I defend the Country and the Constitution of these United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . . and you're putting yourself in the domestic category right now."

Righteous sneered. "The power of God is within me, and He is mightier than any nation! And the enemies of God shall be consumed in the fire!" The ring of fire contracted, pressing inward towards the walls of the mosque. Virginia was horrified to hear screams coming from inside.

"You were warned, son."

America leapt upward, springing from the ground into the air high overhead, as Righteous brought up his sword to meet the charge –

BRRRRRIIIINNNGG!

Virginia sat up suddenly, panting. The echoes of the screams lingered in her ears, but at the same time the calm certainty of the hero comforted her. What . . . Oh.

She fumbled with the clock, managed to get it shut off. Got to get ready for school!

By the time she was on the bus, heading for Goff Middle School, she'd managed to firmly push the vision/dream to the back of her head. I know . . . there's that connection, but I can't think about it much. If I do, I might make a mistake.

But even with that effort, Virginia found that she was . . . noticing things more. Tones of voice, little pushes in the hallway, whispered (or sometimes not whispered) hurtful words in the hallway. Most of them weren't directed at her, but they were still pulling, tugging at her. She tried to just focus past it, ignore the swirl of innocent hostility and pettiness the way she always did, but it was hard today.

At lunch she found herself almost unable to eat, because there she could see the patterns of hostility so clearly; the girls that clumped together, excluding others from their group, the boys who talked together and made fun of each other, some of them laughing only because otherwise no one would talk to them.

She saw Peter Boren, one of the boys from her class, standing with his lunch, looking, searching the room. He always stands like that, she realized. Looking, not for someone to sit with, but for a place where he won't be bothered, or bothering anyone. Peter was a thin, gangly boy, sometimes loud and emphatic when he talked, always peering at the world through thick-lensed glasses with a mixture of uncertainty and arrogance that seemed to draw bullies to him.

She remembered Peter breaking into a conversation she was having, and how it annoyed her at first, until she understood that he thought he was helping, trying to give information he thought was important to her discussion. He did that in class, too, like today, and sometimes embarrassed other people by correcting them.

And so he was always alone, and never talked to anyone. Spent most of his time reading, if anyone let him.

She made a decision and stood, picked up her tray and went over to where Peter had finally sat down, at a table that was now mostly empty. "Hi, Peter."

His head snapped up from the book he'd been reading, and his greeny-brown eyes were wary. I know that look . . . from the mirror, back when I was little. Worried about what's going to happen next. "Um . . . hi . . . Virginia."

"What're you reading?"

He held up the cover just long enough for her to read the title. Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.

Virginia blinked. She knew that book – her father had it on his shelves, and he'd talked about it, but it was an old book. "Wow, I wouldn't have expected you were reading Heinlein." She hoped she pronounced the name of the author right.

His eyes widened, and a grin suddenly burst out on his face. It made his eyes look brighter. "You know this book?"

"Well . . . I haven't read it yet, but I meant to. My dad has all of his stuff in his room."

The grin dimmed slightly, but didn't go away. "Oh. Well, it's really good. My dad has that whole collection too. And Asimov. And a lot of other books – you read a lot, though?" He suddenly looked panicked. "I mean, I shouldn't . . . I didn't mean it to sound surprised or anything, I just . . ."

He really is scared of making mistakes. Like I was.

"It's okay. Yeah. Um, I read every day, actually. Books that I want to read, I mean, not just school stuff."

To her surprise, the rest of lunchtime passed almost before she knew it, and she and Peter were still talking when they went outside for the brief recess. The weather was chilly but the sun was out, and she was looking forward to running around a bit.

She suddenly realized Peter had disappeared, and looked around. Oh, that was stupid. Of course, he stays away from the play area and tries to read.

She decided not to push him any farther. He did want to read his book, and I interrupted.

He was still reading on the bus. But two of the bullies she knew from her grade, Joseph Sayer and his friend Rob Maynerd, were watching him. She wondered if she should say something.

As she thought that, Joseph suddenly reached out and plucked the book from Peter's hands.

"Give that back!"

She winced. She could see where that was going. If you start shouting and getting upset, they're winning. A broad grin on his face, Joseph tossed the book over to Rob. Peter lunged, but Joseph blocked him. Rob threw it to someone else, and for a few moments the book was bounced from person to person, with laughter rising louder and Peter's demands fading to a white-faced, furious tension.

That's enough. As the book was tossed again, Virginia shot her hand out and caught it. Peter's lips tightened – and then his eyes widened as she stood up, walked over, and gave it back to him. He blinked, then said – almost inaudible over the catcalls and laughs, "Thanks."

She smiled, then glared at both Joseph and Rob. "Jerks."

"What, has Peter Boring got a girlfriend?" Joseph reached out to grab the book back.

Virginia didn't really think about what she did next; she just grabbed the big boy's hand, twisted, and turned, and suddenly Joseph gave a grunt of pain and collapsed to one knee, his hand held up in an unnaturally contorted position. "Ow! Ow! Leggo!"

Virginia let go. How . . . did I do that?

But the bully was bounding up, hands clenching into fists, drawing back, "That hurt!"

Other people were shouting, and the bus driver was looking back, but Virginia saw Joseph's fist coming. It seemed so slow. It was easy to sway to one side, catch his arm, and pull –

Joseph Sayer's head smacked into the side of the seat and he sprawled into the aisle. Laughter rose, then cut off as the boy raised his head with blood trickling down the side.

The bus screeched to a halt. "What the hell's going on here?"

Oh-oh.

***

The ride home was quiet. Virginia swallowed, tried to fight back the fear. They do care about me. They do. They're not going to . . . send me away.

But a part of her was sure that this would get her sent away.

"All right, Virginia," her father said finally, making her jump. "I heard their story. I've apologized, and you're suspended for the next two days, and I'm going to be paying the emergency room bill for that boy having his head sewed up."

"I'm sorry, daddy, I just—"

"Virginia, this isn't about being sorry," Malcolm cut her off. "I'm glad you're sorry about hurting Joseph, but I want to know why. He wasn't very forthcoming and the driver didn't see much, and you admit you did throw him into the seat. But," and her heart leapt as she saw a flash of a smile, "I saw you just about fit to burst in there, and yet you wouldn’t say anything. We know you, Virginia, and I just don't believe you'd do that to anyone without reason. So out with it."

She hesitated, then realized she had to tell everything. Well, everything about that. So she did, everything from the time she got to school to the time the driver called 911.

By the end, her father was looking at her with a wry grin. "So you were being the knight in shining armor. Wonder how Peter feels about that?" he said, as he pulled into the driveway – and then slammed on the brakes, as someone stepped into view at the walkway.

It was Peter Boren.

Malcolm got out of the car slowly. "Can I help you? Who are you, son?"

She scrambled out of the car. "Dad, that's—"

Peter stood so straight it looked painful, and his expression was more than half terrified. "Sir, I'm Peter Elias Boren. And that whole thing that happened to Virginia was my fault, and I wanted to say I was sorry."

He looked over at Virginia, and suddenly there was an embarrassed but very genuine smile. "And . . . thanks! You . . . um . . . you were amazing."

Malcolm Jefferson laughed. "Peter Boren, eh? Well, Peter, she made the decisions. Sounded to me like she just didn't like what she saw and stepped in."

He flushed and looked down. "Yeah . . . but she wouldn't have had to if it wasn't . . ."

Her father looked around. "Hold on, Peter. I don't see a car . . . how did you get here?"

"I walked."

Virginia was startled. By his tone, so was her father. "Where do you live?"

"Up on Highland Court," Peter answered.

"Highland . . . you walked three miles here? Do your parents know you—"

"I go on walks by myself sometimes." Peter smiled faintly. "But this is a little farther than I usually go."

"I should think so!" Malcolm shook his head, then grinned again. "Well, Peter, I'll allow you to take some blame, but I'll give you full credit for a fine apology and the effort to make it. So let's call it even."

"Thank you, sir."

"Don't call me sir, I'm not in the Air Force anymore. Mr. Jefferson will do. Now you and Virginia come inside; we'll get you a snack and I'll phone your parents to let them know where you are."

"It's . . . okay?" Peter was looking at her more than her father, so Virginia smiled.

"I knew . . . well, I sort of knew . . . what I was getting into. And honestly, Daddy? Joseph deserved that. He's done worse."

"Miss Justice, are we? All right, come on, both of you."

Virginia followed, and she felt – for just a moment – that someone else was also smiling at her. Or even . . . maybe . . . inside her.

 

 

The post Legend: Chapter 16 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

LEGEND: Chapter 15

Our adversary still has questions....

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Chapter 15.

And that tells me what I need to know.

He whipped the silver blade out and down before his prisoner realized his intent; even the Great Werewolf barely managed a widening of its eyes before the pure metal blade severed its heart and shattered its spirit.

Wiping the blade, he turned and opened the door of the cell. "Dispose of the remains," he said to the warrior of the Dead who stood outside on guard; it bowed and went inside to carry out the directions.

I had suspected . . . but this was a fortunate find. They knew much which was hidden from us all, and which explains a very great deal.

The Hall of the Half-Lady was huge and filled with winding corridors, but his powers had fully returned and even within this other realm his senses could not easily be clouded. He strode swiftly through the passages until he came to a great door in a high tower and threw it open.

She was there, as he had known she would be, directing the movements of hosts of warriors in drills. He paused a moment, unwillingly awed by the size of the field and the forces arrayed thereon; they seemed almost limitless, armed fighting men and women stretching from the base of the tower to dwindle in the distance to ant-specks and smaller, a sharp-edged sea of the dead yet moving.

"My Lord?" Hel turned and regarded him curiously. "I had thought you were scouting the Mortal World. What do you seek of me?"

"I would speak with you in private, where not even the ears of your subjects would hear," he said. Any conflict between allies had to be done where it would not be known to the forces below – at least so long as he had need of those allies.

She tilted her head, then nodded, turned from the parapet and led the way inward, finally arriving at one of her sitting-rooms. "Here none might see us or disturb us, my Lord. What then is of such importance?"

He smiled grimly. "Let us speak of Zarathan, my Lady. Let us speak of the Great Seal, and its breaking, and what that means to one who chose to stay here, on the far side of that Seal."

She made an abortive movement – an attack? An attempt to flee? – but restrained herself; still, the gaze of Hel was enough to send a chill down his back. "You speak words I had thought you knew not, Lord. A surprise indeed."

"Yes, a surprise, Lady, that I know such secrets. Secrets you had thought to keep from me, had hoped I would not suspect or unravel, so that I might not suspect the whole of the truths." He seated himself at a table and looked up at her, allowing a sneer to appear at the edge of his mouth. "Some proceed to the Infinite, but many do not. Most either are to be reborn, or proceed to their own place.

"But you . . . you have taken those not destined for the Infinite. You have played the most desperate gamble over the ages, and now it is not at all just a matter of revenge, is it? It is a matter of survival, for those who return will look for those that are theirs, that should be waiting, and when those are not found, they will know who has taken what was meant for them."

She tossed her head, and her full-smile seemed that of a skull in all aspects, not merely on the one side. "I wonder where you came by this . . . sudden knowledge, my Lord." She closed her eyes. "I see . . . A prisoner . . . but what man would have—"

Suddenly she was white, paper-white as though all of her were dead as bone, and she stepped back against the wall. "No. Even you, Lord, even you would never be so mad. You did not question one of the Destroyers of Souls."

"I did, and killed him when he served no more purpose."

She looked at him in horror. "Have you no knowledge of what you have done? What doom you have brought upon us? The sentence of the King shall be on you, and –"

"Their King is dead, dead and gone these five years and more," he said with a laugh.

She stared in disbelief. "He was before Asgard was built, he watched from the shadows when the ancient empire fell, and all those he slew came not to my halls, nor to those of my brothers and sisters, nor have they passed to the Infinite, but were his, and his alone. He cannot be killed."

"Even they say he is dead, Lady, dead and gone, and they hide in fear that those who slew the Werewolf King shall seek them out as well. So he told me, yes, and told me much more before he died." He smiled. "He told me what he saw, Lady, what he could see when he looked upon me, what he would have taken if he had dared."

He stood and looked down on her. "Who am I, Lady? Your own father, perhaps, trapped in your snares for his crime of playing both sides, for having a wife that was not your mother? Surt's shade? Or from farther off, perhaps one of your own whom you now seek to bind to you?"

Faint color slowly returned to the living side of her face and Hel smiled again, not as a skull but as a woman. "Ah, my Lord, you see . . . yet you do not.

"But," she raised a hand as he opened his mouth, "you have learned much, enough that I now know I must hide nothing more from you – and that I have, perhaps, chosen better than I knew."

"Yes, Lord. You are – or could be – one of us, an Aesir, an Olympian, a Kami-sama or Great Spirit, one of the gods, in short.

"But," she reached out and touched his face, and the caress both burned like ice and warmed like the touch of sunshine, "but, my Lord, you are not one of those who went before, one of those returning in godly or mortal guise to this world they fled. You were born in the moment the Powers returned to Earth, born of your bitterness and hatred and rage and of the clear, cold vision of the hypocrisy and evil that lies beneath the surface of every human being. Human beings know they are evil, they fear themselves in the mirror of that truth, and because they know this, because they acknowledge that hatred, because they know it lies within them, because of this they have given to you the power of their hearts."

"And the others . . ."

"Indeed, Lord."

He smiled, a chuckle rolling like faint thunder around the room. "And so by our bargain I would give unto you the new gods, to be . . . not mere subjects, I think."

Hel looked at him expressionlessly for a moment, then sighed. "Your powers are greater than I had imagined, Lord. So even that you have guessed, or seen.

"Yes, you are right. I can hold such spirits within me, make them in time a part of myself, especially if there be a way to break the ties of the world to those spirits. So I held you, for a time – until you emerged to Midgard, indeed."

He threw back his head and laughed. "So you would take these new gods, gods who do not know what they are, but that touch the source of magic, perhaps the source of power eternal itself, and . . . make them yours. Become greater than those who return, remain the true ruler of the dead, even against the great Demons, the other Heavens and Hells, that even Hades, Anubis, Yama, and others whose names have not been spoken on this world ere now will be but your vassals, their realms but parts of your own."

She nodded.

"So." He studied her closely. "You released me. You allowed me to return to life, to breathe again the air of Earth, Midgard as you call it. Why? I know my power. Why would you release me when you have so much to gain?"

She smiled and told him, and he laughed again.

"As I had suspected. So it is not accident, it is fate, and so long as he has not been utterly defeated I must remain. As for the others . . . I believe I know how they might be delivered unto you, all of them. It will require patience, but you have waited for millennia; we can take months."

She bowed low. "You trust me, Lord?"

"I trust that your own interests align with my own, and that you do indeed need me. You have sworn an oath in your own name to serve me until the world is destroyed as I desire. Now it is time for us to take your powers and mine, to seek out your brothers, and begin. And I shall lead them, and your armies."

"None who is nameless can do this, my Lord," she said warningly. "You have passed from life to death to life again, but you have spoken no name, and I may not give one to you, for in names there is power and the one who follows may not hold that power over the one they follow. If you would lead me, if you would have my armies follow you and my brothers call you Lord, you must have a name."

He smiled, and he saw that even she stepped back at that smile. "Then a name I shall have, Lady. As always the destruction of the world needs a name.

"Your own ending was incomplete, and you seek to finish what was begun, yea, and to be the one survivor to fulfill the prophecies that lie beyond the end.

"Then I shall take that ending and make it my own, complete the destruction of the world in its name, in my name: Ragnarok."

 

 

The post LEGEND: Chapter 15 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

LEGEND: Chapter 14

Time for Legend to continue his therapy...

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Chapter 14.

Rain whispered and chattered against her office's windows as she waited. She'd spread a towel underneath, so that when she opened the window it would keep the water off her carpet.

With a blurred flicker, he was suddenly there, inside, the window still closed, hardly a drop of rain on him, only a slight dusting of mist that edged that spiky mane with diamond dust and an aura of magic.

She realized she'd given an inarticulate yelp as he looked at her contritely. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Just thought you wouldn't want the window open in this crap. It's cold, too. You can really tell it's heading for winter."

She was still recovering. You would think I'd get used to surprises. Not yet, I guess. "How did you do that?"

"Oh . . . yeah, you wouldn't know. We don't detail our powers out for the world, after all." Another contrite smile. "After I've spent enough time near someone, I can sense their . . . ki, their spirit, and use that as a sort of a homing beacon."

"So you can . . . what, teleport anywhere I am?" The thought was a little . . . no, a lot . . . creepy.

He winced. "Um . . . yes? Not that I would if it wasn't my appointment time. I have to have some idea of where I want to go first, anyway, otherwise the chance I can pick one person's spirit out of all the others around is awfully low. Unless they're one of the super-types and using their power, that generally turns 'em into disco strobe lights."

"Well . . . all right. As long as you promise never to use that outside of coming to appointments." She wasn't about to forbid him from using a method of travel that provided him with better security, as long as he wasn't going to be intrusive otherwise.

"Promise and cross my heart." Legend suited actions exactly to words. He really does sound younger than he is. "Unless I think you're in immediate danger – like someone's going to attack you and I'm near enough to sense it. I hope that's okay? I'd hate to make a promise like that and have it put you in danger."

She nodded and sat back in her seat. "I admit, I wouldn't want that to come back to bite me either." As good an opening as any. "From that, I'd guess you take your promises very seriously. Would you really leave me in danger if I'd had you promise exactly the way you said it the first time, with no caveats?"

Legend frowned, wrinkling his brow. "I . . . well, I wouldn't want to, but . . ." He trailed off and sat for a long moment, thinking. "I really don't know. It'd be really hard to break that promise, I know that."

I think I'm seeing those limits Jason implied. She knew she should approach this carefully, so she hesitated, trying to think of exactly what to say next.

Before she spoke, Legend leaned forward nervously. "Um, Dr. Hsui, I . . . well, I need to talk to you."

She who hesitates is lost . . . but this sounds like he's approaching something else important. "That's why I'm here. What about?"

Now the normally-confident hero looked really nervous. "Um . . . about . . . about the reason that I came here, I guess."

"You 'guess'?"

He stood up like a shot, paced quickly around the room. "No, I mean, it's not a guess, yes, the reason I had to look for someone like you."

She waited. Often it was best to just watch, give them eye contact but let the quiet build its own pressure.

"I . . . It's not easy. The problem . . ." He stopped and said something in Japanese that she recognized as a mild curse. "He will say it better than me."

"Who will?" she asked, puzzled. "There isn't –"

Legend glowed suddenly, shimmering silver-gold that utterly blotted away the dull gray of the rain, and for an instant she was dazzled. Blinking her eyes, she refocused . . .

To see a slender, brown-haired, brown-eyed, very young man looking nervously at her.

My God. She kept her interested doctor face on, although it was a major strain to do so. "Ben, I presume?"

The laugh was shaky and didn't sound at all like Legend's. "Well, I'm not Dr. Livingston," Ben said.

"Why did you . . . change back?"

"Because Legend dumped this problem on me, that's why." The tone wasn't really annoyed, more resigned, she thought.

"Sometimes Legend talks as though he is you, Ben. Are you really Legend? Are you trying to distance yourself from the problem by blaming yourself under a different name?"

"I . . ." He screwed up his face in a comical exaggeration of someone thinking – covering up an obvious discomfort. After a few minutes, he shook his head. "It's really hard to say. I guess . . . I guess I am Legend, but . . . there's still something different when I'm being him. You know what an RPG is?"

"A roleplaying game, yes. Are you talking about a tabletop like Dungeons and Dragons or one of the online RPGs?"

"Oh, tabletop, of course." He looked around, not meeting her gaze as he continued. "Well, um, it's sort of like immersive roleplay, when you're trying to be the character, but it's more than that, I think."

"You feel more restricted," she said.

He looked surprised. "That's it, that's exactly it! Like . . . well, even when you're immersive a part of you knows who you really are and can think of stuff that the character wouldn't, you know, 'hey, I know this adventure, I read the book he's taking it from', that kind of thing, and sometimes you have to work hard to shut that voice off so you can focus on what the character does?" She nodded to show she understood – which she did; she hadn't played much, but she'd known a lot of dedicated gamers. "Okay, well, when I'm Legend it's really hard to think about stuff that he wouldn't think about. I can sort of do it, sometimes push through things based on my real-life thoughts, but it's almost like I am the role and he is the real person then."

"But you just said that he is you."

"Ack. Yeah, but," he paused, clearly searching for a way to express it, "but he's me the way I want to be, not the way I know I am."

He had something else on his mind when he came here, but this is a very important direction to pursue. "You don't like who you are?"

He gave a sort of half-grin. "Does anyone who isn't a utterly arrogant prick completely like himself?" He continued, "I don't hate myself, but I know I'm not perfect in a lot of areas, I do or say or think things I wish I wouldn't, and even though they're pretty much stuff I know everyone does, I wish I didn't.

"Legend doesn't. Even when he's really mad at someone he never seriously thinks about just blowing them to dust, which he probably could with most of the schmucks he runs into. I don't think I'd ever do it, but boy, when you see someone you've put away twice before once more running around putting innocent people in danger, I'd sure think about it; if someone just shot people like that they wouldn't have the chance to kill anyone later."

"I see. So you're saying that even against the worst of his enemies he doesn't think of using his full power without restraint?"

"Not many of them. About the only one I can remember is Endgame, or Mageddon as he called himself the third time. Mainly because he had enough power to make us have to pull out all the stops."

She knew that name – both of them. You didn't forget a genocidal maniac whose appearances were disasters on the same level as a Richter 9 earthquake. "Legend thought about killing him?"

Ben thought a moment. "Yeah, mostly from sheer outrage. Endgame . . . even for the villains he was in a class all by himself." The young man grimaced. "Um, look, this might all be important stuff too, but I got shoved out here to talk about the real reason we came to see you."

And it must be important if you're forcing yourself to confront it like this. I have a guess. "All right, Ben. Go on."

"It's . . ." He shifted in his chair, almost squirming; the motion told her she was almost certainly right. "You remember how I said that almost everything can change about us? I mean, when Legend first showed up he looked just the way he does now, even though I was a lot younger?"

She nodded. He was leading up to hs problem, and the way he was doing it . . .

"So, yeah. A lot of the others have that same kind of thing happening, and it can . . . kinda get confusing when you're dealing with them. You know, like do I treat them like I know they are, or like they are when they're in their empowered form, or different in each form?"

"And there's one particular person that this is posing a big problem with."

He gave an explosive sigh as he nodded emphatically.

Play the hunch. "Fireflux."

"How do you do that?" The boy went crimson.

"Should the magician show her tricks?" she asked with a smile, then shrugged. "Do you really want me to explain? I will, if you like."

"Please. I know, it might be sort of my way of evading the discussion, but I'm really interested."

"All right." She thought a moment. "You're barely graduated from high school, you told me in your own background that you were . . . socially isolated for the most part, and in the last five years you've been thrust into what might be the most high-profile situation any human being has ever been in. I have very little doubt that you have a lot of female fans who are . . . extremely willing to spend time with Legend. In any capacity.

"But you've told me just now how Legend won't consider things that are immoral from your point of view, and – correct me if I'm wrong – you would think just having physical relationships with these girls would be immoral."

He coughed, cheeks still bright red. "Uh, well, yeah. Not that I wouldn't . . . well . . . like the idea some, but they don't know me or Legend really and it'd be like taking advantage of the image, and the image is too important for that, and anyway I would have to really like someone to want to do that with them . . ."

She continued. "But someone like Fireflux understands. She's part of the most dangerous – and I think the most exciting – life you could ever have imagined, and she's Legend's equal in this. She knows not just what it's like to be on the firing line, but what it's like to have a second secret life." She nodded towards her computer. "And the tabloids and celebrity mags certainly snap a lot of pictures of the two of you together when not out fighting things."

"Oh."

"So what is the problem, Ben? Is she really a he?"

The expression on Benjamin's face was so comical she couldn't quite restrain a laugh. "No, no, she's not. I mean, yeah, that would be . . . really a problem, and . . . and it is definitely not just possible, I know one hero that switches sex. More than one, now that I think about it. But that isn't the problem.

"The problem is that in her real form, her non-super form . . . she's fourteen."

Oh my. She glanced at the clock and realized that they were already close to the end of the session. "I can see that would definitely be a problem – in more ways than one. But she often seems older. As did Legend, I admit."

He sighed. "And that's a big part of the problem. If she was just fourteen I might notice she's very pretty, but I'd never think about actually . . . well, the thing is, she's not. The transformation isn't just physical. It's mental, and in ways that . . . well, as Legend I am an absolute master of the martial arts. I know every style, every technique, every move you can imagine, and they're instinctive, like I'd trained with them for twenty years. I know things I shouldn't have any way of knowing. Heck, even before Legend was named he knew how to use his powers pretty well, though we've done a lot of refining since then.

"Fireflux knows a lot of things no fourteen year old should, and she can act a lot different from any fourteen year old. And at the same time she does act fourteen. And she is one of my fans, was for a couple years before she changed. At first it was just like she was the quiet head of my fan club – she didn't go all squee on me or anything – but after a year or so she started . . . flirting with me. And she's been getting a lot more obvious with it."

"And both you and Legend are torn over this."

"Um . . . yeah."

She looked up to the ceiling and thought a moment, then closed her notebook. "Unfortunately we are out of time today. But I think we both need some time to reflect on everything. Let's pick up on this next time."

"We're out of . . . oh." To her surprise, he looked sincerely disappointed; most people, especially young men, would feel considerable relief at being able to back away from a subject with that much emotional – and potentially legal – dynamite. "I guess we are."

He stood up and looked out at the still-grey day, and abruptly the silver-gold light shone out, leaving Legend standing before her. He bowed. "Then until next time . . ."

And he was gone.

If I could publish on this, she thought wryly, I think I could make a career from this case.

 

 

The post LEGEND: Chapter 14 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

LEGEND: Chapter 13

Well, this IS a superhero universe, they should probably do a little superheroing sometime...

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Chapter 13.

"I can't believe this!" Fireflux snapped in exasperation as she incinerated three more of the wood-and-brass automatons.

"Believe it," Legend said. "Someone's been boning up on our abilities and trying to take advantage of our obvious weaknesses but good."

The automata moved startlingly quickly, far faster and more smoothly than anything that actually ran on clockwork, gears, levers, and pulleys could possibly have managed. It's empowered work, that's obvious. I'm not sensing much if any ki from them, which is of course part of the problem; no ki, I can only sense them the way anyone else does, and that's how I got cut in two places.

Fireflux wasn't in much better shape. The brass and wood weren't subject to her magnetic manipulation, so she had to directly focus excited plasma onto each one, individually – something she found a lot harder to do than simple magnetic stunts.

A major blast would probably clear the area of the insectile, strangely Victorian-looking monstrosities, but given that they were in the tunnels underneath the University at Albany, this would have other unfortunate consequences. Restructurization Encoding was supposed to have been done on the campus last year, Ben's thoughts reminded him, but someone cut the funding, pointing out that there hadn't been any major incidents on SUNY property.

Another three of the things bounded from a side tunnel, large enough to barely fit from the area, hammering him with twin-bladed strikes like a praying mantis. OUCH! They're reinforced, too; ordinary weapons can't even scratch me.

"You have any idea who?"

"Guesses, but nothing solid, Fireflux," he answered. The girl zipped by him, mere feet away, and her smell of ozone and perfume mingled, distracting – as did pretty much all of her. I have a real problem. The red hair streaming out behind her, the all-too-tight stereotypical leotard – cut in ways that made it almost infinitely more eye-catching, the flash of her smile, the wink of a green eye even in the middle of battle . . .

This is why I went to Jennifer. If there are gods, boy, I need some help.

The frustration gave him something to use, though, and he grabbed hold of it, focused with the anger, channeled it into a strike that sent one of the clanking monstrosities cannonballing through a wall, shedding pieces as it went; his simultaneous kick in the other direction literally shattered the one that had tried to ambush him. "Admiral, you got anything?"

"The probability is," Admiral Twilight replied, with his trademark phrase, "it is someone we have encountered before. They're following attack patterns that take into account your teamwork. That's why both of you have been injured already."

"Should we pull out, bring in someone else?" He ignored his own reluctance and Fireflux's protest.

"Might could," he heard the Rat say, "but I wouldn't be surprised if whoever it is has taken all us locals into account."

"Bunraku?" Fireflux asked. "She uses puppet-things all the time."

Legend focused, looking. "No. Definitely not her. She uses soul-strings to move her creations, and to my ki sense they look like neon tubing. There's not a thing obviously controlling them." He concentrated, boosting his speed to dodge a swarm of smaller automata, fired a quick energy burst from his hand that blasted them to fragments.

"Even though it's only been a few years, there's a lot of possibilities, especially since many of us have served across the globe at one point or another," the Admiral said.

Legend felt a dozen pinpricks as more miniature attackers sank talons into him. There was a burning at the site of each puncture. "Fireflux! Some of these things are poisoned! Don't let them cut you again!" He drove the effect of the poison back, burned the offending toxin out of his system. We need to figure out who's behind this! "We'll need reinforcements here. There's a lot of these things."

"The Steel Sentinel's on his way. Traveller's not available, so you'll have to hold out for a few."

He focused on the fight, sensing Fireflux's ki reasonably steady and so not in danger right now. Who? Bunraku's out. Autonomous makes his out of his own body – they're all built like him, not like these things at all. He couldn't change that, and . . . he caught some pieces of the next one, took a moment to study closely, . . . and these are definitely brass and wood, not just disguised.

Legend! the inner voice that had first summoned . . . or created? . . . him called out. Or was it his own voice? Look at it the other way around!

The thought crystallized. "It's the school, not us!" he said, even as he found himself battling something like a steampunk centipede. "Focus on the university! It's something that would interest one of our other enemies, someone who'd know how we fight enough to tailor these things to fight us and who'd know we'd be the ones to respond in this region!"

"That's a thought," Admiral Twilight said, and he could hear the increasing confidence in his voice. " . . . and the probability is we can make a connection now."

"Got it!" the Rat said triumphantly. "New research under the Transformation Act on combined-mode systems for underwater exploration –"

"—of course." Fireflux smacked herself in the head. "So combine interest in underwater technology with vicious poisoned Victorian gadgets and we get –"

"The Sea Wasp," Legend finished. He sensed a familiar ki approaching. "Steel Sentinel, can you keep things under control here?"

"For a few minutes at least, no problem." The whine of the Steel Sentinel's turbines was audible – he was here already.

"Then we're going to the source."

He reached out, grabbed Fireflux's hand, sensed concentrations of life all around him, stitched a map of souls and distances and felt one he knew well, well enough to use as an anchor . . .

Offset by a hundred yards – the most he could manage – they appeared in midair above Albany, a quarter mile from the waterfront.

"He's going to be disguised, shielded. Won't sense his power unless he goes active," he murmured to Fireflux.

"Yeah, sweetie, I know," she said, grinning, "but he's got to be in the channel, the deepest part of the channel, or we'd see him."

From this vantage point he could see the State University grounds, and look across to the point of the river nearest the University. "There."

She concentrated. "Nothing . . . no, wait . . . more than nothing. Or less. There's really nothing. Like not a sign of anything metal. And since that's not possible in a river that's had that many people using it for that long . . ."

He could feel the pulse of magnetic force through the air that ripped out and down from Fireflux, and the water shuddered.

Flicker.

"Got him!"

"I'll keep his shields busy with me!"

"On my way!"

Legend streaked down into the brown waters of the Hudson. He couldn't see, but he could sense, feel in flashes and flickers the location of the insane gadgeteer who called himself the Sea Wasp. Suddenly he felt a shift in the current and his hands struck metal. He grabbed, pulled. It's heavy!

But now he was mad. This nutcase had sent vicious automata to steal a research project, not caring that they might kill uncounted students and teachers on the way, and this wasn't the first time. The lawyers might let him out again, but . . .

"No more today."

He pulled, lifted, straining with will and focus, and felt the immense weight lift with him, rising, light starting to become visible, brighter, and suddenly he broke free, water streaming down from him and then from the huge form of the Sea Wasp's submersible, a Nemoesque submarine three hundred feet long. Legend growled and heaved upward, yanking the entire vessel clear of the water, up, up over his head, even as he heard the hatch opening, the escape capsule ejecting – to be stopped in midair by Fireflux.

"Going nowhere, Waspie," Fireflux said with satisfaction. "You're sunk."

He let the submarine drop on one of the cleared regions in the Port of Albany. I'll move it as soon as the authorities tell me where to put it; I couldn't leave it in the river, it'd be a navigation hazard.

He turned and punched through the capsule, yanking the Wasp out through the wall. The older man shook off the impact and returned Legend's glare with a cool and calculated gaze of his own. "Enough of the rage, Legend," he said after a moment. "You'll do nothing about it, as I know well, and you have no purpose in just keeping me here above the landscape. Put me into the hands of the police and I'm sure we shall meet again anon."

"Oh, let me give him a couple whacks!" Fireflux said. "Those things hurt people, and not just us!"

There are times I am very tempted. But that wasn't really true, just a snippy little thought, one he beat down mercilessly. "No," he said, and looked at the Sea Wasp, arrogant and yet cool and elegant in his old-fashioned Captain's outfit. "We're who we are as much because of what we won't do as for what we will do."

He repeated that to himself several times to hammer that thought home as he and Fireflux flew away from the holding station where they'd dropped off the Wasp.

"Hey," Fireflux said, touching his arm. "That was pretty good all 'round, you know?"

"You . . . all right?"

"I think so. I didn't get any of the poison stings – thanks to you." Her eyes shone up at him. "Hey, the evening's still early and we've done our good deed for the week. Maybe we could . . . go somewhere together?"

As his heart beat faster, he realized that the most dangerous battle of the day was just beginning.

 

 

The post LEGEND: Chapter 13 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

LEGEND: Chapter 12

Dr. Hsui has an unexpected visitor...

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Chapter 12.

She stopped dead in her tracks as she saw the blonde young man, not much if any older than she was, wave at her from across her own office.

An office which she had just unlocked. "Who are you, and what are you doing in here?"

"A service call," he said with a grin. "Legend wouldn't have asked himself, but Jason figured you needed more security here. He was right, too. That so-called security system you've got could be broken by a one-armed blind man using a credit card."

Now she was pissed. "Who the hell are you? And if Wood's behind this –"

"I," the man said, straightening up and bowing, "am the Jammer." He said it in the same tone one might say "I am the Emperor of the Universe."

She blinked. "You?"

"Me. Active for twenty years, Most-Wanted for three, legendary for fifteen." He continued running some odd gadget over parts of the office. "And I know you'd rather have been told, but there was no absolutely sure and secure way to tell you until now. Phones – even cell phones – can be tapped, face to face meetings can be witnessed, and so on and so forth. But if I don't want someone spying on me, they don't, and that's pretty much the beginning and end of it."

She regarded him with skepticism. "And so you broke into my office to make it more secure. You, the hacker who they couldn't catch, stopping by because Jason Wood thought I needed more security?"

He looked – just a tiny bit – embarrassed, but his next words showed it wasn't about what most people would have been embarrassed by. "Well, um, actually, they could catch me because 'they' did, and 'they' let me stay out of jail if I did their work instead of my own."

"I . . . see." She considered getting the gun out of her purse, but the situation didn't seem to warrant it . . . yet. "Have you . . . secured my office?"

"Almost done."

"Does that include my phone?"

"Sure, first thing I did. If someone's listening in that you didn't call or bring into the conference, it'll squeal like a teenager at a Medallion concert."

Accordingly, instead of using her office phone, she pulled out her cell and selected a recent number from its memory. Maybe people can tap my cell, but I'm not doing this call using a phone he just worked on, that's for sure. It was answered after two rings. "Wood's Information Service," a woman's voice said. "How may I direct your call?"

"Jason Wood, please. Tell him it's Doctor Hsui."

"One moment." There was a short interval of hold music, and then a familiar voice answered, "Wood here. Dr. Hsui?"

"Yes, Mr. Wood. There is another gentleman here in my office who did not have an appointment."

"Ah, yes. I thought you'd call about that. It's for your protection as well as your client's, and I trust your visitor told you why no one warned you."

"He did, but I didn't trust his word entirely."

Jason's chuckle was clearly audible. "I don't trust him entirely either – but with stuff like this, he's not only the best, he's so much better than the second best it's not funny."

"So exactly what has he done to my office?"

"Let him explain it. I'll just say that it's something you couldn't have afforded even if you'd known how to contact him, which you didn't."

"How do I know it's the right person?"

"His real name is Ingram Remington Locke. No one other than me, a couple of my associates, and the agency that . . . recruited him knows that. Ask him for his name."

"All right . . . I guess. But I don't want any more surprises like this."

"In this business your life will be full of surprises," Jason said, seriously. "This is one of the pleasant ones. One that will, hopefully, prevent you from having any of the less pleasant ones later."

"I . . . see." She hung up and looked at the Jammer. "What is your name? Your real name?"

He blinked, then grinned sheepishly. "Ingram Remington Locke. My dad . . . was kinda into guns."

I am not going to start another impromptu psychoanalysis. This guy would be a career all by himself, judging from what I know of his history. "All right, Ingram. What did you do to my office?"

"Well, the main thing was to make sure that there weren't any bugs, and that someone couldn't come in here and put any more in. I did a full search and scan, replaced your CryWolf unit with a new secure one, and put in an automated monitor unit and scanning routine that'll put an inconspicuous but clear warning icon on your desktop when you boot up in the morning if anyone's been messing around with your stuff.

"Then I put some exterior security in, based on some of the Shelter tech, that will pretty much make it impossible for anyone to do any spying from the outside. Anyone trying won't see clear shots of your office, just blurs. Don't," he said with another grin, "ask me exactly how it works; something to do with metamaterials and encoding sequences. I just program it to blur things in a way that even God couldn't unscramble."

She looked out; the view seemed the same. "If I was standing outside right now . . .?"

" . . . you'd see a blurred figure that your own mother couldn't recognize," the Jammer confirmed. "Though that will be less extreme when you're not in the office; that trick's a power hog. Similarly, someone trying one of the TEMPEST or related tricks will get absolutely nothing from your computer, and laser-microphone and other methods won't get usable sound signals from your walls, windows, or any other part of the office.

"The expensive part, aside from the reinforced metamaterial windows, is the shielding unit preventing the . . . um . . ." he gave a hesitation she was only all too familiar with, " . . . super-beings from just doing some kind of scrying, X-ray vision, whatever to see what's what in your office. That we took from a Shelter that was under construction but the shell had a flaw, so it'd be another couple of weeks before they'd need it; by then we can have another unit made."

He pointed to her desk. "And, of course, I've secured your computer, which was about as secure as a sieve before. Now that you're here and we can talk securely, I'd like to ask you permission to do the same to your house."

My house? "Do you think that's necessary?"

He shrugged. "Most people take work home with them – sometimes without realizing it, sometimes because they have to. And someone in your position probably sometimes has emergency calls at home, and then you're going to have to access your records from there."

She felt a chill as it began to sink in. Someone's decided that this is important enough to make this kind of offer. Someone with a lot of money and power. "Who are you working for, Jammer? Jason Wood isn't your boss."

He bit his lip, a somewhat childlike affectation that probably meant something – stop the psychoanalysis! – and thought. "No, he's not – though there's an awful lot he could ask me to do, just because . . . well, that doesn't matter. Anyway . . . I work for a United Nations organization, which I don't want to detail any more, which has spent a lot of years looking into the bizarre, so they were in a position to handle the Transformation. They're the ones who're behind coordinating the Shelters, the warning systems, who've helped lean on the legal system to deal with the changes, all that kind of thing.

"I know what you're asking, though. All I can tell you is that my boss didn't tell me to go along with Jason because he owes Jason anything, it's because he thinks someone like you is needed."

"How do I know you're not actually bugging my office while pretending to secure it?"

For a moment the Jammer simply looked offended, then he shrugged. "You don't, I guess. But if I did that, believe me, eventually Jason would find out – and there are some damn good reasons why there is almost no one on earth who wants to make that man mad, even though he hasn't got one single special power to his name."

In the end, what decided her was the tone and expression she remembered from Jason Wood talking about Legend, and especially how he had said he could make guesses about the hero's identity . . . but wouldn't. "All right. If you can make it look like an ordinary upgrade."

"Not a problem. And believe me, it'll make everyone involved breathe just a little easier." He picked up a small backpack and slung it over his shoulder. "And just incidentally, you will now have the absolute best burglar alarms ever." He waved and walked out, whistling a vaguely-familiar tune.

For several minutes she sat alone in her room, thinking about what this meant, and her heart grew heavier and heavier. Am I putting myself in danger? Am I putting Yuki in danger?

She was strongly tempted to put an end to things right then. I can't lose her. I can't risk her being hurt because I'm treating this man. She knew that Yuki – if she knew – would insist that she go on, but Jennifer desperately wanted to not go on, to stop, stop this right now before anything else happened.

Even as she thought that, she knew it was a lost cause. Yuki would want her to continue because Jennifer had taught her that this was her job, had made her daughter understand how important that job was and that other people depended on her doing that job . . . and Yukari Hsui, being very much her parents' daughter, already cared what happened to other people.

So it wasn't just that Yuki would want her to continue; it was that the profession, or at least Jennifer's view of her profession, demanded she continue. There was no legal requirement, but there was a moral requirement for a doctor that you helped the people you could, when they came to you for help. You might in regular practice decide you couldn't afford to take on one more patient, but once they were your patient, that was it. You had assumed responsibility for helping them. In the operating room, an enemy soldier was just another patient and you did what you could.

And that didn't change because you were working on the mind instead of the body. Legend was her patient, and she wasn't going to let anything – least of all herself – scare her off from doing what she could to help him deal with what were undoubtedly some of the most difficult and unusual problems anyone had ever faced.

Decision made, she felt a weight lift from her. Oh, the fear that something terrible could happen was still there, but she accepted that. Other doctors, in other times, had risked at least as much, and in this case her patient risked a great deal for others every day.

The outer door chimed, and she took a breath and readied herself. Time to get back to work.

 

 

The post LEGEND: Chapter 12 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Demons of the Past: RETRIBUTION, Chapter 21

Demons of the Past: RETRIBUTION is now on sale (link on my main page)!

In our final snippet, The Eonwyl has to really accept some truths about herself...

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Chapter 21

The Eönwyl:

She found herself ducking without knowing why, then dodging to the side and bringing up her arm to parry a blow that drove her to her knees. The Master of the Final Light looked down on her expressionlessly, golden crest chiming ever so slightly as it rippled above his head.

Acceptable, the Master thought after a moment, and withdrew his clawed hand, allowing her to rise.

"I wasn't even at practice this time!" she snapped, the aftershock of fear and combat making her voice shake, even as she reached down to gather up the tools she had dropped. "I was just working on –"

Your enemies will give you no warning of their intentions, Eönwyl. The only training that will suffice for your talent is to push it – constantly test its reactions and boundaries, so as to force it to extend itself, to show its limits or reveal that it has none.

"Everything has limits."

A flicker of amusement from both the Master and Vick, who was standing near one of the ship's control panels. Perhaps, though there are some that appear to have none that are easily discovered. Whether your combat sense is one of those is something worth exploring, as – even if Captain Varan gains all the allies he seeks – we shall all be heavily outnumbered in the coming conflict.

She shrugged. "And you really think this power will make a difference in a Galactic-scale war? The fact that I can dodge –"

Dodge? Dodge? You . . . Vick's mind-voice faded in strangled indignation. The greatest dodging you are doing is to evade the simple truths of your abilities, and neither I nor the Master of Final Light can grasp why this is so!

She didn't have a retort, but she wanted one, and stood frozen in angry defiance.

"Ahh," Guvthor's voice rumbled through the control room from its dedicated connection to the cargo bay. "I believe I can penetrate this mystery, my R'Thann friend." The immense furry visage gazed down from an auxiliary screen. "It is, I suspect, something very difficult for your people to understand, but much more familiar to myself. Captain Varan would not have to ask the question, but alas, he is not with us.

"Eönwyl," Guvthor said, with a gentler tone to his deep voice, "I believe you are more obtuse than usual because you truly dislike the idea that you, personally, have some possible grand purpose, something setting you apart in a manner that you neither chose nor controlled."

She winced inwardly, and tried to look at him defiantly, or casually, or . . . something. But instead she found herself looking down.

"Your life is your own – and only your own. You want no connections – save those you choose – to the past, to the future, to the present, and that includes your personal abilities. I suspect most other people would have acknowledged, at the least, that they had some strange premonition of danger, but you –"

"I don't want to be special!" she snapped.

What an . . . absolutely incomprehensible statement. All beings want to be special, the Master said.

"I think what our esteemed trader means is that she does not wish to be special due to circumstances she did not choose."

The Eönwyl turned away, feeling tense and confused in a way she could not describe. "I . . . yes. Maybe. Something like that."

She could feel the sympathetic gaze of the Thovian and turned to face the screen. There was no sign of anger or disappointment on the fur-covered face, only understanding. "Understandable. Some details you and the Captain withheld, but your encounter with that ancient . . . force or being within the deep caverns of Fanabulax surely caused you to withdraw from any acknowledgement of your unique nature – a nature that had drawn that being to you. And then you devoted yourself to an escape, to a personal liberation, based only on your personal fortune and capabilities. In a sense, you wanted to prove that an ordinary miner could rise above anything and free her family . . . and so anything that makes you extraordinary undermines everything you thought about yourself."

Utter nonsense, Vick said.

"To you," the Eönwyl murmured, and swallowed. "To you it's nonsense. But he's . . . awfully close."

"As close as any could get, I suspect," Guvthor said. "But just as Captain Varan had to accept the inevitability that he would become a revolutionary – literally planning to overthrow the Empire in order to save it – so you must accept that you are unique, and your uniqueness may be as absolutely vital to our victory as anything the rest of us could achieve."

It was the reminder of Varan's choice that really stung. She knew just how much the Navy, the Empire, meant to him. And he had accepted that he was going to have to become its greatest enemy in order to possibly salvage even the smallest part of it. If he complained about it, I never heard it. Once he realized what he had to do, he accepted it, and started doing his best. I can't do less.

With an effort, she raised her head, looked at all three of the others. "All right. All right, I understand. I've got something that no one else has, and you think it's going to be important. But explain it to me. How can my being able to dodge—"

Guvthor cut her off. "When we first came to the decision of the part you would have to play, you acknowledged we were in the right – but you were, understandably, distracted and not thinking clearly. Your defenses were down. Now you have attempted to deny what your heart already knows.

"Your peculiar power is not merely 'dodging'. By our extensive tests over the last few days we have verified that you have precognition. You know what is to come, and that sense is not fooled by any method we have yet tested. It is limited in the detail you perceive – you do not appear to envision the precise identity of a threat – but it functions regardless of the distance, size, or nature of the threat. There may also be a temporal limitation – that is, we do not know if you can sense a threat a day, a week, a month, or a dozen years in advance – but such would be very difficult to determine without testing that took place over that time period. Evading a threat that is to come seven months hence would likely require only very small changes to your actions and not any outside the reasonable realm of behavior."

Exactly, the Master of Minds said. The important questions to be addressed are whether you can extend your power to something beyond the merely personal. All the known instances of your power's use are ones in which you were personally interested – where it was your life, your ship's safety, the safety of those you called friends, for whom you had accepted responsibility.

But, Vick continued, it should not be limited to that. You should be able to extend it to situations and questions that you focus on sufficiently.

The general concepts they had discussed back on Zchorada were coming into a frighteningly clear focus. She wanted to evade that realization, but she had accepted Guvthor's analysis and that meant she couldn't evade any more. She closed the panel she had been working on before the Master's unexpected attack and turned back to the others. "You mean . . . to what's going to happen to other ships. In combat."

Not just other ships; entire fleets of vessels. You were able to sense when your vessel was about to be thrown from Conversion space; you have often stated to your friends when you realized that a course of action was, in fact, the right course. That is precognition of abstraction. The Master's voice was emphatic. That means that it is not merely the direct and simple threat you can sense, but threats of a much more broad nature – or even choices that are not threats in and of themselves. You knew that it was the right choice to leave Captain Varan in the hands of the Zchorada, even when you had absolutely no idea how you were going to solve the conundrum the Vmee Zschorhaza had presented you with. Do you grasp the implications, Eönwyl?

She forced herself to contemplate what the Master of Final Light was saying, what her other friends had told her. The implications . . . horrified her. A part of her simply did not believe that anything good could come of knowing the future, in any form; such a power tampered with one of the most fundamental facts of the natural order, that the future was unknown and unknowable because it was not yet decided.

But we need every possible advantage. Drawing a deep breath, she nodded. "If I can do that . . . I might be able to stretch my . . . intala, as Vick says, to recognize future patterns that affect ships and other military forces under my command."

Especially if you, as a commander, feel the same personal connection and responsibility that you did for your crew.

"The same . . . maybe not. After all, I was in love with Varan even before we realized it," she said, realizing with surprise that it was no longer hard to admit those feelings, "and Vick and Guvthor were my friends, not just passengers. But responsibility . . . yes, if I have to command ships, believe me, I'll feel personally responsible for protecting them. It will be my job."

The Master's crest rose in a pleased gesture. Excellent. You will have time to practice on your return to Imperial space, and perhaps a bit en route to Thovia.

"Which we should be heading to soon, now that other issues have been . . . dealt with," Guvthor said with one of his more predatory smiles.

Dealt with was a good phrase. What lay behind that phrase was the utter eradication of every Imperial vessel or agent in the entire R'Thann Meritocracy, including Mydr. The Eönwyl had been teleported directly to a berth on Thann'ta, allowing the Eönwyl, Vick, and Guvthor to immediately have a private meeting with the assembled Masters of Light.

One advantage of a telepathic government had shown itself; the discussion and deliberations of the Masters had taken a grand total of two and a half hours, at which point they had immediately declared war on the Reborn Empire – on all planets of their small star nation – and with a coordinated savagery frightening to behold had wiped the Imperials from the sky, including some waiting short Conversion jumps away.

Naturally Shagrath would know what had happened, but there was little he could do about it – and he couldn't even mention it for months, at least, unless he was ready to reveal that he got his news via psionic links.

And with the observers out of the way, the R'Thann were free to assemble their fleet.

"Are we really prepared to depart?" she asked. "Is the whole –"

Yes. The entirety of the R'Thann Fleet is assembled and awaiting our orders. Look upon it, if you would, the combined might of all the R'Thann Meritocracy gathered for war.

She looked back at the panel she had been working at when the Master had attempted his unexpected assault. "Remind me to finish that bit of maintenance. It's not crucial, but I hate leaving anything undone."

I will not forget, Vick said with a telepathic smile. After all, I, too, will be on board this ship, and I would not have any of it neglected. You have your tools?

She finished gathering the tools up and replacing them in the case. "Yes."

Vick touched her arm, and between one blink and the next she was on the control deck of The Eönwyl.

Before her, looming in front and to port and starboard and high to the zenith and far down to the nadir, was the R'Thann Fleet.

The ships mostly shared the aesthetic she had come to know well – sharp-edged, compact vessels whose lines suggested jagged daggers forged from warships – but the sheer volume of the vessels was staggering. They marched away into the distance before her, dwindling to dots dimmer than stars, the perfect ranks in array forming a grid that dwindled in perspective above and below and left and right. Scattered amidst the black-blade deadliness of the R'Thann warships she saw enclaves of other vessels, curved, rounded shapes that evoked the sense of shining, smooth pebbles worn by uncountable waves on the shore. Mydrwyll, she thought, and Vick nodded.

They, too, have sent the vast majority of their forces. We all realize how vital is our mission.

"How many?" The Eönwyl asked the question reluctantly, because she could already feel a grim, fearful weight descending upon her. I will be commanding those vessels. I will be responsible for them.

Sixty-five thousand, Vick said, overtones of pride clear in his voice.

"Torline and Niaadea," the Eönwyl murmured. "From the few worlds you control? That's . . . incredible."

You look on the Fleet of the Testing, the Master of Final Light replied. These are the ships that ply the Galaxy about us, seeking and testing new species, new civilizations. It is our mission, our very life's purpose. We have been doing this for long years indeed. It would be even larger, were not the Testing an expensive and dangerous profession in and of itself.

The Eönwyl swallowed. In some ways, this brought home the evolutionary fanaticism of the R'Thann more clearly than anything else could have: a gigantic fleet of survey and warships whose only purpose was to explore the Galaxy and test every species they encountered, sometimes to destruction. "It's . . . impressive. Even frightening."

Both R'Thann bared their teeth. Then let us hope the same feelings are brought forth in the Imperials. The R'Thann come for them!

She nodded, and felt a hint of her own predatory smile. "I can live with that." She touched the D-Comm button. "R'Thann Fleet, this is The Eönwyl. Prepare for departure."

The reply was instantaneous. "Fleet of Testing to Eönwyl: we stand ready. Destination?"

"Thovia," she said. The Fleet acknowledged. She gave them a few moments to propagate the order through the entire fleet, and then spoke once more.

"Fleet of Testing, this is The Eönwyl. Departing in five seconds on my mark. Five . . . four ... three . . . two . . . one . . ."

Her finger reached out and touched the control, and The Eönwyl leapt forward into Conversion.

 

 

The post Demons of the Past: RETRIBUTION, Chapter 21 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Demons of the Past: RETRIBUTION, Chapter 20

Varan has somewhere to go, and things to learn on the way...

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Chapter 20

Varan:

Take care of yourselves. I thought that with all the intensity I could muster.

And you as well, Vick replied from on board The Eönwyl, far across the Zhiraz system. But you need not echo so loudly in my brain! Your power will reach far, Captain; for such trivial distances you need not focus.

"All right, I guess I need to learn to judge that kind of thing better," I said aloud to the D-Comm.

"Yes," the Eönwyl said, with a smile from the screen lighting the control room of Hikitt-a-Hrrdr, the fast attack scout craft the Zchorada were lending me. "Vick's shaking his head and holding it in both hands; you must have almost mentally deafened him."

"Sorry, Vick. Really, I am. It's just . . . you're literally millions of kilometers away."

Apology accepted. But understand that as you have reached and surpassed the level of ordinary Masters of the Light, distance begins to matter less and less. Even now, I am in contact with the Master of the Final Light.

Without warning, that diamond-hard, space-cold mind touched mine. You can hear me as well, can you not, Captain Sasham Varan?

Yes. Are you reaching out to read my mind, or am I sending to you now?

     A flash of humorless teeth. A bit of both. But your mind is capable of reaching mine on its own; I can sense its power, and it is vastly greater than when first we met, Captain. Now, at least, you may share one advantage of our great Enemies: though separated by the gulf of the stars, still you will be able to speak and be heard.

"But only at proper times," Guvthor reminded us. "At each conversation we will re-synchronize our timekeeping, and appoint another time to speak – at random when possible, so as to prevent any likelihood of our enemies finding us with protections down."

A wise precaution, Rizzivor said. The red-and-black Chakron Master of Minds had volunteered to come with me, to assist me on the ship which had only hastily been customized for a human's use. Ordinary adversaries would find attacking minds at such distance a daunting task, and the defender would be at a great advantage; but we cannot say for sure that this would be true of the Kaital or of your Shagrath.

"And leaving that aside, the less he can sense of us, the less he'll be able to guess of what we're doing," I finished. "All right. Eönwyl . . . I'll miss you more than I can even say. But we've got to get going."

She looked, perhaps, the slightest bit embarrassed – I knew how private a person she was – but her smile rivaled her spectacular hair. "I'll miss you too, Sasham. Don't get yourself killed."

"Try not to, anyway."

Then we are prepared. Masters of Minds of Zchorada, have you the link fully in mind?

I could sense the tremendous echo of thousands of powerful consciousnesses all responding YES.

It is well. Sooovickalassa is the bridge. It will be a great Test you undergo, Sooovickalassa; if you fail, it may be a disaster indeed. Are you both prepared and certain?

Vick's mind-voice was confident. Am I not a Master of the Light now? There is no room in my soul for doubt, nor time for us to waste. Do it!

A titanic pulse of psionic power rose, so swift and powerful that I closed my own shields in reflexive defense, but not before sensing a strange superimposed panorama of empty, deep space and a spaceport in the midst of a lush jungle. On the forward screen, the tiny dot that represented The Eönwyl shimmered and vanished.

I stared in awe, probing the area with my senses. That hadn't been the activation of any stardrive. The Eönwyl had not used any technology at all; somehow, the combined power of Thann'ta and Zchorada had teleported the entire ship . . . hopefully safely! . . . fifteen thousand lightyears away.

I opened my mind again, thought hard about Vick, his mindvoice, and the direction in which lay Thann'ta. Vick?

I . . . am alive. The transfer . . . was a success. His mental presence suddenly cut off.

Vick? VICK!

Clear your mind of concern, Captain Varan. Master Sooovickalassa has collapsed, yes, but I sense no permanent injury done. He will recover. See for yourself.

For an instant I found myself looking through an alien pair of eyes, seeing in spectra subtly different than human, smelling other scents sharp and intriguing, looking down at Vick. The little R'Thann scientist was being tended by the Eönwyl.

Just as quickly the vision ended. Wow. I . . . hadn't done that before.

It is an experience worth availing yourself of when the opportunity arises. Understanding the nature of the Tests confronted by a species is always aided by understanding the nature of that species. Now, we have our work to do, and you have yours.

I know. Blessings of the First World on you.

And may the Testing favor you, Captain. We will speak again in one week plus six and one-half hours. He cut off instantly and I was once more alone in my head.

I turned to Rizzivor. "I guess we'd better get moving."

He bobbed his mandibles. "You are a pilot; are these controls satisfactory?"

"Good enough. Someone obviously stripped them out of an Imperial fighter, though an older design."

Older or not, the controls responded well enough, and it took me only a few moments to become sufficiently sure of myself that I was ready. "Zhiraz Control, this is Hikitt-a-Hrrdr, preparing for departure."

"Hikitt-a-Hrrdr, you are clear of all obstructions. You may Convert when ready."

I touched the control and the attack scout instantly disintegrated itself and reintegrated on the other side of lightspeed. "Smooth Conversion. Your drives are good, Rizzivor."

"Give me no credit, Captain. While not incapable in technical matters, I am no engineer or designer of drives. I am here to be a companion and teacher in the time you have remaining."

"And I certainly need a teacher. We won't have to come out of Conversion until the next contact time, so I suppose we should get started. What will we be practicing?"

Rizzivor buzzed thoughtfully. "You are accomplished at telepathy – both the simple communication, and combat of the mind. You have also been well-trained by our enemy in the more direct physical manifestations – telekinesis and its relatives as well as personal physical and mental enhancement. This would seem to me to leave only a few specialities untouched, and it is my view that we should begin with what we just witnessed: teleportation, the ability to bridge distance without crossing it."

"You think I can do that?"

"I am certain of it, Captain. We discussed aspects of his process, Dr. Sooovickalassa and I, and while he was – understandably – extremely reluctant to go into details as to how the process worked, he was very clear on the purpose of the design and his expected results. If the process worked as intended – and all evidence thus far is that it has – then you should have access to all known psionic fields to one degree or another, possibly excluding peculiarities such as the Eönwyl's precognition."

Well, if he and Vick thought so, they were probably right. "Can you teleport?"

Rizzivor buzzed a laugh, and then was suddenly on the other side of the control room. "A poor teacher I would be if I did not know what I was to teach!"

I remembered that Raiakafan could do that in combat as well; sparring with him had been a challenge in more ways than one. "True enough." I glanced at the screen. "So teleportation works even when in Conversion space?"

"Within a vehicle in Conversion, yes. I would not recommend attempting to teleport from here to, say, Zhiraz while traveling!" A telepathic impression of a very sudden and devastating explosion. "Transporting oneself from one point in a known universe to another is one thing; performing it from an object in one plenum to another, far less simple. I know of very few who have ever attempted it, and even fewer who have succeeded."

"But it's not impossible?" My engineer's brain was hurting trying to figure out how you'd even reconcile the vectors without wiping out a planet.

"Not impossible, no. Few things may be said to be truly impossible. But not something to be attempted without great skill and great justification for the necessity."

"Well, right now I'll settle for being able to move across the room."

"That will indeed be enough of a challenge. In fact, you may find it more challenging than you think."

"So how do I do this, anyway? In some stories you just sort of . . . imagine yourself there, and suddenly there you are."

"That would be convenient, but it is not quite correct. Teleportation follows something of the same essential principles as what you call the Nexus drive; you are attempting to enforce a spatiotemporal equivalence on two separate points in the universe. However, Nexus points are what amount to natural channels between locations. A psionic teleporter has no such natural channels; they must bridge that gap on their own, by, in essence, pulling the distant point to you, superimposing your current location on that point, and then letting the current location . . . spring away, so to speak."

I thought about that. "So I have to keep both my current and destination location in mind?"

"More; you must visualize them, with as much precision as possible. At the moment of teleportation you must have combined their visualizations so that they are the same, and only then can you choose which one will remain with you, and which will recede in the distance. The actual act of preparing a teleport is experienced differently for each psionic; some simply report the need to merge the visualizations, but most describe some sort of effort involved in, conceptually, pulling the distant location to their current one before they can truly superimpose the destinations and successfully transport themselves."

I chuckled. "Visualization again. Well, I have had a great deal of experience with that!"

"Indeed?"

I summarized a number of the more visualization-heavy tasks of learning Tor; Rizzivor's scent and mind-presence showed he was impressed. "This Hand Center is actual? You visualize your own body in such detail?"

"Oh yes," I said, my head having a phantom ache just from the memory. "Every detail."

He buzzed to himself. "Well, if you have mastered such visualization discipline, you should find teleportation far easier than I would have thought."

I grinned but shook my head. "Oh, I'd love to believe that," I said, "but at least my hand was already right there for me. Visualizing something that isn't there, and then superimposing it on something that is? No, Rizzivor, we're going to be working on this for a while!"

I closed my eyes and began to focus, building up an image of the deck and space around me, even as I relaxed myself, made myself prepared for a long, long session of meditative discipline.

But I felt cheerful as I did so. Oh, the dangers ahead were incalculable. The Eönwyl was now a quarter of the Galaxy away and who knew what she might run into. Ptial itself wasn't going to be safe or easy, and I was now, once more, a mere student.

Yet we were all alive, we were still free, and I finally had a plan that might – just might – let us save the galaxy.

 

 

The post Demons of the Past: RETRIBUTION, Chapter 20 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

LEGEND: Chapter 11

Another look at our adversaries...

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Chapter 11.

She entered, carrying a tray with roast meat and a cup. He looked up and stood, putting the parchment aside. She put the tray down and stood back.

He did not sit down. "Why are you doing this, Queen?"

The half of her mouth that was visible smiled. "Doing what, my Lord?"

"Serving me yourself, when you have innumerable servants who could do it?"

"It is what you are owed, my Lord. Those who have achieved what you have might be numbered on the fingers of one hand, and still fingers would remain to count."

He shook his head and studied her intensely. "If I accept that you are . . . what you appear to be, I might almost believe that. Yet still that would simply set me free. And I am recovering, and would be free soon. Are you planning to hold me here?"

"Hold you?" She laughed, and the laugh was at once a silvery chime of beauty and a rasp of something long dead. "My legions entire could not hold you, Lord; I, perhaps, might, but might not, and why should I? You hate the light above as much as I, for you were banished from that world for seeing the truth, the death beneath the faces of the living, the hatred hidden under the ideals, the envy masquerading as admiration, you and I know these well."

"And so you would destroy the world?" He said it not in fear, or even as one who would argue it, but trying to see what she truly wanted. The world deserved destruction – it had begged him for destruction, to put the arrogant parasites that now exalted themselves above the dirt from which they had arisen back into that same dirt, to perhaps give birth to something cleaner and better one day. But he was the judge, not this . . . being who might, or might not, be what she seemed.

"Destroy the world? Say, rather, complete the destruction which had already begun, yea, even before your father's fathers' great-grandfathers' grandfathers had been imagined." Now the voice was the cold of northern winds. "These the mortals were spared the doom foretold, and that is not to be borne. Especially not now, not when they have spread to the uttermost corners of the Earth and have forgotten the Powers almost entirely."

He observed the words, heard the tones of her voice, watched how she stood. She is telling the truth . . . but not all of the truth. "That is history, ancient history, older if I guess right than our own history would have it. What do I care for something that far agone? My anger is for those who claim to be human beings who ignore the meaning of their own heritage, who destroy what is good with their own apathy and arrogance and fear and hatred, for those who think their greed and comfort is worth the destruction of the rest – for the black heart that lies within all humanity and makes it unfit to exist."

"Ah, so you mean yourself, my Lord."

He laughed. "I was one such, yes, and if truly the end of the world is achieved then I, too, would fall, and fall fulfilled. But I ask you again, why should I care for your past, what does your ancient battle matter to me? And what do you truly want, what do you gain from the end of the world, when – if you truly are what you seem – you are the last and greatest, the mistress of the final resting –" He stopped abruptly.

The half-smile was cold, cold. "And those who come within my grasp are my strength, yes. I see you begin to grasp it, my Lord. Those who cast me down have been cast down themselves, and with the great powers now moving in the middle world I might gather to me even greater souls, more champions even than those remaining in Fólkvangr, the last reserve held by the Gold Lady for her true Lord, the Wanderer and Leader of Souls."

Her dark hair and eyes were filled with anger, and he made the connection. "You care nothing for the mortal world itself," he said with certainty. "Only for the power you might gain to emerge from here, to face those others who survived the end. For revenge, in short."

"And why not?" she said icily. "Was this not also punishment as well as duty and honor, that I be the judge and keeper of those slain, but not of those who fell in battle, lest my hosts be the equal of those held by the highest of the Nine? Were not my brothers felled in that battle, and did not my father, too, fall, slain by one who once called him friend? And did that loss not cause even my mother, whom they called monster, to grieve until she, too, passed, and so even beyond my ken and calling, so I know not whence her spirit has gone or whether it has merely vanished to the winds of her pain?"

His memory had mostly returned, and he now comprehended more of his own failures . . . and of what hers might be. "I do not say you cannot seek revenge; after all, I care nothing myself for what happens after the world itself is cleansed. Perhaps, even, you might make a better world of it, once your own hatred is gone; I judge my people, not yours.

"But I do care that this time I will not fail. You have chosen to call me Lord, but will you follow my commands? Or will I find that you will be the one giving commands, when the end comes and I have need of your service?" He stood over her now, and he felt the power in his hands again. "I know that I need allies to achieve my goals, but I do not need ones I cannot trust."

"What do you ask of me, then?"

He smiled grimly. "First, tell me what you can do for me that I cannot do for myself." He held up his hand. "For know this: I remember my world, and I now can recall my battles, and while you have many warriors here, there are more warriors now in the world above than there were people in the lands that once paid you tribute, in the days from which you awakened, and even their ordinary soldiers wield weapons far beyond those of your ancient hosts. And if, as you say, none of these died in battle, will they not be rather inferior warriors overall?"

She began an angry retort, then stopped, smiled slowly. "It is true, my Lord, that many of those here died not in battle, but of sickness, old age, and such; yet also is it not true that the greatest of warriors do not die in battle, for none withstood them in their strength? Many of these have I in my host, cold but young now, young as they remember themselves to have been in their prime. More, their weapons are not mere steel, their armor not simple boiled leather and forged chain, but mystical, strong and fell. Whatever arms the mortals have devised, they will find my armies not so simple a riddle to solve.

"And when the great battle came, the other halls of Heroes were closed, made fortresses, and whence then do you think those who fell came? Oh, warriors I have, Lord, and you should know well that the best of them have yet to be full tested in battle."

That makes sense. And if she will follow my orders . . ."A blood-oath, then, swearing that you will serve me until my task is complete and the destruction of the world – of the human world – is complete."

She regarded him steadily. "There are other worlds, and not just the Nine, and on some of those live other human beings. Your task could be unending."

More worlds? How could there be more worlds on which we live, when we have yet to pass beyond the bounds of our own solar system? He gritted his teeth. She will not accept an unending task. And I have no knowledge of these other worlds save her own words, and thus no judgment to bring upon them. "So. In that case, it is my birth world of which I speak, the world we call Earth, the world which is, I presume, the birthplace of humanity."

"Then I shall swear such an oath, if to me you will give the greatest of the powers now born into your world."

He did not change expression, but inwardly he wondered. Does she know what such powers are to me? Or is it purely for her own purposes?

     No matter; in the end I will have enough strength to deal with her, if necessary. "I will give them to you – save one, and one only, as long as you remain in my service faithfully and well."

Her smile showed clear understanding. "The one who has ever and always been your nemesis and equal. Of course, my Lord; that one is yours alone."

A dagger appeared in her hand. He did not flinch as she reached out and cut across his palm, and then without expression cut her own. The delicate hand laid itself in his, and gripped with surprising strength. "Then to this mortal man I bind myself, I give to him my loyalty and my armies, my lands, my weapons and treasures, until such time as his mission is complete. So I swear, in my own name, in the name of my realm.

"So swears Hel."

 

 

The post LEGEND: Chapter 11 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

LEGEND: Chapter 10

Virginia actually has a pretty good life now...

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Chapter 10.

Virginia skipped a bit as she ran down the aisle of Ayer's Sports. A new jersey, and another ball, and . . .

"Slow down, Virginia!" her father called, laughing. "I'm getting too old to keep up with you. And all the stuff will still be on the shelves a few seconds from now."

She giggled and forced herself to walk, waiting for Malcolm Jefferson's longer strides to bring him up to her side. "Well, Daddy, I have to keep in shape! No one's slowing down out on the field!"

His big, dark-skinned hand enveloped her light-colored one warmly. "You can do all the running you want . . . outside. Not in the mall, okay?"

"Okay. I'll try. I'm just . . ."

"Excited, yes, like you always are. You and your mother, never sitting down."

It's things like that I love about them, she thought suddenly, with a pang of almost-pain at how happy she was, and how she used to not be. Anyone can see I'm adopted – Daddy's black and Mommy's so bright blonde you just know why she was named Sunny – but they talk about me just like I'm . . . I'm their real daughter.

Of course, even being happy wasn't perfect. She'd had arguments with her parents, and sometimes they'd had to send her to cool off in her room, or take away a privilege, like the time she kept watching Unicorn City episodes after bedtime, even after being warned, and so they took away her computer – but, deep down, she knew they did it because they really cared about her.

They care about me.

"Why so distant, Virginia?" Her father, like her mother, never used the shortened form "Ginny"; that echo of Gordon Dare was not one she wanted to hear. Only a few teachers or other kids ever used it, and those only once.

She realized with a start that she'd just been looking up at Daddy, smiling but not . . . there. "Umm . . . Just . . ." She knew she looked stupid now, and she stumbled a bit. Her father's hand kept her up. "Just . . . I'm really glad you're my dad, that's all."

He stopped and gave her a quick hug. "And I'm glad you're my little girl. Though starting to get bigger."

They'd reached the right aisle, so she hugged back and then pulled away. "Look, this is a regulation ball here!"

"Most of them are –"

"And here, shin guards! Can I get them? I think I still have a bruise from the last time Janie kicked me trying to get the ball away!" She started accumulating a pile of soccer equipment, and her father chuckled again.

     "Well, it is your birthday, but that gift card's only for a hundred dollars."

She stopped, suddenly realizing how much stuff she was probably getting. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she said contritely. A hundred dollars! I should—

He shook his head. "Oh, don't worry about it. But if we take too long with this, you won't have a chance to go to the bookstore or Lumiere Games, either."

She put a few things back anyway, feeling somehow guilty. She remembered how huge a hundred dollars used to be – enough to put gas in Gordon Dare's rattling old truck and somehow keep food on the table for the whole week. She didn't know exactly how much Malcolm and Sunny made, but she knew that they lived in a big, beautiful house with a huge yard in front and back, filled with bushes and trees and paths to explore and play in, and she never heard them fighting about money. So I'd better not be greedy. Just grateful.

Finally she'd gotten everything she wanted and they reached the checkout line, leaving with five huge bags. Malcolm Jefferson grunted. "I don't think I want to run around the mall dragging all your loot, Miss V. Can you behave yourself for a bit while I go put this in the car?"

"I'll go to the game store, okay?"

"Meet you near there in a bit, then."

Lumiere Games was a brightly-lit, blinking and beeping wonderland of entertainment. She paused, looking at the new LumiTainment Portable 5 Immersion, but shook her head. Daddy'll get me a new game or three, but a whole new system, not yet. But maybe for Christmas . . .

She glanced up, trying to read the signs. Then she saw the display sign two aisles over: Unicorn City: Adventure of the Thunder Tree.

Oh my gosh, I didn't know it was out! She dashed away from the LTP display and zipped around the corner to –

Wham! Something hit her almost in the face.

She staggered and almost fell, catching herself with a hand on one of the shelves; she heard an "Ooof!" and a clattering crash, and looked in front of her – rubbing her forehead – to see a young man flat on his back, games spilling from a split-open bag next to him.

"Oh gosh I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, are you all right?" Oh, Daddy's gonna be so disappointed, he warned me about running just a few minutes ago, and now –

The young man sat up, shaking his head. "Whoof! You hit hard for someone that small." He froze for a moment, and she couldn't interpret the expression in the brown eyes. But even as she noticed that, the pause ended and he pushed himself to his feet. "No, don't worry, I'm fine," he said to a clerk who'd run over when she heard the crash. "How about you?" he asked.

"I'm okay. It's just a little bump, and it was my fault anyway."

"Half mine, I'm sure," he said, flipping an errant strand of brown hair back, and straightened. "I was too busy staring at the display and deciding if I could afford it."

Something's . . . familiar. The voice and the brown hair, that slender build . . . and it was somehow associated with her running . . .

"You like Unicorn City?"

A pink blush momentarily touched the young man's cheeks. "Well . . . yeah, it's really well written, and the same team that did Spirit Hunter High School did Adventure of the Thunder Tree, so I thought I should check it out."

He turned to look over his shoulder, and the profile sparked memory. "Oh my – it's you!"

His head whipped back and he looked started, wary and almost afraid. "I'm . . . who?"

"Um . . . three years ago? Fourth of July, down at Waterfront Park, I was . . ."

The wary look disappeared, and his eyes seemed to light up. "You . . . you're the little girl that jerk was chasing after." He looked suddenly apprehensive. "Hope he's not around now."

She laughed. "No, he's not."

"And you're . . . okay now? Because I was really worried what would happen, if he caught up with you."

"I'm . . . I'm really good now. He's not my father any more."

He grinned with relief. "Good to hear that, Virginia."

"I was worried about you, actually. My . . ." she stopped, glanced around, saw that there wasn't anyone else around them. "Hey. How did you know my name?"

He blinked, got that wary look, then suddenly grinned. "Your . . . original father was pretty much bellowing it at the top of his lungs, wasn't he?"

She almost smacked herself for being stupid. Of course. "Well, I just really, really wanted to say thank you. If it hadn't been for you he probably would have caught me. I hope you didn't get hurt?"

He shrugged. "He did . . . pick me up and throw me, but I didn't get more than a few bruises and a cut lip. More than worth it to slow him down."

She looked up at him and he blushed again. "Hey, that shining-eye cute routine is almost embarrassing."

"It's just . . ."

"So who's your new friend here?" Malcolm Jefferson's voice and words were friendly, but she could see a suspicious glint in his eye.

"Daddy, remember how I told you about the Fourth – the day before we met?"

Her father looked down, surprised. "Of course I do."

"Well, this is the guy who I told you about, stood up to . . . Gordon, and let me get away long enough for . . . America to find me and bring me to Mrs. Pilgrim."

The suspicious glint was mostly replaced with surprised gratitude. "Really? Are you sure?"

"Well, sir, I can't be one hundred percent certain I recognize her myself – she ran past me as a blur – but I sure do remember getting between a really big angry man and some little girl he was chasing. And flying about ten feet through the air when he decided he wasn't going to let me stand there in the way."

Malcolm looked back down at her, then grinned. "Then thank you, Mr . . .?"

"Stephens. Benjamin Stephens.

"Thank you, Benjamin."

Ben Stephens waved the compliment off. "Anyone would have done the same thing."

"No, they wouldn't," Virginia said seriously. "Because there were a whole lot of 'anyones' in that crowd, and you were the only one who did."

"I just reacted . . ." Ben stopped, then shrugged and smiled. "Okay, then, I was a big damn hero! Thanks!" He bent over and started gathering up his games. "Now, I'd better get myself a new bag."

Malcolm looked down at her again, and caught her rubbing her head. "Virginia? Did you—"

"Um . . . yes?"

At the same time, Ben said, "It wasn't really her fault, sir. I wasn't looking where I was going, either."

She could tell that Daddy wasn't entirely buying that explanation, but he couldn't contradict Ben since he hadn't been there.

An urgent chiming noise suddenly burst from one of Ben's pockets; he stiffened and yanked out his phone, looked quickly at it, then shoved it back. "Nice meeting you again, Virginia, nice meeting you, Mr. Jefferson, and I'm glad you're doing well. I've gotta get going."

He strode out swiftly, back now straighter, even with the torn bag of games under one arm, and she suddenly realized that she knew that pose, that certainty. It was crazy, but she was suddenly sure of who that really was and of why Benjamin Stephens was leaving so quickly.

And so she barely heard her father's second lecture of the day.

 

 

The post LEGEND: Chapter 10 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.