Ryk E. Spoor's Blog, page 58

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 16

 

Well, it’s time for the wrap-up on that little adventure…

 

 

 

Chapter 16: The Only Thing He Has To Fear…

“How did you find me?”

Verne and I were comfortably seated in his study. He smiled slightly. “I have always known roughly where Carmichael lived, just as he always knew where I lived. Once I arrived in the general area, it was simple to sense your presence and follow it.”

“Thanks.”

“No need to thank me, Jason. It was my fault entirely that you were involved. I should have realized that once he found my household impenetrable, he would look for anyone outside that was connected to me.”

“Maybe you should, but so should I. Heck, you hadn’t had anyone ‘outside’ connected to you for so long that I’m not surprised you sorta forgot.”

“For far too long, but I thank you for your understanding.”

“You think he’ll keep his hands off from now on?”

Verne gave that cold smile again. “Oh, yes, I assure you. I was not concerned with the niceties of civilized behavior at that point, Jason. I made sure that he was, shall we say, thinking very clearly. He knows precisely what would happen to him if he ever crosses me again. And as you pointed out, the authorities won’t believe him even if he tells his story, nor would it do him much good if they did.”

“So how did your interview with Sky go?”

“Excellently well,” he replied, offering me a refill on the champagne, which I declined. “Your casual evaluation was, as far as it went, accurate. Mr. Hashima is a true artist, a dedicated one, and highly talented in several ways. I will have no qualms about supporting him fully. He is naturally a bit cautious—I do seem to him to be a bit too good to be true—but I am sure that we shall get past this minor difficulty.”

I sipped, appreciating the unique taste that a real champagne offers. “And the antiquities?”

Verne grinned, a warm smile that lit the room. “As usual, you and Morgan are right. I shall be donating, or selling, many of the items in question to people who will both appreciate them and be willing to place them on proper display. Some discreet inquiries have already elicited several interested responses, and I expect several archaeologists to visit in a few weeks in order to authenticate, insofar as is possible, the artifacts and prepare a preliminary assessment. I have already decided to send Akhenaten, at least, directly to Egypt. Let the Sun Pharoah return to his home.” He raised his own red-glinting glass in salute. “My thanks, Jason, again. You have indeed found something that I shall enjoy doing, something which will contribute to the world as well. And you have given me your friendship, which I value perhaps even more.”

I managed, I think, to keep from blushing, although I do tend to do that when praised extravagantly. “It was my pleasure, really. Well, aside from being kidnapped, but that wasn’t completely in your control. I just hope he has bad dreams about you whenever he goes to sleep.”

“I assure you, your hope will be more than adequately fulfilled, Jason,” Verne said, with the expression of someone with a small secret.

“Why?”

“As I implied, I was quite capable of hearing his thoughts when I extorted certain promises from him, and discovered one quite serendipitous fact.” He paused for me to urge him to finish, and then said, “Many people are afraid of various things, real and otherwise.

“It turns out that Mr. Carmichael’s greatest and most secret fear… is vampires.”

I laughed out loud. “Well, I’ll drink to that!”

 

 

 

Polychrome: Chapter 4

 

Continuing our story: Our Hero had met Our Heroine, and she was about to tell him about the Big Problem he needed to solve…

 

 

 

Chapter 4.

     Focusing on what Polychrome was telling me wasn’t easy at first. I may not have had many lady companions, especially in the last few years, but I was very, very far from unaware of the attractions of the opposite sex; given my commonly-noted lack of maturity, perhaps overly much so in some ways. And there was no girl or woman I’d ever met who could compare to Polychrome.

I think I had managed a heroic feat in keeping my eyes fixed on hers most of the time we talked, and never letting them drop below the neckline, but the couple of times I’d followed her I had lacked such a clear focal point and I had studied that view much more intensely than was probably proper. And, of course, I have excellent peripheral vision, so even her front view was fairly clear – too much so, in some ways. O’Neill had captured much of Polychrome’s essence correctly in his pictures, or I’d never have recognized her – the ethereal delicacy of her basic build, the sunshine-golden hair that floated unconfined yet never in the way, her curiosity, her joy – but the real Polychrome was not the almost fainting hothouse flower that the pictures conveyed. Her stormy-violet eyes were merry and bright and intensely alive, her face beautiful but far stronger than O’Neill’s artwork had allowed, her figure much more… intriguing than I suspect had been permitted when those pictures were drawn.

It did not help at all that O’Neill’s drawings had been entirely accurate in depicting her gauzy, near-transparent, diaphanous clothing. It wasn’t – quite – transparent, but as most guys know, sometimes a tantalizing hint of a view is as riveting as a full exposure. Even her scent was maddeningly distracting, a combination of flowers and thunderstorms, and a nigh-subliminal song seemed to follow her, a phantom music that echoed her actions and moods.

It was also not helping that I was terribly aware of how poorly I compared to her or any men she must know – both in general appearance and in the semi-squalor of my bachelor existence. Only the oddities of the high-tech era managed to make my place look different than she might have expected. But she was talking and serious now, and with another supreme effort I drove all those thoughts to the background and focused every mental faculty on her problem. For whatever incredible reason, she has come here to find you. This is that impossible chance you were waiting for all your life. Don’t blow it.

The initial modus operandi of the unknown attackers was clearly familiar, and she confirmed it shortly. The immediate aftermath was grim. I nodded. Of the various so-called villains in most of the Oz books, these were the two who – once I allowed for the shifted imagery in the children’s versions – were undoubtedly the most formidable, intelligent, capable of long-term planning, and of nursing an intense grudge against all Oz. “Yeah, the ending of Lost Princess never rang true to me, even as a kid. I just couldn’t see Ugu suddenly reforming that way. He never showed any sign of really caring about other people, and I think that level of reforming takes a lot more than just a few weeks of thinking,” I said. Another thought struck me. “I’m betting they also got themselves a few more allies, among others that Ozma’s regime had stepped on.”

“You go fast, and well.” The quick smile she gave, lighting up the grave face, and the swift glissando of bright notes amid the muted, somber background strains sent another spurt of joy through my heart all out of proportion to the words. “But they reserved the vast majority of power for themselves, and none would be foolish enough to gainsay them.”

“Why didn’t they change Ozma to stone also?”

Her smile was suddenly more cynical. “Because Ozma is the true heart of Oz, granted that power through her birth line, in direct descent from the Faerie Queen Lurline. Turning her to stone would weaken the power of Oz overall, reduce the value of their prize. Imprisoning her in that mystic cage leaves her helpless, trapped in a dream that permits her only the vaguest awareness of the situation, her power sealed such that it can only be used by her captors – and even that indirectly, in that she cannot prevent them from making use of Oz’ power.”

“So she wasn’t actually in Lurline’s band to begin with? I was always confused about that – Baum’s tales didn’t leave it clear.”

Polychrome shook her head. “Ozma is a child from the point of view of any Faerie. It was required that there be both mortal and Faerie blood on the throne of Oz, so that both sides were represented at this, the core of all Faerie. She is descended of a line of rulers.” She smiled again. “And as I think you have already guessed, his early tales oft held more of truth in them than the latter tales.”

“It did strike me that way – no money? A perfect socialist state? And all the evil gone except in out-of-the-way benighted places?” I grinned, then grew serious. I think we’ve still been doing dancing. “But you still haven’t told me… where do I come in?”

Now I saw real worry on her face, and the sound was of foreboding horns far off in a darkened fog. “Well… you know I was following a prophecy. A man of your talents already guessed that the prophecy led to you.”

“Hard though that is to believe – and I can imagine your disappointment.”

She flushed, a lovely rose hue that if possible made her even more beautiful than she had been. “Well… I…”

“Don’t try to apologize, Polychrome. I would never have picked myself for hero material – as opposed to dreaming of it – and if you weren’t surprised and disappointed, well, you would have been seeing things I don’t in myself.”

She was silent for a moment, as though she wanted to protest but couldn’t think of any convincing way to do so. Then she sighed. “Yes. But as I have thought on the prophecy… or prophecies, for really it’s more than one, a string of several pieces more than a single epic of foretelling… I think I see that someone like you was exactly what the Little Bear was seeing.” She stood and turned away from me, gazing out of one of my windows into darkness. “And there isn’t any certainty, yet. Or, really, none until the ending. The prophecies make clear that we can fail. That, perhaps, we are far more likely to fail than to win through. And…” she hesitated.

I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the answer, but I asked, “…And? What is it?”

“…And the first chance to fail is… tonight.”

I had a feeling there was more to it, but that was bad enough. “Tonight?” I glanced around involuntarily, wondering if something was lurking in the shadows already. “No offense, but what the hell will I be able to do in the next few hours that will determine ultimate victory or defeat?”

She looked sincerely sorry, pained, a touch of mourning violins. “It’s… the prophecies, Erik. Now that I’ve found you, the next part has to be fulfilled, and as it was told me, that is:

 

To the Rainbow’s Daughter a beauty will be shown

Might and mortal glory as she has never known

Set her feet to dancing, until they’ve skyward flown

Through the skies and homeward

to stand before the Throne.

 

 

I blinked. “So let me get this straight. I am supposed to show you beauty such as you have never known?” I could not keep total incredulity from my voice.

She bit her lip. “I … don’t see any other way to read that prophecy, Erik. And the following stanza was:

 

If no joy by dawning, if no dancing glory felt

Hope is gone now, shattered, lost

Like first snow’s fading melt.

Return you to the palace and prepare you for the end

For mortal heart has withered

And Faerie has no friend.

 

“Oh. Okay. So in the next…” I checked my watch. “Um… lessee, it’s about nine, and the sun rises tomorrow at around 5:40, so in the next, oh, eight or nine hours all I have to do is show you some incredible beauty that sets you to dancing, or I’ve doomed all Faerie. No pressure.”

She gave a sympathetic giggle. “No, none at all.”

Holy Jesus. I was utterly appalled. How was it possible that someone like me could be key to this mystery? Even worse, how could it be that by not meeting this criterion I’d doom all Faerie? “… for mortal heart has withered, and Faerie has no friend”. The whole thing implied that there was in fact something special about me that would be difficult or impossible to duplicate – that is, finding another person that would fit those qualifications would take too long, or – worst case – there simply WASN’T anyone else with those qualifications.

One good thing about this new wrinkle was that I was finding it a lot easier to concentrate. “‘When a man knows he is to be hanged in the morning, it concentrates his mind wonderfully,’” I said, slightly misquoting Johnson. “Poly – you don’t mind, I hope, if I call you that?”

“Not at all. My friends mostly do.”

“Poly, that last verse… that means that there has to be something specifically about me that’s unique. Trivially that’s of course true – my genetic structure, exact personality, all that is going to be unique – but I find it hard to believe that it’s that which is so important. Do you know any more about what about me is supposed to be unusual?”

She looked as though she were having an internal debate, then nodded. “First… Erik, understand that there are things I know that I can only tell you at particular times. And there are things that I haven’t been told, and won’t be maybe ever, or only whenever I’m supposed to. My father is the only one who’s heard the whole of the prophecies of the Little Bear, and the way the prophecies work…” She sighed again. “Just telling the wrong person the wrong part could ruin the entire thing. I suppose it might end up making things better, but I would be very unwilling to risk it.”

I nodded. “Just as long as all of you also remember the old, old problem of prophecies biting people on the, er, nether regions because they took actions trying to either avoid the prophecy or make it come true too literally.”

“Oh, believe me, Erik, we are all too aware of that. It’s one of Father’s biggest worries, and the Little Bear can’t clarify things too much.” She followed me as I started sorting through books, looking for something that might give me an idea as to what kind of “beauty” I might show her that she wouldn’t already have seen. “But there are a few things I can tell you. The most important is that you’re supposed to be pure mortal, not more than the faintest trace of Faerie in you.”

I glanced at her. “That’s unusual? You’ve had people like Dorothy, Cap’n Bill, all of them there –”

“Most of them aren’t pure mortal. Most people who end up in Oz or other parts of Faerie have at least some trace of Faerie in them. Often quite a bit.”

“Really? You mean most of the mortals in the Oz books are…?”

” … part Faerie, though often very very small part. It’s one reason many of them didn’t have parents or were missing at least one parent. Such people often get… lost, between worlds, especially if something distracts them from their anchor in this world, or if they encounter some passing magic. The cyclone that picked up Dorothy on her first venture had some spirits playing in it – against the laws of Faerie, I’ll note! – and that brought her across.”

“So I’m supposed to be purely mundane, then.”

Poly smiled. “Don’t sound disappointed. There’s nothing wrong with it, and according to Father you should find it an advantage in many ways, though exactly what those advantages are he’s not discussing until you arrive.”

The thought of “arriving” at the palace of the Lord of Rainbows was still mindboggling. But that wasn’t going to happen if I couldn’t figure out what I could show her.

I was connected to the Internet, which gave me access to an awful lot of possibilities. Computers themselves were pretty impressive. But impressive wasn’t the key here. I shrugged. Nothing for it but to try to find something.

I showed her pictures of just about everything I could think of. I showed her television and modern sculptures and paintings of old masters, video games and clips of movies, parades and models, clothing old and new, mountains and jungles and ancient ruins.

A lot of things she found silly, quite a few were fascinating, others nothing special; after all, as I should have realized, in her past visits to the mortal world she’d probably seen every type of natural wonder WE had. It was the newer material that interested her at all – things invented since the era of the early Oz novels. But none of them really touched her sense of beauty.

There were a couple of moments where I thought there was something. She spent a fascinated moment looking at a picture of the Twin Towers, marveling at how huge it was, a chiming of wondrous bells echoing for an instant in her sourceless following themes. A picture of the gaudy Las Vegas strip held her attention for a few seconds. But nothing quite managed.

I knew I was missing something, something crucially important, not just to me or her, but everyone in the world, if my guess of the connection between Faerie and the mundane world was anything like the truth. There were moments I almost had it, but in desperately grasping for that clue it evaporated, disappeared like morning mist or like a dream that seemed so clear upon awakening, but as you try to remember the details they become less and less until you are left with nothing but a vague memory and disappointment.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. 12:55. “Poly… look, I know you don’t need much rest, but you’ve had a busy day, and you might as well get some. I’m the one who has to figure this out, and maybe I’ll do that better alone. I’ll come get you if I get any ideas.”

She gave me a grave look – mixed, I thought, with sympathy as well as concern – but nodded. I showed her to my one guest room (which was, fortunately, clean, as I rarely used it), then went back to my study.

Think, man. The prophecy makes it clear that there is something you could show her. You just have to find it.

The problem was that I was running out of ideas. Oh, there were things I could envision that might do the trick, but they simply weren’t available here. “Damn me for being such a geek.” I muttered. “It may have made me able to recognize her, but almost everything I have or do is on a damn computer or in a book. And there’s nothing around here more impressive than she’s already seen. I don’t have TIME!”

I started taking books off the shelf, flipping through them, but it was a measure of desperation. Books wouldn’t do it. Videos wouldn’t, either. There was something completely different about seeing something on even the best wide-screen and seeing it in person, but what I was missing I didn’t know. Walking quietly so as to not awaken Polychrome, I went through the house one room at a time, seeking some clue, something that would bring out that vague, half-formed idea and make it solid. Minutes passed. Tens of minutes. An hour. Two.

I wandered through the attic, seeing dusty packed boxes that I hadn’t opened in years, standing in the barely adequate gloom of the streetlight like an abandoned city under a dead moon. I turned, seeing the flash of the light against the darkness, then froze.

That’s it. Almost it. What am I…

The buildings. She’d looked at buildings. But no, that couldn’t be it. She’d seen Albany as we drove across the bridge on our way here. But… somehow, that was it. The Las Vegas Strip…

And suddenly I had it. The one chance I had, the one possibility in the real world that I had ignored, that she couldn’t have ever seen, the one thing that just might work. I was downstairs in a flash, throwing things into a backpack, checking my pockets – keychain with light, mini-laser pointer, Swiss Army Knife, wallet, couple of inhalers –  thinking desperately fast, writing a note to leave on the table for whoever finally came in after me. After all, if this doesn’t work out I can always just come back this morning and go back to normal. No one else will read it if nothing happens. I looked up at the clock. 3:30.

I rapped gently on the door; it opened almost immediately. My memory had already started to fade the immediacy of her own beauty, and seeing her again made me momentarily speechless. “Yes, Erik?”

“Um.” I shook myself. “Come on, Polychrome. I  have one possibility. You have to promise to just do what I say for the next few minutes. Will you trust me?”

She studied me for a minute, then gave me the smile that seemed to go straight through my heart. “Yes. I will.”

“Okay. Then I want you to close your eyes and keep them closed until I tell you to open them. I’m going to take you to the car, and we’re going somewhere. It’s not far away, but I want you to promise to keep your eyes closed until I say. Okay?”

“Understood, Erik.”

Taking her hand to lead her into the car was … almost too much. I was so charged with adrenalin, loss of sleep, hope and worry that just touching her sent a tingle up my arm. Her hand was silky as rose petals, yet I could feel a strength in it, the strength that had carried me over the heads of a crowd of people, delicacy combined with immortal power. Don’t lose focus!

We got to the car and I made sure she was properly buckled in, then put the car in gear. I knew where I was going, heading up Route 4, to the point where the bridge over I-90 gave one of the best vantage points. The road streamed by, black in the headlights, streetlights flicking regularly by.

“Still keep my eyes closed?” Polychrome asked.

“Still. Just a few more minutes.” Just ahead…

I pulled off to the side shortly before the bridge. “Hold on. I’ll get you out.”

The night air was cooler, and I knew that to her it would be cold, but either way it wouldn’t be long now. I led her to the best location, took a deep breath and gave a wordless prayer to whatever powers there might be. “Okay, Polychrome. Open your eyes.”

She opened her eyes… and gasped.

Before her was the city of Albany – but not the city as she’d seen it in the light of day, an impressive but somewhat dingy-grungy pile of masonry, buildings jumbled together, showing all the warts all too clearly in the sunlight. This was a magnificent blaze of light in the darkness, the mighty four hundred foot main tower of the South Mall alight with a thousand brilliant tiny squares of luminance, four smaller towers shining next to it, the curve of the Egg outlined in reflected glory, the rest of the city adding to it, standing against the surrounding night, a mighty beacon of edges and beams and hard-cut stone defying the power of darkness. In daylight it had been merely a city; with the cloak of night and the infinite brilliance of electricity, it became a symbol.

“Ohhh…” she sighed, eyes wide, harps and bells beginning to resound in the remotest distance. Slowly, hardly able to take her gaze from the city, she turned. “You… you built this?”

“Me? No, I only wish. But we did, my lady Polychrome. THAT is the power and the glory of my people, Poly, and if that will not suffice than there is nothing more I have to give.”

“Suffice?” she repeated, and I heard tears in her voice, saw a glitter in her eye, and a rising crescendo of trumpets and drums, a chorus of triumphal voices, resounded in her words. “Oh, Erik, it is beautiful!”

And, surrounded by the ethereal music, Polychrome began to dance.

 

 

Polychrome: Chapter 3

 

So we’d met Our Hero, and Our Heroine hadn’t yet decided what she thought of him…

 

 

 

Chapter 3.

     It does make sense, in a way, Polychrome thought to herself as she studied the man who had recognized her. The prophecies may be vague, but there is quite a bit in there about the lack of certainty of success, about the hero having to find himself.

She felt a slight chill that had nothing to do with her usual need for warmth, a chill running through her heart. And a lot about the possible paths of failure, starting with the first day we meet.

He wasn’t all that bad-looking, she supposed. A bit too heavy, hair unfortunately retreating – though not nearly so much as the poor Wizard’s, which had effectively given up the fight except at the perimeter of his head – but under that a square jaw, some solidity to the shoulders. The face looked nice – some small worry lines, but it looked like his face creased more often in smiles. Behind the rather thick glasses in bright silver frames, the eyes that occasionally glanced at her but were focused mostly on directing the course of this strange vehicle were a clear blue. But he was a rather great deal older than she had expected. Most people who found their way to Faerie were young; the few older ones had some connection to Faerie before they arrived – even the Wizard, though he had never guessed it; the Shaggy Man had his Love Magnet, and the other older people she knew of had been brought there in the company of, or due to the actions of, younger people.

But from what her father had said, it was utterly impossible that this man had any connection with Faerie. He couldn’t, or all their hopes would be for nothing.

Seeing that they were now moving (at a very impressive speed) steadily along some very wide roadway, she decided it should be safe to speak. “And now that we are safely away, sir, may I have your name?”

At her voice, she saw a paradox of expression; a smile, yet a tenseness, almost of fear; but she didn’t think he was afraid of her – no man she’d ever known was, unless she meant them to be. “My name is Erik Medon, Lady Polychrome.” He spoke formally, his gaze flicking to her face and then away. He’s making a very great effort, now that I think of it, to look nowhere else. Well, he’s trying to be a gentleman, even if it seems that this is rare here.

“Just Polychrome, if I may call you Erik,” she said with a small laugh. Yes, the laugh was right. Worries are not my province nor things to concern a Faerie.

“Please do… Polychrome.”

She heard the echo in his voice of the same disbelieving joy that had filled it when first he spoke her name. I like that. “Thank you for your timely arrival, Erik. I am not sure I liked the looks of all those people.” How to bring us to the right discussion… I need to understand him. But there is so little time here!

He chuckled and his smile looked more natural. “Mobs are not comfortable things to be around, and people don’t always react well to things they don’t understand,” he said, tacitly agreeing. “But, if you’ll pardon me for jumping straight to the point, you said you needed to speak with me. And you seemed to be expecting someone when I spoke, though – obviously – you weren’t expecting me.”

Well, that solves that problem. Polychrome nodded. “I was expecting you, actually… I just didn’t have any idea who you were.”

He frowned in thought for a moment, and then his brow cleared. “I see. You were following a prophecy.”

That startled her. “Well-thought, Erik! You have hit exactly upon it!”

Another surprise was the slight blush that touched his cheeks at the compliment. “Oh, that didn’t take much thinking. Seen the scenario enough in the books I’ve read. You came here with the knowledge that you needed to meet someone at a particular place… hmm… and obviously it had to be whoever it was that first recognized you, since as soon as I spoke your name you knew it had to be me.” The vehicle was crossing over a very high bridge now, and she looked down from a dizzying height at a great brown river below. Erik continued, “So… what is it you need to find me for? And of course the other question is, when am I going to wake up?”

“As to the second, you are very much awake right now. Is magic and faerie so much forgotten now that you think this could only be in a dream?”

“Forgotten? As far as people today are concerned, there never was such a thing. The few people who do believe in magic… well, they believe in something very different from anything even vaguely like the Faerie of Oz, and nowhere is there any real evidence it ever existed. To be honest… even the Oz books themselves are fading from most people’s memory. Most people who know the word associate it with a single movie that wasn’t even an accurate adaptation of the book.”

He turned them onto a ramp leading to another street. “And as far as the world I know is concerned, the Oz stories were just that, stories, no connection to any reality. With you here, of course, I now know that isn’t at all true. Baum, and possibly Neill, had to know something about the reality of Faerie. Assuming I’m not dreaming this whole thing, which is something that I am hoping is not true with a desperation you could not even begin to imagine.”

The intensity of the last words demanded a reassurance, and she laughed. “You are not dreaming, Erik Medon, and there will be no awakening to a world in which you have not met me in that strange black field of horseless carriages. Although,” she continued, more soberly, “you may well come to wish that you would awaken, for in the end this may be more nightmare than dream to you.”

“Having met you and learned that Faerie is real?” Now he laughed, loudly, a cheerful, free sound that seemed to lighten the air around her. “Polychrome, that would take something much darker than I can imagine.” He turned the wheel and brought the vehicle to a stop in a driveway next to a small white house. “And I can imagine quite a bit.” The last part sounded almost as though he was quoting something.

Erik came around to open the door and hand her out – though in a way that showed he was utterly unused to this sort of formality or courtesy. “Thank you, Erik. So this is your home?”

He nodded, looking slightly worried. “Um, realize that I live here alone, so, well, I don’t keep things very neat most of the time. Okay, just about any of the time.”

This was something of an understatement, she found, as the door opened and he turned on what appeared to be electric lights. The rooms were cluttered, mostly with books and papers piled here and there. It wasn’t, as she’d momentarily feared, a place of unhealthy litter, and as she wandered, dancing idly, through the various rooms, she suddenly recognized it as the same kind of disorganized, omnipresent clutter she’d seen in the Wizard’s private rooms on occasion, or those of other men of education and no family; the sign of a thoughtful man, though not a very organized one. Maybe the mess… isn’t a bad sign, she thought. He reads a great deal; he thinks and writes, I can see. His mind is quick. Maybe…

He blocked her entry to one room. “Definitely not.”

She giggled. “Ah, your own room. Fear not, I will not invade such a secret lair.” She danced back to what was clearly the sitting or living room; he stepped ahead of her and removed several stacks of books from a large overstuffed chair.

“Now that we’re here, Polychrome…” he said slowly, watching her sit (and still clearly keeping his eyes locked on her face, though she suspected that he had not managed such a trick while following her), “what brings you here?”

“Well…” To her surprise, for a moment Polychrome found herself speechless. How in the world do I begin?

Surprisingly, he seemed to understand. “Let me see if I can help a little,” he said. “You know I’ve read the Oz books – how else could I have known who you were? – but realize, I’m not so naïve as to believe that every detail in those books is accurate. My guess is that Baum toned some things way down – because they were childrens’ books – and a lot of other things got tweaked either for the sake of a story, or to fit his own beliefs. So don’t worry about shocking me with facts that don’t fit those books.” He stepped towards the kitchen. “I know you don’t eat much at all, but I need to grab me something.”

I just don’t know how to start. She looked at the faint shadows moving as he rummaged through the… refrigerator?… that seemed to store a lot of food. Especially when I have to eventually get to the part where I tell him…

But that wasn’t something to dwell on. When she got to that part she’d just have to go straight through and say it before she lost her nerve. Which wasn’t at all usual with her, but then, this whole thing was… very unusual.

As he came back in, eating a rather thick sandwich of some sort, she decided abruptly that it was best to go straight to the heart of things. “Oz has been destroyed.”

With a comical widening of the eyes, Erik gasped. This was unfortunate as he also had a large bite of sandwich in his mouth at the time. He gagged, tried to speak, and in a panic Polychrome ran over, pounding him on the back. Oh, by the Seven Hues, what could I tell father? “I’m sorry, I accidentally made our hero choke himself to death”??

Suddenly the food dislodged, he swallowed and took a deep breath that had a strange whistling undertone. “‘Sokay, okay,” he said, waving her back. From his pocket he took a yellow, shiny object shaped something like the letter “L” and stuck one end in his mouth, pressing with the other; there was a quick hiss and he inhaled, then held his breath for a few seconds. “Sorry,” he said finally, “that kind of thing sometimes triggers an attack. Asthma,” he said, as she shot him a questioning gaze. “My lungs don’t always like to do their job and will choke up on me.” He shook his head, then sat down in a nearby, smaller chair. “What exactly do you mean, Oz is destroyed?”

“The land itself is still there.” She tried to find the right words. “But it is no longer the Oz you have read of – even allowing for what those books did not tell you.”

He had an odd smile for a moment as she spoke, then his expression grew more serious. “Was this a… natural change, for want of a better word?”

To her own surprise, she found herself hesitating. She knew that it hadn’t been natural in any sense of the word… yet he clearly had a very good reason for asking… and a part of her felt that there might be something important behind that question, something her father might have understood better than she. But she shook her head. “No. Conquest. And you need to realize that Oz… is the center of Faerie. Those who hold it are more powerful than the rest, and the condition of Oz can affect the rest of us. And perhaps rebound upon your own people.”

The blue eyes narrowed as he nodded his head, and for a moment she saw a strategist, leaning over a map. “Or, perhaps, what is done here rebounds upon your own.”

That… is not far from something Father said. “There are… connections between our worlds, according to my Father. So… you may be right.”

“Okay, Polychrome.” He spoke with a new tone, someone listening to a problem and looking for understanding. “Start from the beginning. Tell me how it happened, who was responsible, and then how I come into all this.”

Maybe… maybe he can help. She drew a deep breath. “It began when there were… thefts…”

 

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 15

 

Jason had found himself in something of a pickle, because drug barons don’t like the word “no”…

 

 

 

 

Chapter 15: Enter Freely and Of Your Own Will

“Ten o’clock,” Carmichael said. “Jeez, will you look at that stuff come down!”

Even as worried as I was, I had to admit it was an impressive storm. Gusts of gale-force winds battered the house, blue-white lightning shattered the night, torrents of rain came down so heavily that they obscured our sight of the front gate, even with all the lights of the estate on. An occasional rattling spatter showed that there was some hail as well.

“Man, did the weatherman ever screw up this one. Forecast said clear and calm all night. Boy, that put the crimp in some party plans, I can tell you.” Carmichael picked up the phone and dialed. “Yo, Morgan, put Verne on the line.” He listened and his brows came together. “What do you mean, ‘not available at the moment’? Listen, you just tell him he’s got two goddamn hours… Yeah, well, he damn well better be ‘planning to discuss it with me momentarily.’ ” He slammed the phone down. “I dunno, bud, maybe Domingo doesn’t give a crap about you.”

I glanced outside. Could it be… ? “I wouldn’t bet on that if I were you.”

He looked out speculatively. “He couldn’t be that dumb, could he?” I heard him mutter. Then he pushed a button on his desk—looked like one of several, probably security—and said “Hey, Jay, look, I know it’s a dog’s night out, but pass the word to the boys—Domingo and his gang might try something on us tonight. Yeah, yeah, I know, they’d be morons to try, especially in this crap, but people do dumb things sometimes.”

He leaned back. “If he does try, I’ll make sure he gets to see you shot, you do know that, right?”

I looked back at him. A faint hope was rising, along with the shriek of the suddenly redoubled wind. “Yeah, I guess you will.”

The intercom buzzed. “Mr. Carmichael, Jimmy and Double-T don’t answer.”

His relaxed demeanor vanished. “What? Which post were they on?”

“Number one—the private road entrance.”

“The line down?”

“No sir, it’s ringing, they just aren’t answering.”

He glared at me, then flicked his gaze to the window, as did I. So we were both watching when it happened.

The huge gates were barely visible, distorted shapes through the wind-lashed storm; but even with that, there was no way to miss it when the twin iron barriers suddenly blew inward, torn from their hinges by some immense force.

“What the hell—” Carmichael stared.

Slowly, emerging from the howling maelstrom, a single human figure became visible. Dressed in black, some kind of cloak or cape streaming from its shoulders, it walked forward through the storm, seeming almost untouched by the tempest. I felt a chill of awe start down my spine, gooseflesh sprang out across my arms.

Battling their way through the gale, six men half-ran, half-staggered up to defensive positions. Stroboscopic flashes of light, accompanied by faint rattling noises, showed they were trying to cut the intruder down with a hail of bullets. Even in that storm, there was no way that six men with fully automatic weaponry could possibly miss their target, especially when it continued walking towards them, unhurried, no attempts to dodge or shield itself, just a measured pace towards the mansion’s front doors.

The figure twitched as gunfire hit, slowed its pace for a moment, was staggered backwards as all six concentrated their fire, a hail of bullets that could have stopped a bull elephant in its tracks. But the figure didn’t go down. I heard an incredulous curse from Carmichael.

The figure raised one arm, and the three men on that side were suddenly slapped aside, sent spinning through the air as though hit by a runaway train. The other arm lifted, the other three men flew away like rag dolls. The intruder came forward, into the light at the stairway that led up to the front door, and now there was no mistaking it.

Verne Domingo had come calling.

He glanced up, seemed to see us, even though the sheeting rain and flashing lightning should have made that impossible. The winds curled down, tore one of the trees up by the roots, and the massive bole smashed into the picture window, showering both of us with fragments of glass.

I felt Carmichael’s immense arm wrap around me and a gun press into my temple. Verne came into view, walking slowly up the tree that now formed a ramp to our room. He stopped just outside of the window. “Put the gun down, Carmichael,” he said, softly.

“You… whatever the hell you’re doing, you just cut it out, or you can scrape up Wood’s brains with a spatula!” Carmichael shouted.

I wondered why the heck Verne wasn’t doing something more. Then it clicked for me. “Come on inside, Verne,” I said. “We were just talking about you.”

With my invitation, I saw a deadly cold smile cross his face, one that showed sharper, whiter teeth than I’d seen before. “Why, thank you, Jason. I do believe I shall.”

The two thugs charged Verne; with a single backhanded blow he sent both of them tumbling across the floor, fetching up unconscious against the back wall.

Carmichael’s hand spasmed on the gun.

Nothing happened. I felt, rather than saw, him straining to pull a trigger that had become as immovable as a mountain. Verne continued towards me. “Put my friend down now, Carmichael,” he said, in that same dangerously soft tone.

Carmichael, completely unnerved, tried to break my neck. But he found that his arms wouldn’t cooperate. I squirmed, managed to extricate myself from his frozen grip, and backed away.

Now Verne allowed Carmichael to move. Deprived of me for a hostage, the huge man grabbed up the solid mahogany chair and swung it with all his might.

Made of wood, the chair was one of the few weapons he could’ve chosen that might have been able to hurt Verne. But to make it work, he also had to hit the ancient vampire, and Verne was quite aware of what he was doing.

One of the aristocratic hands came up, caught the chair and stopped it as easily as if it had been a pillow swung by a child, and the other whipped out and grasped Carmichael by the neck, lifting him from the ground with utterly negligible effort.

“You utter fool. Were you not warned to leave me and mine alone? I would have ignored you, Carmichael. I would have allowed you to live out your squalid little life without interference, if only you had the sense to let go. Now what shall I do? If I release you, doubtless you shall try something even more foolish, will you not?”

Purple in the face, Carmichael struggled with that grip, finding it as immovable as though cast in iron. He shook his head desperately.

“Oh? And should I trust you? The world would be better off with you dead. Certainly for daring to strike in such a cowardly fashion I should have you killed.”

“No, Verne.”

He looked at me. “You would have me spare him?”

“Sure. Killing him will force the cops to investigate. You haven’t killed anyone yet, have you?”

He shook his head. “No. Battered, unconscious, and so on, but none of his people are dead, as of now.”

“Then leave it. I think he’s got the point. It’s not like he’d be believed if he told this one, and he can’t afford the cops to come in anyway; even if they tied something to you, they’d also get stuff on him.”

Verne gave an elaborate shrug, done as smoothly as though he was not actually holding three hundred pounds of drug lord in one hand. “As you will, then. I, also, prefer not to kill, even such scum as this.” He let Carmichael drop. “But remember this well, Carmichael. I never wish to hear your name again. I do not ever want to know you exist again. If you, or anyone in your control or working for you in any way, interferes with my life or that of my friends again, I shall kill you… in such a manner that you will wish that you had killed yourself first. Believe me. I shall not warn you a third time. This is your final chance.”

Carmichael was ashen. “I gotcha. I won’t. You won’t ever hear from me again, Domingo, I promise.”

“Good.” Verne turned to me. “My apologies, Jason. It never even occurred to me that you might be in danger. Let me get you home.”

Outside, the storm was already fading away, as though it had never been.

 

 

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 14

 

Jason had found a potential client for his client…

 

 

 

Chapter 14: A Sudden Trip Downstate

I opened the trunk and helped Sky get out his portfolio. Innocent that I was, I thought a “portfolio” would be a notebook-sized collection of pictures—reproductions, etc. Artists, of course, do not do things that way. Reproductions are often used, but they’re done as near as possible to full size as can be managed, and Sky had a lot of samples. He was trying to show a number of things about his work (most of which I could only vaguely understand) and accordingly had put together a very large collection of material.

Morgan bowed us in the door, and Verne came forward. “Mr. Hashima, it is a great pleasure to meet you.”

Sky smiled back and shook his hand. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

I nodded at Verne. “I’ll be off, then. I know you people have plenty to discuss and I won’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about.”

“Of course, Jason. Thank you for bringing Sky over; Morgan will arrange his transport home once we are done here, so do not trouble yourself further.”

I waved, said “Good luck!” to Sky, and got back into Mjolnir, turned down the driveway and headed home.

It was only when I turned the key in the office lock that something bothered me. I felt it click… but at the wrong time. The door had already been opened. Not having expected any trouble, I wasn’t carrying, either. Then again, I supposed it was possible, though unlikely, that I’d forgotten to lock it in all the confusion. I pushed it open, letting the door swing all the way around and bump the wall to make sure no one was hiding behind it. Nothing seemed out of place. I went in and locked the door behind me.

With the lights switched on, I still didn’t see anything disturbed in the office—which was what I’d be mainly concerned with. I checked the secure room at the back; nothing. That left only my living quarters upstairs. I went through the connecting door.

Something exploded against my head. I went down, almost completely unconscious, unable to see anything except vague pain-inducing blurs. Rough hands grabbed me, dragged me out the back door, threw me into a car, and then shoved something over my mouth and nose.

By then I was focused enough to fight back, but these people were stronger than me and had the advantage. Eventually I had to breathe, and whatever they’d put in that cloth finished ringing down the curtain.

* * *

I came slowly awake, my head pounding like a pie-pan in the hands of a toddler. With difficulty I concentrated on evaluating myself. I could feel a focused ache on the side of my skull, where I’d been conked on the head. My stomach was protesting, an interesting but unpleasant combination of hunger and nausea; some hours had gone by, I figured. There was the generalized headache, of course. Chloroform? Halothane? I supposed that the specific chemical didn’t matter, though it had felt too fast for classic chloroform. I’d been in too much pain to notice the smell clearly, if there’d been one. I was sitting upright—obviously tied up in a chair or something similar, because I could feel some kind of bindings on my arms, legs, and chest.

Now, if this was a proper adventure novel or TV episode, they’d have left me my Swiss Army knife or something for me to attempt an escape by, but I could in fact feel that, while I was still dressed, there wasn’t a damn thing left in my pockets except possibly some lint. Not being an escape expert or martial artist or superhero, I decided I’d gotten about all I could out of just sitting and thinking, so I slowly raised my head and opened my eyes.

The pain only increased slightly and then started to ebb. Leaving aside the niceties of being tied up with a knot on my head, I was in a rather pleasant room, large and airy, with a big picture window looking out on a driveway somewhat reminiscent of Verne’s own, although this one was a wide drive that turned into a circle at the end, rather than a drive shaped like a teardrop. The landscaping was also different, more sculpted and controlled, less wild; Verne liked a more natural look, while whoever owned this clearly preferred symmetry and precision. The trees and fountains and bushes were all laid out in a smoothly rolling but still almost mathematically precise manner.

I was facing the picture window; off to my left were some cases of books—which I was fairly sure were chosen for show, rather than actual reading material, judging from what I could see—some pictures, an in-wall television screen, and some chairs and low tables. Looking off to my left, I saw a very large desk. The person behind the desk, however, made the desk look small. He was as blond as I was, but tanned, wearing a suit that had to be custom made because he was large enough to be a pro wrestler—six foot eight standing was my guess, maybe even bigger—but the suit fit him perfectly, making him look simply like a well-dressed adult in a room made for twelve-year-olds. His hair was fairly long, pulled back in a smooth ponytail, and his face had the same square, rough look that many boxers get, complete with a slightly broken nose.

He had been reading a newspaper, but when I turned my head to look at him the movement apparently caught his eye. “He’s awake,” he said in a deep, slightly rough voice.

I heard a couple chairs scrape back behind me, and heavy footsteps approached. Twisting my neck around, I was able to see two large men—though neither of them quite the size of the guy behind the desk—walk over. They picked up my chair and turned it to face the desk.

“Good morning,” I said. “Mr. Carmichael, I’d presume?”

He didn’t exactly smile, but something in his expression acknowledged my feeble sally. “That’s right.”

“I was afraid of that. As far as I knew, I didn’t have anyone who disliked me enough to use a blackjack to introduce themselves, and I haven’t been on any really nasty cases lately.”

“Since you know who I am, we can get to business.” He nodded, and one of the silent thugs pulled up one of the small tables with a telephone on it. “I’m going to call Domingo. You’ll listen in on that extension. You say nothing—and I mean nothing—until I tell you. When I tell you, you will confirm to Domingo that I do indeed have you here, and that I’m going to have you painfully killed if he doesn’t cooperate.”

I nodded. There wasn’t much point in arguing with him; in my current position, what was I going to do?

He did give a small smile at that. “Good. I hate people who don’t cooperate. You might actually get out of this alive, if Domingo doesn’t screw up.” He punched in the numbers, and one goon picked up the extension and held the receiver to my hear.

“Domingo residence, Morgan speaking.”

“Morgan, buddy, this is Carmichael. I need to talk to Domingo right now.”

Morgan paused. I could see that it was, in fact, morning, so Verne was doubtless sleeping. “Master Verne is not available at the moment—”

“Listen up. I know for a fact he hasn’t left that mansion—my people were watching yesterday. So okay, he went to bed. Get him up. Now. I’ll guarantee you he’ll be the one regretting it if you don’t do it.”

Morgan sighed. “If you insist, sir. Please hold the line.”

Faint strains of classical music came on; apparently Verne or whoever ran the phone system agreed that dead air was no fun to listen to. Carmichael made a face. ” ‘Please hold the line.’ Jeez, I still can’t figure this clown. He think he’s in a goddamn Masterpiece Theatre show or something?”

I didn’t say anything; I figured silence was my best policy right now.

Several minutes later, the music cut off and Verne’s voice spoke. “Mr. Carmichael.”

“Verne! Good to hear you, buddy. Look, if you want to cut out of the business personally, I want you to know, that’s okay with me, so long as you aren’t going to rat. But your leaving like this is causing me a problem, and I’m not okay with that.”

“What you are ‘okay’ with, Mr. Carmichael, is not really much of my concern.”

Carmichael gave a nasty laugh. “I think I got an argument about why it is, Verne old buddy. Take a listen and then tell me.” He nodded at me.

“Hello, Verne,” I said. I at least managed to sound casual.

There was silence for a moment, then, “Jason? Is that you?”

“I’m afraid so. Mr. Carmichael made me an offer I couldn’t refuse and invited me to visit him. He’s instructed me to tell you that if you don’t go along with what he wants, he’s going to have me killed. Painfully.”

I could envision the offended shock on the other end. “Carmichael. What do you want?”

The nasty laugh again, combined with a nastier grin. “I thought you might want to ask about that now. I want your contacts, Verne. You had some seriously smooth pipelines to bring stuff in from various places. No matter how hard I tried, never could quite figure out who was doing it, and you never lost a goddamn shipment. I admire that, really. That’s art. But I was depending on those pipelines, and suddenly you cut me off? Where the hell do you get off thinking you can just tell me to go screw? What is that crap? You wanna go play with your English butler in teatime land, hell, I don’t care, but without a replacement I’m eating into my reserves and I ain’t got supply for my customers to last more than a couple more weeks. And I ain’t going to go for a supplier that’s gonna cost me more or give me lower quality. So, if you ain’t doing the supply end, I’ll take your place. You just hand me your contacts, whoever ran the pipelines, and I’ll do it from there. Your friend here goes home, we all end up happy. Get stupid with me and I’ll send him to you in pieces.”

Verne’s voice, when it finally answered, was as calm as usual; but, now that I was familiar with it, I detected a hint of iron anger I’d never heard before. “Mr. Carmichael, my… contacts would be useless to you. When I stopped, they stopped. They no longer trade in the same merchandise.”

“Well, baby, that sounds just too bad. You’d better tell ‘em to start trading in it again, and give me the names double-quick. I ain’t got too much time, so my patience is totally gone.” He pointed at the other thug, who stepped up and kicked me hard in the shin.

I know I screamed or shouted something in pain, then cursed. I hadn’t been ready to try to stay quiet at that.

“Hear that? That wasn’t much, Domingo. Right now he’s just got a couple bruises.”

“I will need some time.”

“You never needed much, buddy, so don’t you even think about stalling me. I’ll give you to midnight tonight, Domingo, to start coming through. Either you start the supply back up yourself, or you hand me the people who were doing the job for you, or I’ll finish your friend here off.”

There were a few moments of silence. “Domingo, do you hear me? I need an answer, buddy, or do I have to make your friend uncomfortable again?”

“I hear you,” Verne answered. “I will have something for you before midnight, Carmichael. But if you harm Jason again, you will be exceedingly sorry. That I promise you.”

“Not another touch, Domingo, unless you try something cute. His safety’s all in your hands. I’ll call you later tonight. Be ready.” He hung up, and so did the thug holding the receiver.

“You did that good, Mr. Wood,” Carmichael said. “Now, boys, you can untie him, take him to the bathroom if he needs to go, and we’ll get him some food. You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” he asked me.

“Nope,” I said honestly. “I don’t know exactly where we are, and I’m sure you’ve got lots more where these guys come from.”

“Great. Y’know, I grabbed another guy once, few years ago, thought he was a frickin’ action hero. Busted up a few of my guys, tried to get out, ended up shot. Nice to see not everyone’s that stupid.”

Privately, I wondered. Verne was an honorable guy; he’d probably see it as his obligation to get me out of this, but it would really suck if a bastard like Carmichael got access to his drugs again.

But no point in worrying now. Using the bathroom sounded good, and now that my stomach was settling, so did food. I figured I’d just try to be a good Boy Scout and Be Prepared.

 

 

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 13

 

Jason had taken on a rather unorthodox client with an unusual request…

 

 

 

Chapter 13: Interview With the Artist

The apartment door opened in front of me, at least to the limit that the chain on it would permit. Two bright blue eyes looked somewhat up at me, framed by blue-black hair and set in a pretty, well-defined face. “Hi. Can I help you?”

“I’m Jason Wood.”

“Oh, right, Dad’s expecting you! Hold on, I’ll get the chain off here.” The door closed. I heard rattling, and “Dad! Your guest’s here!”

When the door opened, I saw Sky Hashima walking towards me, wiping his hands on a towel. “Mr. Wood, please come in.” He shook my hand. “This is my daughter, Star,” he said, and I shook hands with the girl who had greeted me. “Star, we’ll be in my studio—this probably won’t take long, but please don’t disturb us.”

“Okay, Dad. You want anything to drink, Dad, Mr. Wood?”

I smiled at her; she obviously knew something was important about my visit. “A soda would be nice—ginger ale?”

“We’ve got that. Dad? Water for you?”

“For now, yes. Thank you, Star.”

Sky led the way into his studio; his hair was longer than his daughter’s, but despite traces of silver here and there, was otherwise just as night-dark. Their features were also similar enough; there wasn’t any doubt about who her father was, and in this case that was a good thing for Star. “A very polite young lady.”

Sky gave a small chuckle. “Ahh, that’s because she thinks you might be a good thing for her dad. If she thought you were trouble, you’d have needed a crowbar to get inside the house.”

“And when she’s old enough to date, I’m sure you’ll be just as protective.”

“Star will be old enough to date when she’s ninety. I’ve told her that already.” We shared another chuckle at that. “I recall meeting you at that little show I did at one of the libraries, Mr. Wood, but I didn’t think you were really interested in art.”

“I’m not, really,” I confessed. “Thanks, Star,” I said, as she came in, handed us each a glass, and left. “I came to that show with Sylvie, who is interested in art and found some of your pieces quite fascinating. But I do have a few other acquaintances who have more than a passing interest in art.”

“And… ?”

“And it so happens that one of them is looking to find people to sponsor—to be a sort of patron of the arts. I remembered you and wanted to see what kind of work you were doing, and if (a) you were serious about it, and (b) you were willing to meet with him to discuss it.” I studied some of the canvases set around the studio. One thing that impressed me was Sky’s versatility; I saw paintings which were, to my uneducated gaze, random blots of colors, shapes, and streaks, and others which were landscapes or scenes of such sharp realism you almost thought they were windows rather than paintings, and some in-between, which really didn’t follow the accurate shapes or lines yet somehow conveyed the essence of the thing he was depicting.

Sky had an expression that was almost disbelieving; I realized that it must sound almost like that classic of Hollywood myth, working in a restaurant and being discovered by the famous director who stopped in for a cup of coffee. “You’re joking.”

“Not at all. Would you like to meet him, then?”

“If he’s ready, I’ll go right now.”

I laughed. “Not quite that fast—I have to let him know, then he’ll either set up the meeting, or have me do it. He’s a bit eccentric—”

“That’s almost a requirement for being a private patron these days. Patronage used to be standard practice, back in Leonardo’s day,  but those days… long gone.” He took a gulp from his glass and looked at me. “The answer to the first question is yes, I am serious about it. I make an okay living from my framing work, but if you look around you you must realize that the stuff I’m producing represents major investment of time and effort. I could do an awful lot of other things with the money I spend on my art, but my art’s worth it to me.” He smiled again. “That doesn’t mean I’m at all averse to seeing my art start making money rather than taking money, however.”

I grinned back. “Excellent. Now, why don’t you just show me a few of your favorites here and explain to me what you’re doing, so I can give my friend a capsule overview and he’ll know what to expect.”

Sky was only too pleased to do that, and I spent a good half-hour or more listening to him describe his intentions and techniques in several of his works. I noticed that he, like almost all artists I’ve ever met, mentioned all the myriad ways in which his works failed to live up to his expectations. It’s always been a source of frustration that someone can produce something that’s clearly amazing, and all they can think about is how it is flawed—often in ways that no one but they themselves can see. It does however seem to be an almost required characteristic for an artist, and I’ve heard similar things about writers.

Finally I shook hands with him again and left. “Thank you, Sky. I’ll be getting back to you very soon. Nice meeting you, Star.”

A short time later I pulled up into the curved driveway which was becoming increasingly familiar to me, and smiled to Morgan as he opened the door. “Good evening, sir. Master Verne is in the study.”

“Morgan, do you ever get tired of playing the butler?”

He gave me a raised eyebrow and slightly miffed expression in reply. “Playing, sir? This is my place in the household, and I assure you it is precisely what I wanted. I have, with some variation in regional standards of propriety, been performing these duties for considerably longer than the Pharaohs endured, sir, and had I found the task overall onerous or distasteful, I assure you I would have asked Master Verne for a change.”

People like Morgan gave the phrase “faithful retainer” an entirely new, and impressive, meaning. “Sorry. It’s just that it sometimes strikes me you’re too good to be true.”

He smiled with a proper level of reserve. “I strive to be good at my job, sir. I feel that a gentleman such as Master Verne deserves to have a household worthy of his age and bloodline, and therefore I shall endeavor to maintain his home at a proper level of respectability.”

“And you succeed admirably, old friend,” Verne said as we entered. “Jason, every member of my household has chosen their lifestyle and I would never hold them to me, if any of them chose to leave. It has been a great pleasure, and immense vindication, that not one of my personal staff has ever made that choice… though on occasion, as of my recent descent into less-than-respectable business, they have made clear some of their personal fears and objections.” He put away a book that he had been reading and gestured for me to sit down as Morgan left. “I have been taking up some considerable portion of your time, Jason. I hope I am not interfering in your personal life—your friends Sylvia and Renee, for instance, are not suffering your absence overly much?”

I laughed. “No, no. Syl’s off on some kind of convention for people in her line of work and isn’t coming back for something like a week from now, and I only get together with Renee once in a while. Most of my other friends, sad to say, aren’t in this area—they’ve gone off to college, moved, and so on, so I only talk with them via phone or email. Really. So have no fear, I’m at your disposal for at least the next week or so; the only other big job I have at the moment I can work on during the day.”

“Excellent.” Morgan came in with his usual sinfully tempting tray of hors d’oeuvres and snacks. “By the way, Morgan, have there been any further problems from my erstwhile business associates?”

“No, sir. They have found that it is not easy to intrude here and have apparently given up after I was forced to injure the one gentleman at the store.”

“Very good. I shall send another message to Carmichael emphasizing that I will be extremely displeased if any more such incidents happen, but it does appear he has learned something about futility.” He turned back to me. “And how did your meeting go?”

“I think he’d be a great choice, Verne. He’s clearly serious about his work, and with my limited grasp of art I think his stuff is really, really good. If you want to meet with him, he’s willing to meet any time you name.”

“Then let us not keep him waiting overlong. Tomorrow evening, at about seven, let us say.”

“I’ll give him a call now.” Suiting actions to words, I picked up a phone and called Sky Hashima. As he’d implied, he was more than willing to meet then, and assured me that he’d be able to assemble a reasonable portfolio by that time.

“I’m glad you’re going to check him over yourself,” I confessed. “I know just enough about art to know that I really don’t know the difference between ‘illustration’ and ‘art,’ and that the latter is what you are interested in.”

Verne smiled. I was, at least, getting used to seeing the fangs at various moments, although I also had to admit that they weren’t that obvious; someone who didn’t know what he was would quite probably just assume he had oddly long canines. “You may be confident, my friend, that I would still wish to see for myself even were you an expert in all things artistic. If I will sponsor anyone, it will be because I am convinced the person deserves my support. Now that that is settled,” he said, pulling out a chessboard, “would you care for a game?”

I pulled my chair up to the table. “Sure… if you take black and a queen handicap. You’ve got a few years on me.”

“A queen? A rook.”

“You’re on.”

 

 

 

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 12

 

Another completely new chapter!

 

 

 

 

Chapter 12: Mystery of a Brother

     “Sure, Syl – I’d love to go out tomorrow. You want a movie or something else?”

     “How about Sabers of Twilight? I’ve heard that one’s a lot of fun and just up your alley, Jason.”

     I grinned into the phone. “Because of the pretty girls in interesting costumes? Sounds fine. Odd how you don’t mention the pretty boys in tight leather outfits.”

     “I didn’t say it wasn’t up my alley too,” she said with a laugh. “All right, after we lock up tomorrow then.”

     “See you!”

     I turned back to the pictures on my screen. This is a real possibility.

     Verne had given me the go-ahead to both start figuring out how to put select pieces of his collection onto the market, and to start helping him find proper clients that he could be a patron of. The first part was not terribly hard; it was more a matter of deciding how much should be sold and how much should be donated, since a lot of the really valuable stuff was considered national treasure by places like Egypt. While Verne’s possession of these treasures was (obviously) far before the cut-off date at which such possession would be considered theft, it was still a matter of political delicacy and publicity; giving the treasures, at least the most high-profile ones, back to their original owners for display, would earn Verne a lot of respect.

     If, of course, we could keep people from asking too many of the wrong questions.

     The other side was somewhat harder. In the long run, Verne would probably do the selecting himself – he was after all the guy who was supposed to be the patron and knew a lot more about art than I ever would. But he was also busy… rebuilding himself, I guess would be the way to put it. The Verne Domingo I now spoke to was rather different than the one I’d first met, and I knew part of that was through making an effort to re-connect with his older self, and with the people who had followed him through history.

     I’d remembered an art show I’d gone to with Syl some time back, and seeing the paintings online confirmed my memory. There was something special there, even to my casual eye. This Sky Hashima was a good candidate, and even better, he was local.

     The door chimed, and I glanced at the clock in surprise. It is that time already.

     Xavier Ross sat down nervously. “So… did you…”

     “You were right, Xavier,” I said without beating around the bush. Taking the laptop from the drawer I’d kept it in, I handed it back to the young man. “There were other entries during that period of time. Someone deliberately erased them, and a pretty large amount of other data too, before the police got their hands on the machine.”

     He leaned forward. “Is there… anything that tells us what he was doing?”

     I shook my head. “Not much. There were quite a few missing entries – looks like he was on the trail of whatever-it-was for at least three months. A couple of earlier entries had been modified after their apparent date, so probably there were hints even as long as five months ago, but from what you said your brother knew how to keep a secret.

     “What’s in those entries, though… I can’t get much of anything. Whoever did the erasure knew what they were doing. I only got a few cryptic phrases out of dozens of entries – I’ve collected them here,” I handed him an envelope, “And one last interesting point.”

     “Well?”

     “The most recently tampered-with files I managed to get enough out of to see that they were written in the format he used as a tickler file for travel. He had apparently bought himself a ticket to JFK Airport in New York City – he was supposed to be leaving within a few hours of the time he died. Since the police didn’t seem to look into it, I’d guess he’d done so with cash, under another identity.”

     “Really? Where do you think he was going?” Xavier blinked. “Wait, another identity?”

     “Not entirely unheard of for people looking into dangerous stuff. He probably had used this other ID several times.”

     “Can you … find out more about what he was doing? Track him, now that you know something?”

     I frowned. “I… guess I could do a little more searching. If I can figure out his alternate ID or IDs, that’d make it a lot easier. But that’s way out of the work we’d already agreed on.”

     “I’ll pay for it.”

     I hesitated. He’s really … obsessing over this. I could tell by the intensity in his gaze that this was desperately important to him. I’d also checked with Renee about the case, so I knew that Xavier simply didn’t agree with their conclusions.

     I also knew that Renee wasn’t entirely happy with the way the Los Angeles police had closed the file, either, but she had no say in the matter. It was their jurisdiction; this was just where the victim’s family lived.

     “All right,” I said after a moment. “I’ll see if I can trace where he went and what he did. That’ll be a thousand-dollar retainer, though; I have no idea how hard this will be.”

     After I ran his card and he left, holding the laptop tightly to him, I stared out the window for a while. I didn’t have whatever weird sense Syl used, but I was very used to trusting my instincts. Most of the time, when the police investigate a case and close it, it’s because they’ve actually found the perpetrator and the case is closed.

     But my gut said that in this case, Xavier Ross was right to be uncertain; it wasn’t just what I’d found on that machine, but what Renee had said. If Lieutenant Renee Reisman wasn’t happy with the way a case had been solved, that was enough for me; something wasn’t right. Unfortunately, while the answers the police had given Xavier didn’t take into account this evidence, getting them to reopen the case directly on what amounted to stuff that wasn’t there? That would be a tough, tough call.

     “Okay, Jason,” I said to myself. “Let’s see if we can trail someone who didn’t want to be found.”

 

 

 

 

Polychrome: Chapter 2

 

Well, it’s time to meet our OTHER protagonist…

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2.

     I snapped the computer case shut and locked down the screws. “All set.”

     “Thanks, Erik.” Lisa said with a tired smile. “You didn’t have to –”

     “No, I didn’t, but it wasn’t a big deal and you need that thing running tomorrow. Don’t we finish the next big volume for State Legal this week?”

     “Yes, you’re right. But –”

     “No buts.” I was actually exhausted myself – repairing three machines that had chosen to, as an English acquaintance of mine used to say, go “tits up” all at once was a pain in the butt. And not, technically, my job, though at Pinebush Publishing I sort of got all the technical jobs that weren’t technically mine, whenever I was around. But the exhaustion probably contributed to my being honest. “You’re some of the few people I managed to keep from offending at one point or another, so it’s worth it.”

     Lisa blinked at me in surprise. She was a very pretty, very tall young woman – 30, which I suppose wouldn’t be young for some, but was for me – with hazel eyes and short brown-blond hair. “You’ve muttered things like that a couple of times before, Erik, but I honestly can’t understand why. You’ve almost never said anything offensive in all the years you’ve been here.”

     I sighed and sat down. “Maybe offended isn’t the right word for a lot of it. But…” I glanced at her, purse in her hand. “Do you really want to hear the answer, or do you want to get home?”

     “Is it really that long?”

     “That’s a rather personal question, sir!” I said in a Monty Python voice, and she gave a rather unladylike snorting chuckle in response. “There’s the Reader’s Digest version, I guess. When I came here I had just started… growing up. Yeah, I know, I was 30 and now I’m staring at the big Five-O. Only relationship I’d had for any length of time had blown up just a bit before. I had about twenty years of being a rebellious angsty teenager before I decided to reach my 20s, so I actually never figured out what the hell I wanted to do with my life – so I didn’t do anything.” I didn’t want to go into the details – it would sound like self-pitying whining. Probably would be self-pitying whining. Might even be already.

     “You? Angsty? Erik, I’ve known you since I started working here six years ago and one thing I admire about you is that I didn’t think angst and you even knew each other.”

     “Okay,” I amended, “Not usually angsty, at least not where other people could see it. But interested more in having fun – of the pretty quiet geeky kind – than doing Serious Work, and…” I shook my head. “Ahhhh, never mind. I wouldn’t have said anything about it if I wasn’t so tired. I don’t want to complain about my life; for everything bad, I’ve ended up with at least as much good. And what’s the point of stewing over it anyway? If you don’t believe in things basically working out, you’d have a pretty bleak life, I’d think. I don’t understand people who walk around thinking ‘the world is a dark and lonely place’, to quote something you won’t know.”

     Lisa shook her head. “You’re right, I don’t, but at least let me tell you that whatever anyone else thought you should’ve done, everyone here is damn glad you ended up working here.”

     “An opinion I intend to keep earning by doing the work I can do whenever I’m around. Now get going. I’ll lock up.”

     “All right. Will you be in tomorrow?”

     “I don’t think you’ll need me as long as these little monsters stay fixed. See you on Friday.”

     She waved as she left; I grinned back and then went to wash up.

     The conversation had stirred up some of my old, rare regrets. Well, no, not rare, but rarely indulged. I generally didn’t see the point in regretting things that were past, or at least of agonizing over them. Changing the past wasn’t possible, and so going back over what I should have said, or not have said, or done, was… well, like picking a scab off. There might be some strange fascination in it, but in the end you were just hurting yourself and interfering with the healing process.

     I locked up the offices and went out to my car. Which didn’t help, because it used to be my father’s car, which reminded me of the whole conversation again. My dad had died not too disappointed in me – at least he’d seen I had a stable job and a reasonable chance at living out my life on my own – but my mom hadn’t seen enough to know that I’d started to turn things around before she’d died – during a routine examination. My brother was married, had kids, a real career, and I hadn’t really managed to do anything of significance even on the family scale, despite having been the genius of the family. Not even a steady girlfriend. Or these days not even an unsteady one; all the female possibilities in my small circle of friends had already paired up, and I had no experience of how to look – and a general, gut-level aversion to LOOKING, in that sense.

     “Oh, bah. Cut this crap out,” I said out loud to myself as I pulled out of the parking lot onto the Washington Avenue Extension and turned right. “You did finally get your own life, and a job you like, which is more than a lot of people manage. You don’t have to work all that much because you’ve got a big cushion you inherited – which even fewer people have.”

     I managed a smile, which stopped feeling pasted on as I noticed the magnificent view dead ahead of me: three immense thunderheads towering over Albany. I love storms, always have, and these looked like they might be delivering a doozy to the Capital Region.

     And, I continued to myself, you may not ever have achieved your pipe dream of being a writer, but you still give people some fun through your imagination as a gamer. Which, again, is more than a lot of people manage.

     A part of me would always feel I was a failure, I knew, but I wasn’t going to let that part dominate. I had a decent life, and it was stupid and nonproductive – and ultimately self-destructive – to insist to myself that I should have Done Something Special. Especially since THAT part of me wouldn’t even be satisfied if I’d done everything my parents had hoped for; no, that part of me was the part that never finished growing up and wanted to change the world in the kind of way that simply didn’t happen.

     “There isn’t any magic in the real world.” I reminded myself, and then with a sudden grin, corrected myself. “Except that.”

     “That” was one of the most magnificent rainbows I had ever seen, now looming over the city in the almost-setting summer sunshine slanting over the city. Rainbows were pure magic to me, whispering in my mind of the Bifrost Bridge and Hermes on his messenger duties, of promises of gods and leprechauns and other things, some very near to my heart. And this was an amazing rainbow, fairly blazing against the dark undersides of the clouds beyond, a second, nearly as intense bow paralleling it, a hint of a third visible at points. One end looked as though it came down in Watervliet, the other much nearer, not far from the side of I-90 – somewhere around Westgate Plaza. I drove homeward towards that brilliant arch, pretending that I would be driving under it.

     Then I almost drove off the road as I realized two things:

The setting sun was ahead of me… and so was the rainbow. And the rainbow was getting closer.

     Impossible, I thought to myself, staring even as I forced myself back into one of the driving lanes.  Rainbows are only visible with the light behind you! They’re products of light reflected back at you. They’re an illusion, they can’t ever be caught up to! If the rain got more intense, it might make a rainbow look like it was getting closer for a few moments… but look at that thing!

     The mighty rainbow’s arch now rose so high that I had to crane my neck to see it – while constantly glancing back down to make sure I didn’t hit anyone – and the colors were so strong and real that they obscured even the brilliant white of the thunderclouds’ tops behind them. It’s impossible, but I’m seeing it.

     And I found myself passing under the rainbow, one end disappearing in trees to the left, the other coming down not half a mile off… My God, it is in Westgate!

     I took the Everett Road exit at a dangerously high speed considering the wet pavement, but the little Subaru only skidded a bit. More dangerous were the other gawkers. Most people might not understand why the rainbow can’t get closer, or why it’s only visible with the sun over your shoulder, but most people do know it can’t happen, and there were quite a few people following this same route to find out what was going on.

     The end of the bow was off to the right now, huge as the Golden Gate Bridge and awesome as Niagara Falls, stretching up into the infinite sky. I was at Central Avenue, turning, but now the bow was fading. “No, no, no, no, NO!” I shouted hopelessly, as I saw it lifting, dwindling, disappearing, gone. I was at the entrance to the Plaza, but the rainbow had disappeared, leaving everything once more dull and ordinary and the same.

     No, wait, not quite. There was a ring of people gathered in the middle of the parking lot – I couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like to be standing around the rainbow’s end – and…

     I skidded the car to a stop, sitting across two spaces diagonally, and practically leaped out. There was something or someone in the middle of that circle. I couldn’t make it out, but…

     “Excuse me… sorry… Let me through!” I muttered as I bulled my way into the ring of spectators, which seemed to be at least five or six people deep by now. Whoever it was in the middle – it was a person – they were not very big… moving around a lot, rhythmically, almost dancing –

     No. It can’t be.

     I felt a terrible chill of awe and joy, and terror that I might be utterly insane, that only grew worse as I drove through the crowd, now not even hearing the protests around me, drawn forward. It simply wasn’t possible…

     But there was a flash of violet-blue eyes as she spun, laughing, answering some question, a face seen in that moment of such beauty that I could not even imagine words to describe it, golden hair drifting like rays of sunshine around a gauzy-veiled body I didn’t dare look at, hair bound only by a simple black cap, and delicate feet dancing, moving, following a phantom music that seemed in turn to follow her own motions.

     I slowed and stopped at the edge of the crowd, unable to approach closer for fear that to approach would shatter the impossibility into the dull awakening moments of morning. But the feelings could not be restrained, and I heard myself speak, my voice strained with wonder, and awe, and a pure incredulous joy:

     “Polychrome?“

     I saw a radiant smile dawning on her face as she turned towards me. Then her gaze reached me, and the smile… faltered. It did not… quite… go away, but it was clear that she’d been expecting someone, and that someone wasn’t me. Well, big surprise there. Of course she wasn’t expecting some overpadded over-the-hill Oz fanboy.

     The real question – assuming that I wasn’t dreaming or totally nuts – was what the hell she was doing here at all. I couldn’t remember any instance of Polychrome showing up outside of Faerie at all.

     She took a step forward, towards me, and even though the fading of the smile had thrown a little cold water on my original dizzying elation, just that motion brought a lot of it back. “Sir? Do you … know me?”

     “As surely as I know Dorothy and Ozma and Button-Bright, Lady Polychrome,” I answered, feeling that some faux-formality would at least allow me to keep from babbling like a loon.

     Her lovely brow wrinkled — just a touch – as though she were thinking, trying to work something out. Then her face smoothed out, and I caught a tiny movement of her shoulders, a shrug. “Then I must speak with you, sir. Might I know your name?”

     The crowd was starting to look at me, too. Oh-oh. And there’s a cop getting out of his car to see what’s going on.

     “In a moment – for now, I think we need to go somewhere quieter!” I prayed she’d understand.

     Fortunately, her quick gaze showed she was already thinking along those lines. “Surely, sir.”

     Suddenly her hand was in mine; I felt my heart stop as it prepared to leap out of my chest, but then I forgot that as I found myself leaping for real, carried by a spectacular jump that cleared most of the crowd. I landed slightly off and stumbled, but recovered. I realized she was just going to run, and pulled back; given how easily she’d seemed to lift and carry me, I was startled by how suddenly she jolted to a halt, as though I’d been stopping a toddler. “Not that way – here!”

     She blinked at the car – Of course, she probably never saw one in her entire life – but when she saw me yank open the door on my side, she simply nodded and leapt to the other side, pulling the door open and sliding into the passenger seat in a single fluid motion like a leaf settling to the ground. Thank god I cleaned the car this weekend. It’s still kinda messy, but at least there’s room in the passenger seat.

     I started the engine and put the car in gear. The crowd had started to follow but none of them seemed inclined to get in the way, and the cop was just running around the side of the crowd…

     I pulled out fast, heading for the main exit. For once, I was lucky with this light; it was pure green, and I went straight through. I could get into a maze of streets in that direction pretty quick, and this wasn’t something I wanted to explain to anyone. I heard Polychrome give a delighted laugh as we accelerated, apparently enjoying the novel sensation of a self-propelled vehicle. Glancing in the rearview, I could see that there were no cars following me.

     With the immediate crisis over, it finally began to sink in. What the hell have I just gotten into?

 

 

 

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 11

 

So Jason was now consulting for a vampire…

 

 

 

Chapter 11: Personal History

“All right,” I said, “you can meet people in the daytime if necessary. Just not a good thing to do often. That’s great—there are a lot of things, like signing papers, getting permits, and so on, that are close to impossible to manage if you can’t get the principal to make himself available when other people are.”

I was going over the notes I’d gotten that night, while Verne answered my questions and read the work-for-hire agreement. “Yes, I understand that,” Verne confirmed. “I will certainly make myself available for official meetings in the daytime, but would strongly prefer such things be very few and far between. By the way, I admire your wording in this agreement—making clear that part of your job is to take into consideration my special requirements, while being so utterly generic that someone getting a look at this agreement wouldn’t think anything of it.”

I grinned. “Wish I could take credit for that one, but I stole most of the wording from similar agreements for people with disabilities.” I stood up. “Okay, let’s take a look around your house here. Sometimes what you see in a man’s home gives you ideas—I’m assuming you keep at least some things around because you like them, not just for show.”

“Indeed I do. Most things are for my enjoyment, or that of my people.” Verne rose also and began to lead me on a tour of the house.

Verne Domingo’s “house” was one of the only ones I’d ever visited that deserved the apellation “mansion.” It rose a full three stories, sprawled across a huge area of land, and had at least one basement level (given my host’s nature, I was not at all sure that there weren’t parts of the house, above or below ground, which were being concealed). His staff numbered twelve; thirteen, if you counted Morgan. He seemed wryly amused at the coincidence of the number, and noted to me that it had been that way for at least three hundred years. “Therefore,” he said, “you must forgive me for putting little stock in triskaidekaphobia.”

“So none of your staff is less than three hundred years old?” I asked, trying to get my brain around the concept.

“Not precisely. What has happened is that, on the occasions I have lost a member of my household over the past few centuries, I have quickly found a replacement. This number seems to be suited to my requirements for efficiency, comfort, and security. My youngest, in fact, you have met — Hitoshi Mori is scarcely seventy-five years old, and has been in my service for forty-two years.”

“Morgan, I know, can work during the day. So they aren’t vampires like yourself, right?”

Verne nodded, pausing to point out the engravings which were spaced evenly around the walls of this room. “It is possible for someone such as myself to bind others to my essence—allowing them to partake of the power that makes me what I am—without giving them all the limitations of the life I follow. Naturally, they do not gain all the advantages, either.”

“No blood-drinking?”

Morgan shook his head, opening the next door for us. “No, sir. We do have a preference for meat, given a choice—our metabolism, to use the modern terms, seems to use more protein and so on. We gain immortality, some additional strengths and resistances, but nothing like the powers accorded to Master Verne.”

“This is my library, Jason,” Verne said as we entered another large room, with tall windows that admitted moonlight in stripes across the carpet before it was banished by Morgan’s finger on the switch for the overhead lights. “One of them, to be more precise. This contains those works which might be commonly consulted, or read for pleasure, and which are not so unusual or valuable as to require special treatment.”

The other three walls were covered with bookshelves—long, very tall bookshelves. A runner for one of the moving book-ladders I’d seen in some bookstores ran the entire circumference of the room, aside from the one window-covered wall. Other tall shelves stood at intervals across the room, with a large central space for tables and chairs. Two people were there now, one taking notes from a large volume in front of him, the other leaning back in her chair, reading a newspaper. “Ah, Camillus, Meta, good evening.”

The two had gotten swiftly to their feet upon seeing that Verne had entered. Camillus was the one who’d led the three-man assault team that had kidnapped me; a man of average height, slightly graying brown hair, brown eyes, and the wide shoulders and bearing of a career soldier; despite a strongly hooked nose, I was sure that Syl would have rated the tanned, square-faced Camillus highly on looks. Meta was a young lady—or, I amended, a young-looking lady—whose height matched Camillus’, but whose long, inky-black hair very nearly matched her skin shade. Despite that, her eyes were a quite startling gray-blue, and her features were sharp and even, giving her a look of aristocratic elegance that made questions of beauty almost inconsequential.

“No need to rise,” Verne said with a smile, “But since you are up, please say hello to Jason Wood.”

“Mr. Wood.” Camillus’ grip was as strong as I would have expected. “Domingo’s spoken of you quite a bit of late. My apologies for a certain… comment on your prior meeting?”

I grinned. “As long as the threat’s withdrawn, sure.”

“It is forgotten, then. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to assist.”

“Sure,” I said. “What exactly do you do?”

“I’m the master-at-arms and in charge of security here,” he responded.

I noted the nature of the material scattered around his side of the table and grinned. “And how do you feel about that?”

He understood exactly what I meant and grinned back. “You have me there. By all the gods, security has changed in the past century! At least in the old days the common man didn’t have access to sorcery; nowadays, you can pick up one of these,” he gestured at several home electronics catalogs, “and order up something with the eyes of an eagle and the hearing of a bat that will send all it sees and hears right back to you.”

“Well, I noticed the security setup you have here; it’s not bad for a man who seems to still be playing catch-up on the century.”

He acknowledged the comment with a bow. “Mostly done on contractor recommendations. I’m not comfortable, though, with having anything in the house that I don’t understand.”

“Then ask me; once I’ve got Verne’s problem out of the way, I’ll be glad to bring you up to speed; I’ve got plenty of resources in the security area.”

“I’ll do that.” he said, smiling. “Oh, sir,” he said, looking at Verne, “Carmichael sent a pretty pissed-off message to you. I don’t like the tone of it.”

The two of them went off a ways to discuss Carmichael. I turned to Meta and shook her hand. “And your position here is… ?”

“I suppose you might call me… librarian? Archivist? Something of that sort.” Her grip was much more gentle, though not a limp fish by any means.

“Ah, so I’m in your territory here.”

She smiled. “It is of course Master Domingo’s, but I have jurisdiction as he allows.”

Meta and Verne let me wander the library for a few minutes; it was rather instructive, I thought, to see just what Verne thought of as “not unusual or valuable enough” to warrant being kept elsewhere. Even with my relatively limited knowledge of books, I noted several items on the shelves that would easily bring in several hundred dollars if sold.

The next hour or so of the tour passed without notable events—the other staff might be sleeping or out for the evening, but whatever the reason I didn’t run into any more.

Finally, Verne led me down a wide flight of stairs into the basement, which was as high-ceilinged and opulently furnished as the downstairs but had clearly greater security. “And here is my bedroom.”

“Wait a minute. I thought you said that room on the second floor was your bedroom?”

“My show bedroom—the one that visitors of most sorts will be told is my bedroom, if they have any occasion to ask or discover it. I can rest there, if necessary, but here, enclosed in the earth itself, I am better protected.”

The room was very large; I was vaguely disappointed not to see a classic pedestal supporting an open, velvet-lined coffin, but instead there was a huge four-poster bed with heavy curtains about it. Several small bookshelves stood at intervals along the walls, along with some large and oddly elaborate frames for paintings, a desk and chairs, a fair-sized entertainment center, and two wardrobes. Besides the paintings there were a few other objects on the wall, most of them weapons of one kind or another. I wandered around the room, studying these things carefully. The oddity of the painting frames became clear when I realized they were double-sealed frames—museum quality, for preserving fragile materials against the ravages of time. Probably nitrogen-filled.

“So, Jason,” Verne said finally, “Does anything occur to you?”

I rubbed my chin. “I’m getting something of an idea, it’s just being stubborn and refusing to gel. I need just one more thing to trigger it. Unfortunately, I haven’t got any idea what that one more thing is.”

“Well, I have saved the part I believe you will find most entertaining for last,” Verne said. “It is of course natural that I would place those things I value most in the most secure area. Here is the entry to my vault—a small museum, if you will.” He led the way to another room, relatively small and undecorated, whose far wall was dominated by a no-nonsense, massive door of the sort suitable for banks and government secure areas. Verne placed his hand on a polished area near the door, then punched in a number on a keypad and turned the large handle. The door opened onto another set of stairs going down to a landing which ended in another door – also clearly strong, though nothing like the several-foot-thick monster Verne had just swung open. I paused, but he gestured me down. “Go first, Jason. I think you will find it more effective to see it without my leading the way.”

I shrugged, then went down the steps. As I reached for the door handle, I saw it turn and push inward, as though grasped by an invisible hand. I felt the prickle of gooseflesh as I realized that this wasn’t any cute gadgetry, but a subtle demonstration of Verne Domingo’s powers, clearly for the effect. I felt myself momentarily immersed in something mystical, standing at the edge of ancient mysteries. The black door swung open, into inky darkness. Then the same unseen force switched on the lights.

I can’t remember what I said; I think I may have gasped something incomprehensible. What I do know is that I stood for what seemed an eternity, staring.

In that first instant, the room was ablaze with the sunlight sheen of gold, the glitter of gems, the glow of inlay and paint so fresh it might have been finished only yesterday. At first I couldn’t even grasp the sheer size of the vault’s collection; it wasn’t possible, simply wasn’t even imaginable that so many artifacts and treasures could be here, beneath a mansion in upstate New York.

Once more a quote from long-ago years surfaced: Lord Carnevon to Howard Carter as Carter took the first look into the tomb of Tutankhamen: “What do you see?”

And Howard’s response: “Wonderful things.”

There were statues of animal-headed gods, resplendent in ebony and gold, bedecked with jewelled inlay. A wall filled with incised hieroglyphics provided a sufficient backdrop to set off coffers of jewelry, ceremonial urns, royal chariots. Farther down, beyond what was obviously the Egyptian collection, were carefully hung paintings, marble statues, books and scrolls in glass cases, something at the far end that shimmered like a blown-glass rainbow…

I stepped slowly forward, almost afraid that the entire fantastic scene would disappear like smoke. I reached out, very hesitantly, and touched a finger to the golden nose of a sitting dog.

“From the chambers of Ramses II,” Verne said from behind me, almost making me jump. “His tomb was looted quite early, as things go; I managed to procure a large number of the artifacts, which was fortunate since otherwise they would have been melted down or defaced for valuable inlay and so on.”

I just shook my head, trying to take it in. Ramses… II? “That’s the one they associate with Moses?”

“Indeed.”

I walked cautiously around this first incredible chamber, stopping at a huge sarcophagus. The golden face rang a faint bell, which was odd because there were very few Egyptian nobles I’d ever seen statues or busts of. What… I studied some of the symbology, not that I was an authority or even much of an amateur in the field, but because maybe something would trigger a memory. As an information expert, it’s a matter of pride to get the answers yourself, even if it’s by luck.

There! That disc, the rays…

My head snapped up and I looked at Verne in disbelief. “No. It can’t be.”

He inclined his own. “Can’t be… what?”

“Ahkenaten. That’s the Aten, and it’s all over here. And I’ve seen a couple busts supposed to be of him. But I thought they found his mummy.”

He smiled faintly. “I did hear that someone had found something they believed to be Akhenaten’s mummy. Since this has never been out of my, or my people’s, possession since shortly after finding out that the Sun-Pharoah’s tomb was being looted, I must incline to doubt that what they found was indeed Akhenaten.”

It was then that the idea finally crystallized. “Good God, Verne, I’ve got it.”

He looked at me. “What is it?”

“Art, of course!” I waved my hands around at the treasures that surrounded us. “The art world can be tolerant of strange hours and stranger habits. You’ve already got stuff to sell or donate—no, wait, hear me out. You speak many languages, you certainly have various connections around the world, and, well, you appear to have taste and style which I don’t have. You could deal in rare artworks, maybe be a patron to newer artists, and so on.”

Verne looked thoughtful. “True. I have in fact been a student of the arts, off and on through the centuries; I could determine authenticity in many ways, not the least being firsthand experience of how many things were actually done. Even though I would not, of course, wish to reveal the source of that information, simply knowing the correct from the incorrect is something that I could justify with the proper scholarly logic.”

“Yep. It’s always easier to write the impeccable logical chain to prove your point if you already know where you’re going.”

“But selling these masterworks… I have kept them safe for thousands of years, Jason. Do not speak lightly of this.”

“I’m not taking it lightly, not at all,” I said earnestly. “Verne, these things would rock the archaeological world—and I haven’t even looked in the rest of this vault; to be honest, I’m almost afraid of what I’ll find. Stuff of this historical and cultural value should be out there for other people to appreciate. Hell, just the aesthetic value would justify putting it out there on the proper market. Okay, it’s impolite at the least to go around breaking into someone’s tomb and ripping off their stuff, but since it was done long ago, shouldn’t the work of those ancient artists at least have the chance to be fully appreciated?”

Verne’s expression was pained; a man listening to someone trying to tell him to give up his children wouldn’t have looked much more upset. Then Morgan spoke.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I think Master Jason is correct.”

Verne just looked at him, silent but questioning.

“If you truly wish to open yourself up, as you once were, sir, I think this means not keeping everything locked away. Not just your feelings, sir, but those things of beauty which we treasure. We have guarded them long enough, sir.” He gave another look that I had trouble interpreting; it seemed filled with more meaning than I could easily interpret, something from their past. “We already know of someone whose love of beauty and fear for its fate transformed him… in ways that I would not wish to see happen to you.”

Those last words got through to Verne; he gave a momentary shiver, as of a man doused with cold water. “Yes… Yes, Morgan. Perhaps you are right.” He turned back to me, speaking in a more normal tone. “Your idea certainly has merit, Jason. I shall consider it carefully, and discuss it with my household. I would appreciate it if you would be so kind as to examine the best ways for me to begin on such a course of action.”

“Sure,” I said, wondering if I’d ever quite know what was going on there. “I suppose I’ll leave you to it, then.”

I cast a last, incredulous glance over my shoulder at that vault of wonders, then headed up the stairs.

 

 

Paradigms Lost: Chapter 10

 

Jason had accepted an invitation to visit a metabolically-challenged client…

 

 

 

Chapter 10: Career Counseling

It was, at least, somewhat more comforting to be pulling into the huge, curving driveway in my own car under my own control. My prior visit had been rather informal, ending with my being shoved into Verne’s parlor while still in my pajamas. So this time I was not only here by choice, but I was also better dressed.

The door opened as I reached the landing, and I saw the impeccably elegant butler/majordomo I remembered from the last visit. “Thank you… um, Morgan, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed, sir,” Morgan replied, with a small bow. “Your coat, sir? Thank you.” I handed him my overcoat, which he took and handed to another servant. “If you will be good enough to follow me, sir, Master Verne is waiting for you in the dining room.”

The manners in the Domingo household, I had to admit, had never given me room for complaint, at least aside from the initial threats. I followed Morgan to an absolutely magnificent dining room, with an actual cut-crystal chandelier shedding a sparkling light over a huge elongated dinner table which could have easily seated fifty people. The panelling was elegant, real wood I was sure, and there were small oil paintings tastefully set along the walls.

Verne Domingo, resplendent in an archaic outfit, rose upon my entry and bowed. “Welcome to my home, Mr. Wood. Enter freely and of your own will.”

I couldn’t manage to keep a straight face, though I tried. After I stopped laughing, I spread my hands. “Okay, okay, enough. I see you have a sense of humor too. At least you have the looks to carry it off.”

“I thank you. Please, sit down and tell me how my chef has done his work. Alas, I am unable to directly appreciate such talents any more.”

It was a shellfish dream—seven different dishes, small enough so that I could eat something of each of them without feeling like I was going to put a large number of crustaceans to waste. As it turned out, small enough so that if I felt like a pig, and I did, I could make sure no crustacean went untouched. I sat back finally, realizing I’d overeaten and not regretting it one bit. “Magnificent, sir. I haven’t eaten that well since… um… I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that well, actually. Seven dishes, four cuisines, the spices perfect, neither over nor underdone… I’m going to miss this when I go home, I can tell you that.”

Domingo smiled broadly, giving a view of slightly-too-long canines. “Excellent!” He glanced to the side. “Did you hear that, Hitoshi?”

A middle-aged Japanese man came in and bowed. “I did. Many thanks for your kind words, Mr. Wood.”

“Jason—may I call you Jason?—this is Hitoshi Mori. He has been my chef for several decades now, but he rarely has had a chance for a personal command performance. I am sure he finds it good to know his skills have not faded.”

“They certainly haven’t. Domo arigato, Mori-san.” That was admittedly pretty much the limit of my Japanese, and I suspected that both Verne and chef Mori knew it, because Mr. Mori simply bowed and thanked me again.

I glanced at Verne. “I’d guess then that your entire staff isn’t vampires? I mean, Hitoshi-san must have people to cook for?”

Hitoshi bowed. “It is true that, aside from Domingo-sama, his household needs to eat. But it is also unfortunately true that a man can become too accustomed to a routine—either the chef to the tastes of the household, or the household to the work of the chef. Only one who is new can truly permit the chef to measure his skill.”

“Well, you have my vote. I’ve eaten in top-flight restaurants that served far worse. And I’m sure that at least one—the grilled lobster with the citrus and soy sauce—was an original.”

Hitoshi looked gratified. “You are correct, Mr. Wood. I am glad that my efforts met with your approval.” He bowed again to Verne and me, and left.

“Okay,” I said, leaning back to let my somewhat overstressed stomach relax, “Let’s cut to the chase, Verne. What, exactly, did you want to talk to me about?”

For the first time, I saw Verne Domingo look… uncomfortable. Almost as though he was embarrassed. “As I mentioned, it has to do with a discussion we began the first time we met. You described your objections to my profession, I dismissed them.

“I have… reconsidered some of my statements.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh? You no longer want to argue about whether drug-pushing is an acceptable profession?”

He cast a faintly annoyed glance at me, then nodded, conceding that I had the right to phrase it that way. “Philosophically, I remain of the opinion that your government is committing an act of extreme idiocy in criminalizing these substances. In terms of morals and practicality, however, I have considered your words and realized that there was far more truth to them than I was originally willing to grant.

“While ideally I sold only to those who were both wealthy and foolish, I discovered that this was in practice virtually impossible to maintain; some of my… products were inevitably being sold down an ever-branching hierarchy of smaller and smaller distributors, eventually to be marketed to the very unfortunates I would never have intended to ensnare. Moreover …”

He trailed off, then rose from his chair, walked over to a window, and looked out into the darkness.

I waited a bit. Finally, I said, “Yes?”

He took a breath—I noticed that he didn’t seem to do that habitually, which was a subtle but definite clue to his nature—and forced himself to continue. “… moreover, I found that I was not pleased with my own behavior, when I compared it with your own, or – in truth – that which I would perhaps have expected of myself in times past. I do not think my own people—those bound to me by oaths and by the power that makes them able to share my journey through time—could ever complain of their treatment at my hands, but outside of this isolated and self-contained circle, I have not been the sort of man I originally meant to be, not in… a very, very long time.”

He gripped the windowsill, tight enough that I heard faint crackling sounds and was sure that if I went there later I’d find dents the shape of fingers in the wood. “Many things happened in the past centuries which soured me, made me less than I had been in many ways. I do not think, were I to talk with my self of ages past, that he would be proud of what I have become; in truth, I think he would pity me. I have had no true friends outside of these, my people, for a very long time indeed. I was, despite my unchanging appearance, becoming a bitter, cynical old man. I had… and still have… enemies who would consider that a triumph and amusement.” He turned to me. “I wish to try to change that. I would abandon this peddling of illegal substances, find some other venture to provide for myself and my people, and, perhaps, find a way of in some small manner rejoining humanity.”

Other people might make a speech like that for effect; but the way that he spoke, I could hear pain under the restrained and dignified words. In my business, you often make a living by guessing who you can and can’t trust. Verne Domingo, vampire and drug-runner, still struck me as a man whose word was inviolate and who would never say things like this unless they came from his heart.

I nodded. “For what it’s worth, Mr. Domingo, I agree with your philosophical position. I think people have the right to be fools, and that the criminalization of things like drugs was proven to be a failure during Prohibition. The same market forces that eliminated booze as a profitable black-market item here would pretty much eliminate the crime caused by drugs, if we just stopped making it illegal to sell them. Doesn’t mean that this wouldn’t create other problems, but I think the new problems would be a lot more manageable than the old ones.” I studied him. “But I think you called me here for more than to basically admit you’d made mistakes—although I appreciate immensely your decision, and find it pretty darn gratifying that you decided to tell me this personally. So… what do you want from me?”

“In a sense… little more than you have already given, Jason.”

“Excuse me?”

“Aside from the words you have already spoken, which eventually led to this revelation, the fact that you have known what I am, and have nonetheless chosen to leave me to myself—and have even trusted me, to assist in hiding what happened here, and to come here and speak with me, on nothing more than my word.” He was looking at me very gravely. “I have trusted no mortal with my secret for a long time, save only those who have become a part of my household. You have taken that trust and already repaid it.

“Yet I confess that there is another, more practical need I have of you.” He sat down again, looking slightly less formal than he had moments earlier. “As you can see, I live quite well; this involves the expenditure of money, for which I would prefer to have a visible source. It is undoubtedly true, however, that I am hardly a man of these times, and I have no idea what professions I could do well in.”

I blinked at that. “Mr. Domingo—”

“Call me Verne, if you would.”

“Okay. Verne, I’m not an employment agent or counselor.”

“This I understand, Jason. Yet it is true, is it not, that finding jobs, or evaluating people, could be construed to be something involving finding and analyzing information?”

I chuckled. “Well, yeah, I guess you could put it that way. I could probably do a halfassed job at those kind of things, but a professional advisor would be a lot more effective.”

“This I cannot argue with,” Verne conceded. “However, to do their job to the best of their ability, such people would need to understand many things about me—including what makes my situation unique.”

I saw what he was getting at now. “In other words, they’d have to be able to understand why you were in the position you are—most likely have to know there was something weird about you, at the least, and maybe learn exactly what you are.”

“Precisely. Now, I have already confessed that I have been a sour old man for far too long, but that does not mean that I have decided it would be wise to spread the secrets of my existence far and wide. In fact, I suspect that this is one area in which I must remain as careful as I have ever been.”

I nodded slowly. “Can’t argue that. Despite The X-Files and other similar shows, the world is not ready for real vampires as standard citizens. And the angry mob these days carries automatic weapons, molotov cocktails, and explosives.” I dropped into my professional mode and started analyzing the problem.

“Okay, Verne, let’s take this a step at a time. I find it hard to believe that you don’t have scads of money stashed away somewhere—you’ve had centuries, and it’s pretty obvious to me, just from your mannerisms, that you’ve been used to being in the upper crust for a long time. So I guess the first question is, why do you need a job at all?”

He looked pleased. “Indeed, you cut to the heart of the matter. I do, as you surmise, have quite considerable wealth in various locations and institutions around the world. However, this is not quite as simple to access as you might think. Until recently, you see, there was little ability to examine the flow of funds from one country to another, and thus it was relatively simple for a man such as myself to move from one place to another and bring my fortune with me, needing only a rather simple cover story to explain why I had so much.”

“Gotcha. Transferring significant sums around, making formerly inactive-for-a-century accounts active, dragging in large quantities of gold or whatever, tends to draw the notice of the IRS and other agencies interested in potentially shady activities.” This was an issue I hadn’t really considered before, having grown up in an era where the government was already well in place with computers monitoring any significant transaction. Oh, it had become more pervasive in areas since I was born, but the basic idea that income was watched by the IRS had been taken as a given. Someone like Verne, who had been living for hundreds of years in civilizations which didn’t communicate much between countries and who had at best spotty ways of tracing assets, would indeed find the new higher-tech and higher-monitoring civilizations a bit daunting, to say the least.

“As you say. In addition… I am accustomed to doing some form of work. I have been many things in my time, but even as a nobleman I tried to busy myself with the responsibilities such a position entailed. I would feel quite at a loss if I had nothing at all to do.” He waited for me to acknowledge this second point, then continued. “Now, my former profession, while illegal, has the advantage of being paradoxically expected. When the government sees large sums of unexplained cash, it expects drugs are the source. If it finds what it expects, then it digs no farther. And if I can deny it admissible evidence and have… connections who pay the right people, it is unlikely to do more than try to harrass the suppliers. Supplying drugs also, as I understand you deduced, has the advantage of no set hours. If I wish to be eccentric and meet people only at night, well, this is no stranger than some of the other people involved in this business.”

I rubbed my chin, thinking. “Uh-huh. You have this double problem. Not only do you have money of unknown provenance—and thus, from the point of view of any cop, probably crooked somewhere—you can’t afford to have people look at you too closely because there’s some aspects of your own existence that you have to keep hidden.

“So what you need is a job or profession which permits you to communicate with people exclusively, or nearly exclusively, during darkness hours, which has the potential to earn very large sums of money, and which you can at least fake having the talents for. Either that, or you need a way to get a huge sum of money here where you can use it openly and have an ironclad reason for getting that money.”

“I think you have summed it up admirably, yes. I also have something of a philosophical objection to the rates of taxation applied to certain sources of income, but that’s a different matter.”

“And way out of my league; finding more acceptable employment is one thing, convincing the federal government that it shouldn’t tax income is another.” Verne smiled in acknowledgement. I went on to the next item of business.

“And what are you doing about your soon-to-be-former business associates?” At a glance from him, I hastily added, “No, no, I’m not asking if you’re going to turn them in or anything. Just when and how you’re going to get out of the business, so to speak.”

“I have, in point of fact, already sent the relevant persons my decision. I will of course clarify my position to them if any of them desire it.”

I looked at him questioningly. “You do realize that some of these people may not think of retirement as an option?”

He smiled, but this smile was colder somehow, less the smile of a gracious host and more the bared-fang expression of a predator. “I am sure I can… persuade anyone who might think otherwise, Jason. Do not concern yourself with that side of the equation.”

I gave an inward shiver, remembering what Elias Klein—barely a baby by Verne’s standards—had been capable of. No, I didn’t suppose Verne would have much trouble there.

“Okay,” I said, “I guess I can give it a shot. I’ll have to think about it a bit, and of course we’re going to have to go into your skills and knowledge areas. I’d feel kinda silly giving you a standard questionnaire, so I’ll just have to talk to you for a while on that—get a feel for what you would enjoy, what you’d hate to do, what you’ve already got the skills and knowledge for, and what you’d learn easily. Also, you’ll have to confirm or deny the various limitations I guessed for your people, and how they apply to you, so I know what things are definite no-nos and which ones are ‘well, sometimes, but only rarely,’ if you know what I mean.”

“I grasp your meaning, yes. Would you like to start tonight?”

I ran over my schedule in my head. “Unfortunately, no. I’d have to leave here in about another hour anyway—I have some early clients to see—and I’d like time to just let the concept percolate through my brain. How about Thursday—day after tomorrow? I know that one was clear, since I checked on it yesterday.”

“Thursday will be eminently satisfactory. I shall expect you at the same time, then?”

“Fine with me.” I got up and extended my hand.

He shook it with a firm but not oppressively strong grip. “You have neglected to mention your fee, Jason.”

I shrugged. “This isn’t a normal job—I have no idea what to charge at this point. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In fact, I have a better idea. When I bring over the work-for-hire agreement, the price will be left open to your discretion. You can decide after the fact what the work was worth to you.”

“Are you not concerned I might take advantage of this option?”

I shook my head. “You’re a man of honor. You’d feel too guilty. In fact, I will probably come out ahead, since you’re likely to charge yourself more than I would.”

He laughed. “You are indeed wiser than your years would make you, Jason. Good night, then, and have a pleasant journey home.”

“After that dinner, I certainly will. Thank you, Verne.”