Ryk E. Spoor's Blog, page 72

Magic, Crime, and Punishment, Part 1: Challenges of Magical Crime Investigation

This is the first of three separate sections of a discussion on crime and punishment in a high fantasy setting.

 

 

 

Magic, Crime, and Punishment
The Challenges of Magical Crime Investigation

 

“It’s one of the most drought-damned brilliant and subtle tricks I’ve ever seen,” the Guardian of Eonae said with real admiration in his voice. “The boy’s using elemental magic—in a suppression pentagram, no less!—to effectively cloak their speech with some absolutely inspired… well, I guess you would have to call it sound encoding…”

–Willowwind Forestfist in Phoenix Rising

 

In bygone days of a century or more ago, criminals had it pretty good; if no one saw you commit the crime, and you were halfway smart about hiding the evidence, there was a darned good chance you’d get away with it. Go back more than a couple of hundred years, and soon you get to the point that in many areas of the world (though not all) there were no clear rules of evidence and even less technology and investigative techniques to uncover the truth in a criminal case.

 

Today, of course, everything has changed. Touch the wrong surface and you’ve left a fingerprint; drink from the wrong glass and you might leave your DNA at the scene. Scrub the murder scene so it looks spotless; traces of blood might still be on the knife, hidden where you can’t reach. Bank records can be checked at the speed of light to see if you deposited unusual sums of money, or if the credit card of your victim was used in a telltale location; your car may reveal that you visited a particular area of the country by the pollen or leaves found on it. Psychological analysis may even outline what you’re like and create a profile good enough to put the spotlight on you in the absence of direct evidence – leading to your being caught anyway. Scientific advances have had a profound effect on the realm of criminal investigation and prosecution.

 

This should be no less true in a world with advanced magical capabilities. In my own Phoenix Rising, there are some significant scenes illustrating these principles: the scenes (partially quoted above) of the investigation of the escape from supposedly escape-proof quarters; discussion of the investigation of the murder of Kyri’s parents; and Tobimar and Poplock’s careful investigations that eventually lead them to Kyri.

 

This is hardly a new idea, of course; Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy series are a deliberate play on the idea, a police procedural set in a world where science is almost unknown but scientific, systematic magic is commonplace, and Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden combines modern police procedure with magical investigative work. There are many more examples, both old and new.

 

This kind of approach, however, places some pretty heavy restrictions on the author. The most important is consistency. The fantasy world has to have rules and it has to stick by those rules without fail. Any investigative story worth reading has to “play fair” – it has to, if not give us the information necessary to solve the cases, at least the information needed to understand how the case was solved.

 

This is not easy. John W. Campbell’s famous objection to the idea of science-fiction mysteries (which resulted in Asimov’s classic The Caves of Steel )– that the sleuth could solve crimes using some gadget or sense which doesn’t exist – applies doubly to fantasy. At least in real science fiction many of our laws of nature can be assumed to apply by default, but it’s quite possible to postulate – and even find – fantasy which actually changes the basis of natural law, from our modern physics understanding to, say, the old Aristotolean laws, or even new, original paradigms of natural behavior.

 

Thus, a “fair” mystery in a fantasy setting requires that the writer make sure that the reader either is outright told, or can deduced from context, the rules of their world, especially where those rules violate the basic rules we know in ours.

 

Even if the novel isn’t specifically a mystery, any mysteries contained within it will have a greater solidity if the reader, upon finding the answer to their questions, says “Oh yeah, that makes sense!” rather than “Oh. Well, it’s magic, I guess it can do what it wants.” There are of course practical limits; an author would be at best ill-advised and at worst career-suicidal to make every novel into a detailed theoretical discussion of their world, and not every question of the reader needs to be answered in this fashion. Knowing when you’ve given enough but not too much… well, that’s part of the basic nail-biting challenges of being an author.

 

One of the key questions is to address what your magic/gods can do in the world, and how that will affect law enforcement. More, you need to understand the limits of these powers. After all, if you have an infallible truth-telling spell, no one can ever lie to you in testimony; there would never be any question of perjury since any attempt to lie would be instantly caught. This may be exactly what you want, but it has immense implications for trials and their outcomes. This applies equally to science fiction with super-science gadgets that replicate magical effects of this nature.

 

In some cases, you may have some limits of law and custom on using it; Isaac Asimov had a legal requirement in his Wendell Urth SF mysteries that no one could be “psychoprobed” twice in their life, and only for a specific crime or information connected to that crime, so police would often hold off on requesting psychoprobe information on career criminals until they could get a shot at a major crime rather than a minor one that the crook might be quite willing to do a bit of time for so that they’d be ever-after immune. By contrast, in H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy the standard court procedure is to use an apparently infallible truth-sensing device for every person testifying at a trial.

 

But in fantasy, things can go a lot farther. A magician or a priest may just be able to literally raise the dead. “Hey, Joe. Who was it who killed you yesterday?” “Oh, that was Manny. Dude, you owe me BIG for that resurrection! That knife in the back hurt!” Or perhaps they can ask the gods for information on the past – what happened, and how, and even why. Maybe, even, they can see the future – and know crimes before they happen!

 

On the other hand… if they can really do all that all the time, you should have a crimeless state, or at the least one in which justice is always served, where motives cannot be hidden, where no crime goes unsolved. Depending on the precise nature of the powers and the governments involved, this could be a utopia… or the most iron-fisted dictatorship imaginable, with an unbreakable grip on the populace, prosecuting them for thoughtcrimes or, even, future crimes that haven’t even taken place (and because the perpetrator’s been arrested, won’t take place, so where’s the justification…?).

 

To make a world that’s looser and that allows for crimes that are unsolved, or at least hard to solve, the world has to have some kind of balances for these powers. There are innumerable examples of well-thought-out magical worlds that one could study; I’m going to talk mostly about my own because I – no surprise! – know more about that one than any other.

 

In Phoenix Rising‘s world of Zarathan, most of what I describe above is possible; there are truth-sensing spells and powers, there are some methods to raise the dead – for a moment, or permanently – there are methods to sense the future, there are gods who can tell people what has happened within their vision, and so on.

 

Yet there are many mysteries in that world, because none of these powers are unlimited. On Zarathan, many of those limitations stem from the fact that there are direct opposing powers involved. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of gods of varying power levels on Zarathan, and these have a vast number of competing agendas. While most deity-granted truthtelling powers will be able to at least sense when another god is in opposition to that information, this fact won’t reveal the truth they’re seeking; some gods of mischief might just mess up your truthtelling for the hell of it, so the fact that your truthtelling fails on Person X doesn’t necessarily indicate they’re lying, or even that they have significant information to impart.

 

The assassination of the Sauran King is of course the single most shocking (from the point of view of the people living in that world) event of the novel. This is the highest profile crime of all, and it can be taken as a matter of course that all the available resources were bent towards trying to solve it. Yet it is clear that – at least as of the last time we saw Toron – there was no clear idea of who or what committed the assassination, or why. We as readers have a good idea who was behind it, of course, but no one in the book does.

 

Given that, and the events we saw with the death of Rion (and later the fight with Thornfalcon), we can see at least one likely limitation: you cannot speak with the dead or raise them if there is no soul left, and the King must have, then, had his soul ripped apart, perhaps in the same manner as Rion (although in this case, the King did not suspect the assault and thus was killed instantly rather than living for a few moments afterwards).  Also, even if the soul is still intact, raising the dead is basically calling the soul back from the afterlife and trying to stuff it back into its body. The soul may not appreciate this if it was in, or on its way to, the equivalent of heaven, and even if the soul’s cool with it, the deity to whom the soul’s been consigned may simply say “no”.

 

In addition, in the specific case of the assassination of the Sauran Kingit is remarked, several times, that the assassin’s ability to walk unnoticed and undetected through the halls of the Dragon’s Palace is extremely rare and noteworthy. Presumably this also assisted the unknown killer in leaving little to no traces of its true nature and origin, and prevented even other observing powers from seeing the truth.

 

A different form of direct opposition is seen in the investigation of the disappearance of the five young people from the Star Cell; here, Toshi’s unexpected essential control of elemental magic, combined with the disruption of monitoring caused by the murder of the King and disappearance of his killer, directly opposes Willowwind Forestfist’s attempts to investigate the events, as indicated in the quote beginning this section. Willowwind is performing operations very similar to those of a modern investigator reviewing monitoring tapes, while Toshi was essentially fuzzing the recordings in crucial ways.

 

A broader interference is mentioned in passing several times; teleportation and similar instant/swift travel magics appear to be much more limited than in the past, thereby curtailing rapid travel and communication. This is not directly explained, but I can say that it is part of the deliberate and long-term plans of the major villains of the series; they have arranged their own approaches to be at least partially unaffected by this disruption, and thus have put their opponents at a disadvantage.

 

Failing a teleport, unfortunately, is a much more hazardous issue than failing in something like a scrying attempt; the price for failure can range from a feedback headache to dismemberment, disintegration or – often worse – having your teleport diverted somewhere you really didn’t want to go, since it is quite often the case that the reason your teleport failed is that something is deliberately interfering. So once it’s known that teleportation and similar super-fast travel methods aren’t working as well as they should, people have a very strong incentive to stop using them. Of course, some people like Khoros have tricks most other beings don’t know, and thus can’t easily stop.

 

Future-sensing – precognition – is possible in the world of Zarathan; in fact, we have seen a minor but very powerful form of precognition in the first book set in that universe, my first novel Digital Knight. Sylvia Stake’s “feelings” are shown to proceed from a short term sense of what is about to happen. This is a powerful ability in that it appears to be able to work regardless of the power of the entities involved in her visions; she was able to detect a werewolf’s imminent attach when those creatures are normally quite undetectable (save by Jason’s one trick, and even that turns out to work only on the “younger” creatures). Tobimar’s perceptions in the later battles also show some of this, where he is looking at the world and for a moment perceiving events as they could be, but not as they are.

 

This power’s effects are limited in two ways in the broader universe of these books. First, true precognitives are exceedingly rare; it’s difficult to see through time to that which will be. Second, those that exist mostly see possible but not certain futures; as Yoda said, “always in motion is the future”. Very few show futures that will be (assuming no action is taken to avert them), only futures that could be. The other limitation is that many, many powers will work hard to obscure precognition; the fact is that if you had really reliable precognition, you pretty soon might find yourself in a universe without clear free-will (see Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen).

 

Up next: Preventing crimes and chasing criminals.

 

 

 

Phoenix Rising: Deleted Chapter Five

 

I believe this is the last of the deleted chapters. There were quite a few chapters ADDED during editing — most prominently the ones with Xavier and Tobimar travelling together — but I don’t *think* there are any other fully deleted chapters.

This chapter gave us a look at the training the two went through, and another look at the Justiciars, and set up the situation which actually begins Chapter 1 of the final book.

 

—–

 

 

Chapter 12.

 

     Lighter blade parried greatsword with a chiming impact that diverted the larger weapon but also drove back the smaller with near enough force to disarm. Rion cursed mildly as he backpedaled, his fingers clearly stinging. Kyri laughed and spun the greatsword around as fast as she could, taking advantage of her brother’s momentary discomfiture. “Not slow enough for you, brother?”

 

     “I will grant,” he said, a touch breathlessly, eluding her next stroke as he recovered his weapon, “that you’re faster with that monster blade than anyone has any right to be.” He stood his ground now, diverting one attack, two, three with an economy of motion and effort that she found both admirable and frustrating. “But you’ll need more than speed to beat me when my own blade’s twice as fast!”

 

     And he unleashed a storm of cuts, low, high, lunges with the point of his longsword, attacks seeming to come from all directions. “How well… have you… been studying?”

 

     The question-and-answer sessions added a certain level of distraction to the training, training they’d been doing in one way or another almost every day for the past four years… four years after they’d lost nearly everything, even themselves. “Well… enough…” she managed to answer; now it was her turn to back up as all her efforts could not move the greatsword’s five-foot plus blade nearly as fast as Rion’s lighter, shorter weapon. Her armor now had to absorb punishment as she turned and twisted, interposing the armor at an angle that denied Rion an actual cut, watching for an opening – there!

 

     Her swing reversed abruptly, she stepped forward and jabbed with the foot-long pommel as the blade blocked Rion’s swing.  But her brother was fast, even faster than she’d expected, and he halted, drew back so that the smashing blow barely touched him, and dropped to the ground, sweeping her feet out from under her. She thought she heard a faint grunt of approval from nearby, but there was no time to look in that direction; she was rolling aside, abandoning her sword for hand-to-hand combat. Rion might still have his blade, though, so she kept rolling, blocked instinctively, felt an impact –arm, not blade, he’s gone to unarmed too – spun from her rolling position to a kick in that direction, blur of movement, both rolling apart to a stand, as she said, “Ask… away.”

 

     Rion grinned, a slight trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth where her kick must have grazed him, and began circling, keeping his hands raised in the position Lythos called Eonwyl Taking Flight. Kyri glided sideways, using Dragon Claw. She saw the Sho-ka-taida watching them both closely, and for a moment thought she could see a faint smile at the corner of Lythos’ mouth.

 

This impossibility distracted her for the slightest moment, and Rion struck, speaking at the same time. “Why is our god –” she parried the mantis-like strike, and the next, “— spoken of only as ‘It’?”

 

“You’re giving her the easy one, Rion!” Urelle shouted from one side.

 

“Peace, child. We shall see how easy you find them when you’re facing swords and fists at the same time.” Victoria’s tone was only slightly acid.

 

You have that right, Auntie V. “For justice,” she began. The Dragon clawed twice, but the Eonwyl eluded her. “To wear a face, to be of one people or one sex or one of anything would exalt that over the others.” She switched combat modes suddenly, leapt completely over Rion; she saw his eyes widen in surprise and his answering strike was just a tiny hair too late. She hit the ground, tumbling forward, still speaking, “And so only the Balanced Sword remains, justice and vengeance as evenhanded as time and death themselves!”

 

Her hand closed on the hilt of her sword and she rolled and spun, five feet of glittering death now extended towards her brother – and she saw with a shock of mingled pride and disappointment that he had somehow matched her speed and his own sword was back in his hand. They always said I had talent with a sword, but I still can’t beat him.

 

Almost instantly she chided herself, stopping in guard stance. If I accept that I can’t beat him, I never will. “My turn! Why is it called the ‘Balanced Sword’?” Trick question, of course.

 

Rion laughed, as did some of the other spectators. From the corner of her eye she thought she could see at least three of the Justiciars. Then he answered, every word accompanied by an attack, driving her backward with almost effortless savagery. “Because that is simpler than The Balance and the Sword, or Balance on the Sword, and besides, it can be the Sword Balance or many other names!” His last attack arced slightly higher.

 

Got you! She rode the last impact on her blade, brought it around with two-handed leverage, a spinning cut carving upward –

 

     – but somehow Rion’s blade was faster, behind hers, pushing, speeding it up, turning around, around, twisting –

 

     — and her greatsword was wrenched from her hand, arcing away in a steel-sparkling curve as her brother’s sword finished its arc with its point on her throat.

 

     He looked so apologetic that she suddenly burst out laughing and threw her arms round him. “That was wonderful, Rion!”

 

     “Adequate… I might even say, well done, Rion Vantage.” Lythos’ thin golden eyebrow was raised in appreciation, and there really was a small smile playing about the corners of his mouth. “Your father and mother would have been proud.” He turned to Kyri. “And you did not do poorly either, Kyri Vantage.”

 

     “Not poorly!” Thornfalcon’s voice carried a note of rebuke. “She presses her brother hard, though he has four years of training more, and all the strength and speed of the Vantage legend. Truly your reputation as a hard master carries not the full impact of the reality.”

 

     Lythos bowed to the deceptively slender Justiciar. “It is well for the actuality to exceed the legend, do you not agree? Yet you do speak truly.” He turned to Kyri. “Well done, Kyri.” As she felt herself beginning to smile, he quickly added, “But do not become overly accustomed to such praise. You still have much to learn. As does your brother.”

 

     “I have no doubt of it, Sho-ka-taida,” Rion said, sheathing his blade finally. “As I have yet to manage a touch on you.”

 

     “A master of arms indeed,” Mist Owl agreed quietly. “Yet such mastery is only a part of what we seek. We see many of those other things in you as well, Rion Vantage. After this performance, we are now agreed. You know that Gareth Lamell, the Silver Eagle, went to the Sword some weeks agone. Now we must fill that place, and we would like you to be one of the three candidates, if you would accept.”

 

     Kyri felt a leap of joy which she quickly tried to suppress; after all, he’s just being invited to try; they’re not promising anything! But at the same time this was what Rion had been hoping and praying for – that Myrionar would accept his service and thus provide all of them with a direct voice and agency for their own justice and vengeance.

 

     Rion’s voice reflected this, with a slight unsteadiness that belied the tears he refused to let show… at least for now. “Accept? Sir… Blessed Justice, sir, there is no honor greater! When?”

 

     “In one week’s time, Rion Vantage.”

 

     “Best be prepared, lad!” Shrike gave Rion a massive backslap that nearly knocked him from his feet. “A contest of arms, a contest of faith, and a contest of wits, you know! And we’re not picking dullards and weaklings, rest assured of that, so the other two will be no easy pickings!”

 

     “Rion will beat them both!” Kyri felt her cheeks flame as she realized that not only had she said it, but so had Urelle, in exactly the same tone of voice.

 

     Even Lythos could not quite restrain a smile, and the others burst into laughter. “Well, naturally, this is only as must be,” Thornfalcon said, still chuckling, “with such lovely ladies cheering for him.” He winked at Urelle and pressed Kyri’s hand briefly – not quite long enough to be questionable, but definitely more than a perfunctory gesture. “Still, he should be at his best in the trials, for Myrionar will judge as well, and it has happened – though very rarely – that the trials were all passed and the Balanced Sword still saw fit to award the Raiment of the Justiciars to none that day.”

 

     It doesn’t matter, Kyri thought. I know Rion will succeed. I believe in Myrionar, and It can see that we deserve both Justice and Vengeance. And we can all see that Rion has recovered; back then, he would have sought only vengeance. But staying here, training… sometimes angry, sometimes crying when he thought no one else could see… with Aunt Victoria watching and ready… somehow it’s brought him back. He’s the big brother we remember. He’s healed, he’s stronger even than Father was, and he’s going to be the Silver Eagle.

 

     She wasn’t sure what her own path would be; the new Vantage estate might be built soon, but she didn’t see herself just settling down there. Maybe, once my training’s finished at the Temple… Maybe I will be an Adventurer. I think… I think Mother would have liked that, no matter how much she and daddy and even Auntie V would have tried to argue me out of it.

 

     She did toy with the idea of being a Justiciar herself. But for that to happen another Justiciar would have to die – and all the ones left were pretty young. And while there was nothing exactly in the rules about it, none of the Justiciars since… well, a very long time ago had been women. Nothing forbade it, but she somehow was fairly sure that there would be some unspoken resistance to the idea. There were plenty of other groups that didn’t have that problem.

 

     And plenty of time to worry about that later. She grabbed Rion’s arm. “Come on, brother. We have a big party to throw for you tonight, and you need to get cleaned up!”

 

     “A party? Didn’t you hear what Thornfalcon just said?”

 

     “You can go train for the rest of the week, but tonight you’re going to celebrate!”

 

     Rion looked helplessly at Victoria, and saw her nodding sagely. “Indeed, Rion. And I’ll help prepare the guest list.”

 

     His face fell as he realized he was well and truly trapped. Not only a party, but a social party, one where everyone who was anyone in Evanwyl would be found. Kyri looked forward to it. Not that she was a general party fancier – in Evanwyl it always seemed to her to be a sort of decadent routine focused on meaningless if pretty entertainments when her parents’ deaths and Rivendream Pass showed how fragile the safety of such entertainments could be – but there were some people she liked seeing, and they’d be sure to be at the party.

 

     Rion grinned suddenly and shrugged. “Since you’re determined to do this, I’ll at least take away your fun and enjoy myself tonight!”

 

     Victoria Vantage drew herself up and gave Rion her most withering glare. “Enjoy yourself? We shall see about that, Rion Vantage!”

 

Phoenix Rising: Deleted Chapter 4

 

They had called in outside help…

—–

 

 

Chapter 4.

“I am sorry, Victoria.” The huge draconic creature’s voice was soft.

 

     Kyri couldn’t believe it. “But… nothing?“

 

     “Nothing, little Vantage.” Toron’s clawed talons slashed the air in his own anger. “I have used all my senses. I have spoken with all of note in this part of Evanwyl, from the Watchland and the Justiciars down to every living servant of the neighboring houses. I have meditated in prayer in the center of the wreckage, tasted the ashes for their consistency and for the rumors of the past contained within them; I have tried to follow trails of scent and malice.”

 

The Sauran paced back and forth erratically as he spoke; he could not stay still, so agitated was he by the failure, and despite the aching disappointment Kyri felt a pang of sympathy for Toron. An old friend calls on you for help, and you cannot give it. “So …” She tried to think of some way to ask that would not be harmful; it was clear Rion was also looking for a diplomatic way to ask the question.

 

Urelle, however, was not. She glared up at Toron’s scaled face. “So you haven’t found out anything and we’re no closer to finding out who killed mommy and daddy than when you came here? Auntie V—”

 

“Urelle.”

 

The simple name, spoken quietly, stopped Urelle in mid-sentence; Victoria’s tone brooked no argument. “You will apologize for that tone to Adjudicator Toron.”

 

Kyri saw Urelle’s huge gray eyes, identical to her own and their father’s, begin to fill with tears, and felt an answering sting in hers.

 

“That is not necessary.” Toron said gently. He stopped pacing and lowered himself to the ground; even seated with his tail curled around him, his head remained at Urelle’s level. “No, Victoria, let it be. You called a mighty Adjudicator, from a far-fabled country, beings said to be able to see through any deception, track down the perpetrators of any crime, selected for their incorruptibility and powers and willingness to work for the good of society, given almost unlimited authority by the Sauran King and, through him, Elbon and the Sixteen themselves.” His bitter smile looked like a savage, deadly snarl, given the dozens upon dozens of razor-sharp teeth. “I think she – and her siblings – can be forgiven some anger and bitterness at finding the legend is more than the truth, and the hoped-for answers are beyond his feeble grasp.”

 

“Surely, sir… we must have learned something from this investigation?” Rion asked. The tension in his face had subsided, as had a small part of the knot in Kyri’s gut as well. He apologized when he did not have to, for he had promised us nothing; only we had put that promise onto his work, in our own heads and hopes.

 

“We have, Rion Vantage. But very little of it good, I am afraid. Much of it terribly bad.”

 

“I’d rather know more of the bad than not know it.” Kyri said, and saw both Victoria and Urelle nod.

 

The Sauran smiled again with a touch more humor, and there was a slight corresponding glint in the deep, dark green eyes. “Your family indeed, Victoria.”

 

Toron rose from the floor and gestured for them to follow him outside; he clearly felt cramped in human-scaled dwellings. They emerged from the High Retreat onto Vantage Ridge, which some said was named after the family and others said was the original source of the family name, far back in antiquity that pre-dated at least two Chaoswars. The Ridge was a long, high, steep mass of stone, an isolated foothill of the immense Khalal, or Claw, Mountains looming over everything to the north, which provided an excellent lookout point (in other words, a vantage point) to survey a large part of Evanwyl. Vantage Fortress was built on a flattened area of the Ridge at its extreme southern edge, and the door from which they had left the fortress let out directly onto the top of the granite-and-nightstone crest of the Ridge.

 

Kyri also knew that this portion of the Crest was often used for councils of war, tactics and so on, because it was open enough to see any who might try to approach, far enough from other ground to make far-seeing problematic, and spelled and re-spelled every few decades to prevent any scrying from range or concealed approach (invisibility, stone-melding, and so on), while still allowing those present a clear view of the entire region. Clearly, Toron wanted to speak in privacy.

 

“First,” Toron gestured to the blackened ruins far below and to the east, “I was able to determine a bit more about exactly what was done that night.

 

“Victoria, the main wards were not dispelled or unravelled by any ordinary means. They were simply removed. There were no traces at all of the original spells and seals, not in the wood of the doorway, the steel or crystal of the lock, the hinges, or the walls themselves. It felt to my own spells, and even to the Eye of the Dragon, like mundane material, never spelled, never touched by mystic or godly force since its first creation.”

 

“But… I thought that wasn’t possible, sir,” Rion said after a moment. “Every spell, every mystical conflict, every act of the gods leaves its mark, or so they’ve always taught us. Thus one can read the truth of history in almost any shard or fragment that has been present at the events you seek.”

 

“There are few – if any – things that are truly impossible, Rion,” Toron replied slowly. “Some are very difficult – returning the dead to life, for example, can be done, but even for the gods it is a solemn and difficult task with grave considerations to be made before it is attempted.

 

“It is true that almost all efforts and events leave their marks upon the world – this is just as true for non-magical events as it is for magical ones in many ways. But just as a man may brush away his tracks in the snow, so too are there ways to reduce the traces of any magical events.” Toron toyed idly with the hilt of his sword, running clawed fingers over the huge polished handle. “There is of course the obvious example of the Chaoswars, which confuse and wipe away traces and memories of what went before even in the minds of the gods themselves. That said, in truth it is difficult in the extreme to eliminate all traces so completely, difficult enough that in common parlance one might well say it was impossible.

 

“This in itself tells us much. What did this was backed by something of vast power – godly, demonic, or a magician of immense skill and experience.”

 

Kyri glanced involuntarily northward, to the shadowed notch in the otherwise impenetrable rampart of the Claw Mountains. Toron followed her gaze and nodded. “That would seem a likely possibility,” he said. “Even Elbon Nomicon,” he touched the lightning-bolt sunburst crest inlaid in diamond on his breastplate reverently, “was never able to say what the source of those forces were.”

 

Rivendream Pass. It was a name that meant little elsewhere in Zarathan, but for Evanwyl it was the name you scared little children with… and older children too, just in a different way. Once it had been the Heavenbridge Way, joining Evanwyl and Terathamion, the home of the Lords of the Sky, as partners and allies at the only pass through the continent-spanning mountain range.

 

But during the last Chaoswar, something had happened; some said that something the Lords of the Sky had done had in fact triggered the last Chaoswar, perhaps by probing too deeply into the ancient and perilous regions fringing the Abyss that lay to the north. But however it was, in what had seemed a single night the power of the Lords – who had been messengers and scouts, flying troops and speedy transport for all of Zarathan – was broken and their beautiful and diverse lands turned into a place of horror, with the Heavenbridge Way becoming a dark pathway for the monstrosities within to escape, and gaining its new name of Rivendream Pass in the bargain. Evanwyl, once a center of trade with Terathamion and protected by its association with the Lords from being conquered or even threatened by other countries, was suddenly alone, protected now mostly by the fact that there was little left to fight for with the Lords gone and the Pass leading nowhere that any sane being would go.

 

“But that is not the only possibility,” Toron emphasized.”While your family has helped seal Rivendream for many centuries, equally have you – especially your parents, of late – opposed many others of power, who might well have had connections. Like your aunt, they were adventurers of note. It would be unwise to assume the source of the attack.”

 

“What else have you learned?” Rion said after a moment of thought.

 

“Two individuals broke down the door; the marks were of differing heights. It is hard to tell for certain the sizes, as they could have lowered themselves, or leapt just before impact, but one was quite tall, the other quite short, both of them of generally humanlike outline. Probably wearing armor, unless they were armored inherently – some sorts of demons have such natural armor. There were several other individuals present; the bodies we could uncover showed that the attack must have spread through the house more rapidly than a mere two beings could have managed without – for instance – some of the guards, or your parents, moving much farther than they appeared to.”

 

Urelle winced and blinked at the mention of their parents and Kyri patted her shoulder. It will be a long time before we can think of that without being upset.

 

“Other than that, no one saw or recalls anything. Which bothers me.”

 

Victoria nodded. “Because in all likelihood they would have had to study the targets and location carefully to do this so well, and someone would have noticed something in that time.”

 

Kyri suddenly understood her point. “So either they could wipe just the right memories from people’s minds –”

 

“—or,” Rion finished, looking pale, “there was nothing for people to notice, because the one doing the scouting for them… was someone from Evanwyl.”

 

Toron grunted assent. “I would say this is very probable no matter what your ultimate adversary is.”

 

“But… but that’s horrible!” Urelle burst out. “Someone we know?“

 

“More accurately, someone we think we know,” Victoria said bluntly.

 

Toron bowed. “Victoria, the more I think of this, the less I like it. Might I suggest you move? This level of effort is not expended just on two adventurers. There is something much deeper going on here, something vastly worse, and it is not something these children –”

 

“I am staying here.” Rion’s voice was iron, and Kyri realized she had said the exact same words at the exact same time, in a startling chorus. He went on, “My father wouldn’t have abandoned Evanwyl, my mother wouldn’t have abandoned Evanwyl, and we’re not going to either.”

 

Victoria smiled. “They are my family, as you said.”

 

The immense Sauran sighed. “As I expected. But once I leave, you may be on your own. I may be able to help you if you come to Zarathanton, but I cannot stay here. I am here purely as a friend; I have no legal authority in Evanwyl.”

 

“I know that, sir,” Rion said. “But we’re staying. Maybe I’ll have –”

 

“If you even think of sending me and Urelle away, Rion, I will kick you somewhere that you really do not want me to kick,” Kyri said quickly. “Whatever you do… we’re here to do, too.”

 

“Then,” Rion said, looking down across the fields, forests, and mountains with a determined look on his face, “we’d better get started.”

 

 

Phoenix Rising: Deleted Early Chapter 3

 

This chapter introduced some of the concepts that pervade the story — procedures of investigation that are similar to those seen today — and also showed us the Justiciars as Kyri knew them. In terms of plot, this was some of the hardest material to lose (and the following chapter) because it established who the Justiciars were to Kyri and how they were seen prior to things going south.

 

—–

 

Chapter 3.

 

     “No, Milady.” Thornfalcon’s face seemed even longer and sadder than usual beneath the silver-beaked helm. The poet and would-be swashbuckler of the Justiciars of Myrionar, Thornfalcon’s lugubrious exterior usually masked a playful romantic, ready with a compliment for a lady or a quip to set a room laughing.

 

     But there was no laughter there now. He looked defeated, mirroring the slumped shoulders of the other Justiciars present. “We have prayed, we have called upon the vision of Justice. Nothing.”

 

     Kyri looked from one to the other, the shining heroic figures of her childhood – of almost every child in Evanwyl – fighting the crushing disappointment in her heart. “Nothing?”

 

     Silver Eagle shook his head, throwing the blue and silver cape back as the light wind made it wrap around him, and looked up at the ruins of the mansion. There was no more smoke now, more than a week after the fire, but everything still smelled of burning and death. She saw Eagle’s beard quiver as he clenched his teeth before answering. “Not a trace. The wards were removed, that much is clear, by some force before the assault began. But that force left no trace, and the fire destroyed any chance of determining exactly who and what did the killing.”

 

     “And Myrionar is silent?”

 

     “The Balanced Sword does not speak.” The pearlescent armor of Mist Owl, the only Artan (or,as some called them, Elven) Justiciar, reflected the gray of the sky in sad, muted rainbow hues. “This tells us that whatever force acted here has powerful support, for in the name of Justice and Vengeance It will always speak and guide us upon the proper course… unless Myrionar Itself cannot see.”

 

     Shrike and Condor came down from the wreckage, the short, rock-solid older man seeming even shorter and even the tall, long-limbed form of Condor shrunken in defeat. “As we thought. Swords, axes… no weapons of unusual signature. The fire was alchemically started – no ordinary material could have caused such a swift and complete blaze. But that tells us little; anyone could have purchased infused oil or even pure fire essence.”

 

     “But they would have needed a considerable amount to do this.” Victoria Vantage pointed out.

 

     “Agreed,”  Thornfalcon said, “And do not think that we are giving up. We shall search for any large purchases. We will question any and all who may have seen anything. We will trace every connection, all those who may have held a grudge against the Vantage family, who might have feared they knew something or would act in some way against them…” His long fingered hand clenched tightly on the hilt of his ornate rapier, and Kyri felt a pang of sympathy; the Justiciars were the protectors of Evanwyl, their heroes for generations, each who was fortunate enough to take up one of the seven sacred armors given blessings of strength, senses, protection, and healing to seek out and right injustices. To fail here, with such an outrage perpetrated on one of the oldest and most loved families… “… we will never rest until we find them, Kyri. We, the Justiciars, promise you that.”

 

     “Aye.” Shrike’s usually gruff voice was soft. “That we do, lass.” He glanced over at Rion, who had said nothing.

 

     She’d thought her brother too lost in thought to notice, but he looked up. “I will find them myself, if you do not.” She was relieved; he was clearly as disappointed as she was, but kept himself from letting any accusation of failure reach his voice.

 

     “I have no doubt you will. But seek them not alone; whoever or whatever they were, mazakh or old enemies returned or even some devilment from Moonshade Hollow beyond Rivendream Pass, they were clever, careful, wise in their evil and very prepared indeed. Your father and mother may have been softer than in their youth, but no ordinary creatures could have caught them so off guard.” Silver Eagle laid his gauntleted hand firmly on Rion’s shoulder. “Make sure you have strong and worthy companions on that quest, Rion Vantage.” He gestured to the others. “We have done what little we could here. We must confer and meditate, and then act. As Thornfalcon has said, there is much to do, but we must do it wisely and well, not hastily for the sake of our anger. Both justice and vengeance come in time.”

 

     The Justiciars bowed to the family with the sign of the Balanced Sword and left, the heaviness of their tread showing how deeply their failure affected them.

 

     Aunt Victoria watched them go and did not speak until they had vanished down the road. “I wish I had not expected that.”

 

     “Is Myrionar so weak a god?” Rion’s voice was bitter. “Have we followed something so impotent that it cannot even protect us in the name of justice and vengeance?”

 

     Kyri was speechless for a moment; she’d never heard such words, even thought to hear such words, from her brother.

 

     “Perhaps when you can answer the questions the Justiciars cannot, you will be in a position to make that judgement, Rion Kyril Vantage, but I’ll thank you not to insult the gods in my presence until you reach that point!”

 

     Rion winced, but stood, glaring down at his aunt. “I’m sorry it bothers you, Aunt Victoria, but what is the point of following one of the gods if they cannot even act in their own aspect?”

 

     “Sometimes,” a massively deep, resonant voice said from behind them, “sometimes, young Vantage, they wait for those through whom they will act.”

 

     Kyri whirled.

 

     Not forty feet from them stood an immense figure, eight feet high, scaled with green-black armor, massive shoulders supporting a crested head with deep-set black eyes. A pattern of multicolored gems was inlaid into the scales on each shoulder; a warstaff was slung over the creature’s back, held by a leather harness from which multiple small pouches and containers also hung, with a split pack on either side of the back. Plates of silvery protective armor covered a long tail, ending in edged flanges which turned the tail into a deadly weapon indeed.

 

     “What –” Rion stepped back, hand going to his sword.

 

     Victoria laughed. “Do not even think of drawing that sword, Rion.” She ran forward, looking almost young for a moment. “I can’t believe it! Old Bridgebreaker!”

 

     The reptilian face was more expressive than Kyri would have expected, and it showed an odd mix of fondness and wincing embarrassment at Victoria’s familiar address. “Not that old nickname, unless you want me to call you the V—”

 

     “Oh, I think not!” Victoria hastily cut him off. “Children, this is … let me get the pronunciation correct if I can… T’Oroning’Oltharamnon hGHEK,” the last sound sort of an inhaled choke or cough, “R’arshe Ness, first brother to the Sauran King of Zarathanton and the State.”

 

     Kyri stared open-mouthed, then tried frantically to remember the proper courtesy; true nobility was almost never seen in Evanwyl, the Watchland notwithstanding, and the Ancient Saurans, children of the Great Dragons, were unique even among nobility. That’s right, the armed bow… She made sure her own sword was visible, then did a deep bow, extending one leg behind her for balance and to imitate the presence of a tail, then pivoted slowly around so that she faced away from him, bowed slowly to the air, and finally turned to face the huge creature again. She could see Rion had also performed the same gesture.

 

     As they halted, the Sauran gave a chuckle like a kettle filled with rolling stones. “Drilled some courtesies into them, have you, Victoria?” He bowed deeply, keeping his eyes fixed on them, and then spun about to repeat the bow, the bladed tail indicating that even from behind he was not helpless.

 

     “I do what I can, Toron.”

 

     “And still using that abominably, not to mention insultingly, shortened version of my name.” The Sauran’s voice, fortunately, held amusement rather than annoyance.

 

     “It did us well enough back then. I’ll admit I didn’t expect him to send you.”

 

     “It was not just for your sake – though my kingly brother has not at all forgotten your services. He wished me to look into some other disquieting events in the outer regions. From here I may return via Hell’s Edge, and on the way here I was able to gain some personal sight of what Dalthunia has become.”

 

     “So… sir…” Rion said, “You are a Adjudicator?”

 

     “Adjudicator, Master of the Marshaled Hosts when the time calls for it, Warrior of the Sixteen and the Dragon God. That I am.”

 

     Master of the… that makes him not just the King’s brother, but the warmaster and head of security for the greatest country in the world. How in the world does Aunt Victoria know him?

 

     “Well, then, we’d best not waste your time. You know why I’ve called for a Adjudicator.”

 

     Toron bowed solemnly. “My sympathies and those of the King to you all.” He looked around. “And here is the scene of the assault. I shall begin immediately.”

 

     “Can I watch?” The words were out of Kyri’s mouth before she realized how inane they must sound.

 

     Apparently they didn’t sound quite that bad to the Ancient Sauran Adjudicator, because he chuckled again. “There may be little to see, despite the reputations of Adjudicators. And for me to commune with the Powers fully, I need as much quiet as possible.”

 

     “Come then, children.” Rion looked reluctant, but followed.

 

     Kyri glanced back before they entered the carriage; the huge draconic figure stood, staff out and planted in the ground before it. Somehow, though he did not move, he looked like a creature preparing for a mighty battle.

 

     Then may you defeat lies and win the truth, Adjudicator. Because we need to know.

 

 

 

 

 

Phoenix Rising: Deleted Early Chapter 2

 

Continuing this glimpse into what was removed from the early drafts. As I mentioned, the main content of these is background and character information on Kyri and her life before the main action begins.

 

—–

 

 

Chapter 2.

 

     Kyri stared numbly down at the remains of the front door; with cruel irony, the fire-charm on the door had remained intact, so the huge portals were unscorched, smeared only with water and soot from the rest of the mansion but otherwise marred only by the deep crescent-shaped gouges where they had, impossibly, been broken open. The deep scars in the wood showed a faint silvery sheen in the rays of the lowering sun.

 

     The angle of the sun struck a faint chord in the back of her mind, and she realized with a sort of apathetic surprise that she hadn’t ever slept; despite everyone urging her to move away, to rest, she’d refused to move as the fire raged and the others fought with water and spells and prayer to stop it, force it back, prevent it from spreading. And when the flames had given up the battle and retreated to sullen smoke, she’d refused again, wandering around the grounds, seeing the rear areas where something might have been saved (but not her parents, not the guards like Garrick, Vistle, Camberi, Simmini, or Toll, the Master of House, or Tish, no…), shrugging off the well-meaning comfort of the neighbors, the offer of shelter from Arbiter Kelsley of the Temple, even the gentle words of sympathy from the Watchland, Jeridan Relion himself, to come back always to these familiar, forlorn panels lying flat amidst the ruins.

 

     Urelle had been taken off by Kelsley, who’d used a simple blessing to calm her; Kyri hoped her little sister had managed to get some sleep. She knew Rion hadn’t; he wouldn’t let her help (and had made it clear that if she tried to bull her way in, he’d have the other men drag her off by main force), but he was trying desperately to clear the debris from where they thought their parents’ chambers had been.

 

     A hand touched her shoulder from behind and she pulled away. “Go away.”

 

     “Kyri Victoria Vantage, you will need to have far more years and vastly more authority before you can ever tell me to just ‘go away’,” a strong contralto voice replied tartly.

 

     Kyri spun around, staring at the very tall, elegant, perfectly-attired woman whose severe, regular features she knew were somewhat mirrored in her own. “Aunt… Auntie Victoria?”

 

     The deep blue eyes met hers and suddenly she flung herself into her great-aunt’s enfolding embrace, crying, trying to talk but finding herself unable to do anything but sob.

 

     “Oh, child… What a terrible thing,” Victoria Vantage murmured. Her mother’s oldest living relative had always been their favorite, her stern and forbidding exterior hiding a woman who had followed the adventurer’s path and later that of society and politics, and who had endless stories to tell (as well as a willingness to spoil the children she thought of as her own grandchildren, as she had never had any children of her own). Her own gaze fell upon the doors. “Ah. So it is true then. No accident at all.”

 

     Kyri wanted to answer properly, sounding grown up, but when she opened her mouth she couldn’t say anything coherent. She settled for nodding her head emphatically.

 

     “Broke in the door… no sign of magical destruction. Something undid the security seals, and without raising any alarms. That’s… very interesting.” The contralto voice was grim now.

 

     With a great effort Kyri got herself under control and pulled away. “That’s… hard to do, isn’t it?”

 

     The older woman shrugged slightly and gestured, muttering a few indistinguishable words; pearl-white light radiated from her fingers, and she bent down, traced the outline of the doors with the light. “Depends on the seals, of course. For these, yes, I would say very hard, Kyri. Your father and mother were no fools; they paid well to secure their home as well as could be managed here. I know I would not care to have tried it even when I was a much younger woman; one mistake and those seals would disable or even kill, and certainly alert everyone in the household and the nearest Patrol.”

 

     “But there was no alert at all!” she protested, almost beginning to cry again. “We didn’t hear anything, and –”

 

     “I know, Kyri. And that’s most disturbing.” Aunt Victoria moved forward, surveying the wreckage narrowly, eyes picking up on details; light flickered around her a few more times, perhaps showing her things invisible to Kyri. “Yes… The wards were completely removed. I find not a trace of them, even though there should be something.”

 

     A deep-throated cry yanked them both around, a shout of fury and loss from someone too young to accept the second and far too young to restrain the first. “Monsters! Cowardly, Balance-damned treacherous…” Rion was half-running, half-falling through the still-smoking ruins, whatever fireshielding he’d had for the excavation clearly now running out, but paying no attention to the heat, his sword already drawn. “I’ll kill them all!”

 

     Aunt Victoria looked for a moment as though her heart was going to break, but took a deep breath and suddenly looked as sarcastically forbidding as she had that time one of the Watchland’s Eyes had suggested she cut down on the time she spent training. “An admirable plan, Rion Kervan Vantage. Such detail and attention to execution. I trust you have some idea as to who ‘they’ are and, by the way you are running with such decision, knowledge of where ‘they’ may be found?”

 

     Rion rounded on her furiously, sword out, but just stood there wordlessly staring for several moments. Finally he let the sword drop. “I… But I can’t do nothing!“

 

     “And no one expects you to. But there is nothing that you can do right now, Rion. Your father was always a level-headed man and I would hope you inherited some of that, it was always your mother who would swing first and ask later.”

 

     “But if there’s nothing we can do –”

 

     “I,” Victoria said severely,”said absolutely nothing about we.” Her silvery hair with the blue scarves reminded Kyri forcibly of the blue-and-silver Balance that was the symbol of Myrionar. “I can do something, and I have already done so; what I have seen here has confirmed that I have taken the correct action.”

 

     With relief, Kyri saw the last of the unreasoning fury fade from Rion’s face. He slowly sheathed his sword, then wiped his face with his sleeve; the effect was not perhaps what he would have wanted, because tears mixed with soot smeared blackly over much of his face. “So what…”

 

     “… have I done? As soon as I heard, I went to Sasha Rithair.”

 

     “The Summoner?” Kyri was puzzled.

 

     “Do you know another Rithair in this land? Of course the Summoner. Charming girl, if a bit young for the profession. Still, she’s quite good with spirits of air, lightning, that sort of thing, and that was exactly what we needed. She was quite happy to accept some coin and a particularly flawless piece of crystal I’ve had lying about in exchange for calling up an aerial spirit with the power and strength to make a fast journey to Zarathanton with a letter.” Aunt Victoria sighed and shook her head. “They say calling pools and crystals were reliable ways, but that’s no option now.”

 

     “Not since Dalthunia was taken,” Rion agreed absently. Dalthunia had been their buffer and ally to the south, a fairly large country carved out of the hinterlands of the Empire of the Mountain by heroics and political maneuverings over three thousand years ago, but a couple of centuries before Kyri had been born some mysterious force had invaded in a lightning-fast attack that broke Dalthunia’s defenses, scattered her armies and nobility, and turned Dalthunia into a country that permitted few if any visitors, restricted travel, and about which no one really knew much of anything. Even communications across their territories were severely restricted. Some rumors said that it was simply the Archmage taking back what had been his, but that seemed unlikely as – apparently – the forces of the Empire were no more welcome to travel there than those of the State of Elbon or Evanwyl itself. “So what was your message?”

 

     “Your father and mother were good followers of Myrionar and famous adventurers. The second means that they made as many enemies as they made friends, though a lot of those enemies have made their final journey,” Victoria said, clearly intending to answer in her own way. Despite her resolve to stay, Kyri found that both she and Rion were now walking with their aunt towards her waiting carriage. “The first means that anyone who tried an attack like this must have taken steps to hide themselves from the direct investigation of the Arbiters, perhaps even from the Justiciars themselves. Not an easy task.”

 

     No, Kyri thought. Not when Myrionar, as a God of Justice and Vengeance, grants many powers to see through lies to the Truth. Hiding from that is very difficult. “But if they have…”

 

     “… then still they may not have done enough.” Aunt Victoria opened the door of the carriage and gestured them inside. Rion cast one more pained look backwards; his shoulders suddenly slumped, and he climbed in slowly. Kyri followed, the realization of her own exhaustion starting to come to her.

 

     “It so happens,” Victoria continued as she seated herself and the carriage began to move, “that some years ago when I was not all that much older than you, I was… well, time for that story later. Let’s just say that the King owes me a little favor and –”

 

     “The King? You mean the Sauran King?”

 

     “Will you do me the courtesy of not interrupting all the time, child? And what other King would I be referring to? The old lizard has an excellent memory and I’m sure he’ll be willing to do me a service or two. In this case,” and now a genuine, but very cold smile – the smile of an Adventurer who was readying a trap for an adversary – grew on Victoria’s face, “I’ve asked him to send one of the Lords Adjudicator. Not that I doubt our people here, but I know …” her voice seemed to stumble, “…knew your parents very well indeed, and someone who would do this so quickly and thoroughly had to have thought all aspects of the attack through.”

 

     Rion looked impressed despite his exhaustion. “But not this, eh?”

 

     Victoria bit her lip, looking dour for a moment. “I would hope not. The power and skill to mislead Myrionar is not inconsiderable, but to hide it from one of those blessed by the Dragon God and the Sixteen, or – as is the case with some of the Adjudicators – Terian Nomicon, or Chromaias and the Four? Perhaps not impossible… but I have heard of nothing that I would believe could do it, save of course for another god willing to take the risk.”

 

     Kyri nodded, her eyelids heavy. “So we’ll know soon…”

 

     “I would hope so. But even an aerial spirit will take a few days to travel two thousand miles, and then the Adjudicator must find its way here, so be not overly impatient.”

 

     With a jolt, Kyri realized that if there had been further conversation she had missed it; the carriage had jolted to a halt in front of Victoria Vantage’s fortress, the second-most formidable construction (aside from the guardwall across Rivendream Pass) in all of Evanwyl. Only the Watchland’s castle surpassed Vantage Fortress, and according to family legend the foundations of the five-sided fortress were laid by five great wizards using all five Great Elements – which if true might make it even harder to destroy than the Watchland’s own.

 

     Rion looked barely awake too as he climbed heavily out of the carriage and followed their aunt inside. “So… all we can do is wait?”

 

     “For now, you – and your sister – need to get something to eat and then rest.” Victoria put an arm around each of them and hugged. “What we can do… we will do later.

 

     “The dead do not need our haste, remember that, child. They need our justice.”

 

Phoenix Rising: Deleted Early Chapter 1

 

The original draft of Phoenix Rising included several chapters which were cut, mainly because they slowed our approach to the main action of the book. The downside, in my view, was that we lost a glimpse at how Kyri became the way she was, and other characters’ interactions with her before the main events. The only changes I’ve made to these chapters are titles and names which were changed for the published version.

 

 

—–

 

Chapter 1.

 

     Kyri smiled at her little sister Urelle as she ran, zig-zag fashion, back and forth across the path, trying to keep ahead of their older brother Rion. At 16, Rion was already nearly as tall as their father’s six and a half feet, though much more slender. This gave him longer legs and more speed, but the eight-year-old Urelle was much more nimble.

 

     Still, Rion was also in training for holy warrior, maybe even for the Justiciars if a vacancy opened, and he had all the speed of the Vantage family. His hand lashed out and caught Urelle’s collar, lifted her laughing and shrieking into the air. “All right, that’s enough, Urelle, you’re getting far too excited, little lady. Mother and Father aren’t going to want you running around like a wild elemental; it’s wayyy past our bedtime.”

 

     Urelle giggled. “But—”

 

     “No buts.”

 

     It was a lovely night in Evanwyl; no clouds blocked out the stars, and through one of the slight openings in the trees Kyri glimpsed the Balanced Sword, the constellation’s eighteen stars bright against the glow of the lesser stars nearby, and the lower two stars of the Five.

 

     “How was practice?” she asked Rion as he joined her, Urelle tucked, still giggling, under his left arm.

 

     “Pretty good. Lythos said that I was almost adequate today!”

 

     “Isn’t that how he usually describes Mother and Father?”

 

     He couldn’t restrain a proud grin. “Yep. How about you?”

 

     She would have preferred to talk more about his training; swords and duels were much more fun than religious study, and the calm, unperturbable Elven Sho-ka-taida (Master of Combat) rarely paid anyone a compliment above ‘not entirely incompetent’. “Almost adequate probably describes it. They’ve put off the unit on Myrionar’s involvement in the greatest recent sagas until next month, and I was so looking forward to that.”

“Especially the Wanderer and the Seedling Heroes, I know.” Rion grinned. He knew she read all the adventure stories she could find and had driven the local storytellers to distraction years ago.

“Right,” she agreed. “So about the only thing that’s interesting is the fact that for some reason the following of Myrionar has contracted over the last several hundred years.”

 

     Rion’s brow wrinkled. “Really? I thought the Balanced Sword was always pretty much an Evanwyl thing. Our patron deity, like the Dragon King and the Sixteen for the State of Elbon and Idinus is for the Empire of the Mountain.”

 

     “Oh, no!” she said, glad to have something she knew about the Faith that Rion didn’t. “There were major temples in Hell’s Edge, Elbon’s Watch, even in Zarathanton and all the way to Tor Port in the Empire. About five thousand years ago, the teachers say the Way of the Balanced Sword was big. Maybe not as many followed Myrionar as Terian, Chromaias, or the Great Dragon –”

 

     “—Or the Archmage, since he rules his own country –”

 

     “Of course, but that’s kind of cheating, isn’t it? I mean, even if you’re the most powerful wizard ever, and maybe you’re close to or even actually a god, being right there and ruling the country is kind of wrong. The gods generally stick to letting their priests and so on do the work.”

 

     Rion chuckled. “Well, Kyri, you’re welcome to go to the Mountain someday and tell him that.”

 

     “Maybe I will. Father and mother –”

 

     “—Don’t want all of us out adventuring like them.”

 

     “Now there is another thing that doesn’t make sense. If they spent their lives –”

 

     Urelle, still under Rion’s arm, interrupted. “Hey, what’s that?”

 

     Kyri and Rion followed the smaller girl’s extended arm. A red-orange light was dimly visible ahead.

 

     Kyri squinted, pushing her black hair (identical to her sister’s, the opposite of her brother’s blonde) out of her eyes. “Flickers. Looks like a fire.”

 

     “Haven’t been any storms.” Rion muttered. “And it looks too big to be a campfire at this distance. Besides, why would anyone build a campfire when it’s right near –” he broke off and exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Kyri. The two of them took off running. “What? What’s wrong?” Urelle demanded.

 

     Rion halted to shift his little sister to his back; Kyri ran on ahead, pelting down the familiar path.

 

     She burst out onto the lawn into terrible bright orange light and screamed.

 

     The Vantage estate was in flames.

 

     Rion dropped Urelle on the grass and started to sprint forward, but Kyri grabbed his arm, was dragged forward. “No, Rion, no! If the fire wards didn’t stop it, there’s no chance!”

 

     He dragged to a halt unwillingly, staring. “Mother! FATHER!” he screamed. Then, remembering, he scrabbled through his belt pouch, found the small signal wand and gestured skyward. A brilliant blue ball of light streaked up into the air and burst, hanging above them like a cerulean sun.

 

     Kyri found the Balanced Sword and prayed. Please, Myrionar. Please let Father and Mother be safe.

 

     But she knew, as the flames rose higher, that her prayer was too little, too late.

 

 

On My Shelves: Jonny Quest

 

     In 1964, Hanna-Barbera decided to try an action-adventure based animated television series, and asked comic-book writer and illustrator Doug Wyldie to give them a treatment of an animated version of Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy, a popular radio drama from the 30s through 1951. As it turned out, they couldn’t get the rights to Armstrong and asked Wyldie if he could create a similar show treatment with original characters. Wyldie took the basic idea of the old Jack Armstrong adventures – a young boy and his friend or relative on globetrotting adventures with a father or father-figure – and added in flavoring from other adventure sources up to and including James Bond.

 

     The result was Jonny Quest, an animated prime-time adventure series following Jonny and his friend/adopted brother Hadji as they travelled around the world with Jonny’s father Dr. Benton Quest and bodyguard Race Bannon, encountering everything from modern-day pirates to undersea monsters, extradimensional creatures, and a super-science criminal mastermind in the mold of Dr. Fu Manchu.

 

     The series lasted only one season, the 1964-65 season on ABC, and by any ordinary standard would have disappeared into obscurity, never to be seen again; it hardly had enough episodes for syndication (usually that required at least three full seasons or about 78 episodes), didn’t have spectacularly good animation (although parts of it were surprisingly detailed), and hadn’t been around long enough to have a serious following.

 

     But there was nothing ordinary about Jonny Quest.

 

     A great deal of Jonny Quest‘s strength comes from the characters and, especially, the fact that they are not just one hero (Jonny) surrounded by supporting cast, but are in fact a group of people who are stronger together than separately. Jonny may be the headliner, but in actuality his father Benton Quest tends to drive the plot more than anyone else. Race Bannon is by far the most physically capable of the group, while Hadji is clearly just as smart as Jonny and often more cautious and forward-thinking.

 

     In many ways, this is strongly similar to one of my favorite childrens’ book series, the Danny Dunn books. Adults and children are not divided, not seen as adversaries or obstacles to each other, but as people with different strengths and weaknesses but each equally valuable and often with something to contribute to the current problems.

 

     While Jonny Quest lacked a main female member of the cast (in the original; the 1990s reboot The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest added Jessie, a character who was probably Race Bannon’s daughter through his opposite number Jade (but never absolutely proven to be, as far as I know), it did feature Hadji, a native of India who was adopted early on by the Quests and who – while having a stereotypical accent and jeweled turban – was rarely if ever played for laughs and was always treated as an equal by Jonny and his family. Hadji, in fact, was just about as likely to save the day as Jonny himself.

 

     This was typical of the original series; amid all the cringingly-bad stereotypes of American animation (and they were often very, very bad) the show would at the same time ignore these differences as being irrelevant to the story itself. Okay, these people spoke funny and acted different, but Jonny didn’t do more than remark on it once before he’d just talk to them the same as he would to his father or his friends. This doesn’t negate the stereotypes, of course, and a modern viewer has to be able to re-set their perceptions to get past the depictions of Native Americans, African or South American natives, and of course the classically Yellow Peril Doctor Zin. Despite his Ming the Merciless appearance, though, Zin is shown as fully Benton Quest’s equal and while defeated is never, as far as I can recall, successfully captured.

 

     Jonny Quest got a lot of crap past the radar, in the days in which the radar was fairly serious about stopping things (as opposed to today, when the radar has simply given up). The Comics Code was in full force during the time of Jonny Quest, and the same basic restrictions were certainly applied to cartoons. But the combination of its adult (8pm) timeslot and very clever writers managed to give it the chance to do a lot of things.

 

     The most obvious was the death toll. Not many years later, cartoons in general were reduced to “no deaths, no serious injuries” rules (to the point that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would be fighting world-conquering madmen with swords, nunchaku, etc., and somehow no one really got hurt), but during Jonny Quest, not only were there deaths, but often it was Jonny or Hadji – kids – arranging the deaths of people trying to kill or capture them. While it wasn’t graphic, the actions left no doubt what happened to the victims. In one particularly blatant sequence, Race Bannon – invading a compound where he knows the Quests are being held – tosses a hand grenade into a jeep filled with bad guys, steps back around the corner… BOOM. Bad guys no more. It was, in fact, Jonny Quest that triggered protests by some watchdog groups that led to many of the restrictions being tightened.

 

     There were more subtle things, too. In the 1960s, here you had two young boys under the guardianship of a single father and his constant, handsome, male companion. Neither of them were seen in the company of a female for more than a fleeting moment. And at times when traveling, they would be shown getting up in the morning… from the same bed. When there were TWO BEDS in the room. I remember noticing that as an adult – decades after I’d first watched the show – and coming to a sudden realization of just what the animators had gotten away with.

 

     The real focus of the series, though, was on super-science adventures, and it delivered. Doctor Benton Quest was a classic space opera or comic-book scientist, a master of SCIENCE!!! who could invent something for almost any purpose. This allowed him to be called in to assist or consult on almost any pretext – downed satellites, mysterious freezing episodes in the ocean, strange creatures being sighted, etc. – and it was clear that he also made a lot of money from his inventions, giving the opportunity to have a wide variety of modes of transport that could be used to bring him and his family wherever they needed to go.

 

     There were a lot of excellent episodes in the original series; my favorite is still probably The Invisible Monster, in which an accident with a dimensional energy machine creates a living energy being that seeks to consume all energy sources it encounters; as the title indicates, the creature is invisible, at least until Dr. Quest and company figure out how to make it visible. The monster is one of the most creepy and frightening things ever from American animation, at least up until the more recent era; it was clearly taking much of its inspiration from the Monster From the Id in Forbidden Planet, and successfully so.

 

     There was a short revival of the series in the 80s which was generally somewhat inferior to the original, being produced at the height of the “Kid-Friendly” movement. In the 1990s, a new series, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, tried to update the series to a more modern setting and with somewhat older characters – instead of being about 12, Jonny and company were about 16. This was a variable success; the first season of the reboot was weak, with some indifferent voice actors and an attempt to cash in on the then-new computer graphics craze by setting a lot of adventures in the virtual-reality “Questworld”. However, in the second season there were some recastings (most notably, John DeLancie – best known as “Q” from Star Trek: The Next Generation – as Doctor Benton Quest) and a refocusing on real-world super-science adventures. Quite a few of these were worthy updatings and additions to the mythos.

 

     There have been persistent rumors that a live-action Jonny Quest movie would be made. Alas, I haven’t see any indication that it will ever happen, and to be honest I’m doubtful of seeing anyone do it right even if they get the chance. It would be a very tall order.

 

My viewing Jonny Quest in my formative years has had one quirky, lasting effect on me: when I was a kid, our family went on several trips by air, and of course I used to pretend the plane was the Quest Jet. To this day, I cannot sit in a plane taking off without humming the Jonny Quest theme. It’s almost a superstition by this time; it would feel wrong not to do so!

 

     I obviously remember Jonny Quest fondly, and my kids all enjoyed it when I obtained the original series on DVD some years ago. It’s one of the finest examples of American animation; I highly recommend it!

 

 

 

 

On My Shelves: Gladiator-At-Law, by C.M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl

 

Written in 1954, Gladiator-At-Law focuses on Charles Mundin, a criminal attorney barely making ends meet in a world where corporate influence has become more powerful than government (indeed, there is very little evidence of actual government operating at all) and where many professions, including those of corporate lawyer, have become hereditary and closed to outsiders. Mundin may survive as a criminal lawyer, but he’ll never be rich… and he can never manage to rise into the world of corporate law, unless someone has an “in” for him. And no one has an “in”.

 

     Until Mundin is introduced to Donald Lavin and his sister Norma, who just happen to be the children of Dr. Lavin, the inventor of the “GML Home”, a super-advanced, easily-manufactured, affordable house which is the ultimate in luxury. But the GML company was taken over by a Mr. Moffat, who turned the perfect home into a perk offered by companies to their workers… and thus unattainable by anyone not working for a giant multinational. GML is one of the largest companies in the world… and one of the most ruthless.

 

     But the nearly broke and homeless Lavins own twenty-five percent of GML… if they can only reach it. But Don’s been kidnapped and brainwashed to forget what he knows about where it is and how to get it, and if they do manage to find out… the almost omniscient and seemingly untouchable firm of Green, Charlesworth will have them, and anyone with them, put out of the way.

 

     And so begins a quixotic mission – one down-on-his-luck lawyer, a pair of orphans with a secret, and a few other quirky allies ranging from an out-of-work designer of gladiatorial games to the pre-teen leader of a savage child gang, against the entire might of the corporate world. Along the way he’ll have to brave the stock market which has become a pari-mutuel betting enterprise, enter a stockholder’s meeting that’s more dangerously exciting than most combats, risk himself in one of the gladiatorial “Field Days”, and confront Green, Charlesworth themselves…  all for a showdown which involves trying to crash the entire stock market in one day.

 

     The world of Gladiator-At-Law presages many dystopian and cyberpunk tropes, with the omnipowerful corporations, brainwashing, death-sports with high-tech accoutrements, the corporate enclaves of peace and comfort surrounded by slums of run-down houses filled with such criminal activity that the most honest residents are simply the ones who won’t do the vicious types of crime, and so on. It’s also filled with parodies and references to its own era; with my current gaming experience, I see echoes of that world in the background of Fallout, especially in the advertisements for “Belle Reve” housing development, which over time becomes “Belly Rave”, one of the most notorious slums.

 

     Gladiator-At-Law is both very much a product of its time – as I mention, one can see echoes of classic 1950s “memes” in many aspects of its world and writing – and one that is terribly apropos today. We haven’t reached the point of bread-and-circuses gladiatorial games in which the common people can compete for money and fame… or death…, but I have to wonder sometimes if things like the so-called “reality shows” are merely the modern era equivalent, for those of us who simply don’t quite have the energy to go down to the Colosseum and break out the old trident and net. Goldman-Sachs may not be actually run by centuries-old Struldbrugs, but they and their ilk do sometimes seem to echo Green, Charlesworth a little too well for my liking.

 

     No matter its relevance, though, the story remains strong and gripping, even if we may have to adjust our perceptions slightly for the changes in our own world to really grasp what we’re seeing. Pohl and Kornbluth were an excellent writing team of the Golden Age, producing some of the best novels of their time, and in my view Gladiator-At-Law is one of their best works. If you have an interest in older science fiction, don’t miss this one!

 

 

 

HYPERION ORIGIN: Chapter 9

 

Well, you know, heroes aren’t very much fun without some villains to bother them…

 

—–

 

ix.

     He paused just before entering the huge glass-fronted office, checking his shadowy reflection in the doorway, making sure his hair was perfectly arranged, his hat just so, his white suit precisely as it should be. Appearances mattered, after all.

 

     He pushed the door open and walked in, long-legged stride accentuated by the clean lines of the suit. The secretary looked up and smiled. “Dr. Fairchild! Mr. Brookings is expecting you; he said to go right on in.”

 

     “How kind of him. Thank you, my dear.” He grasped the double handles and pushed the doors open, revealing an expansive office that could have doubled as a conference room for fifty people, had its owner been so inclined. The deep carpeting, polished wood and cushioned furniture, and expensive paintings hung at precise intervals on the natural wood panelling, however, showed that the only meetings which occurred here were private ones between men of great power and influence, or those lesser beings that the man who owned the office summoned.

 

     Doubtless, Fairchild thought with a tiny, thin smile, he believes I am one of those lessers.

 

     Brookings – head of the immensely powerful World Steel Corporation, known by friend and foe merely as “Steel” – did Fairchild the honor of rising from behind his wide mahogany and ebony desk for a moment. “Doctor Fairchild. So good of you to come so promptly.” Brookings re-seated himself with a scarcely audible sigh, but one not surprising; where Fairchild was tall and slender, Brookings was short and broad, with more than a mere tendency to corpulence. His face was round and could be deceptively childlike when the chief of Steel wanted to give the impression of harmlessness, but more often had the look of a belligerent and hungry wild boar.

 

     “The situation did appear to warrant decisive action, Mr. Brookings,” Fairchild said. He noted there was one other man in the room; of average height and in clothes that concealed his breadth, nothing clearly distinctive about him unless you looked closely and realized that he was a mass of muscle. Perkins was a man of undefined, yet important, position in Steel; he “took care” of things, the kinds of things that Steel found troublesome and that needed methods better left unexamined.

 

     “And decisive actions have been taken. Successfully.”

 

     Indeed? Let us see how he explains it. “The sabotage of the Skylark was carried out according to my directives?”

 

     “Exactly as you specified, sir,” Perkins confirmed, rough voice belying the fact that there was, in truth, a fairly active and capable mind behind that bland exterior. “I was able to get on board, removed the indicated plate, and placed the relay in the circuits.”

 

     “And what,” Fairchild said, with a careless intonation to his voice, “about the launch complex?”

 

     “That was the perfect icing on the cake, Doctor,” Brookings said with a self-satisfied smile. “Kinnison’s been a thorn in our side for a long time – word is some people want him to go into politics once he gets out of the military, and that would be … difficult. In any case, the whole project’s been his, and those two scientists, Seaton and DuQuesne. So we figured we could take all of them out of the picture. Bryson won’t be able to duplicate it all on his own.”

 

     “No,” Fairchild conceded. “Doctor Bryson’s not entirely incompetent, but not at my level, nor that of his protégés. But what, precisely, did you do?“

 

     Perkins grinned. “Figured that since we were getting rid of the two brains in their own ship, why not make it look like the ship did for them all? No transmissions during the exercise, except tight-beam, so no one would know exactly what was going on who wasn’t there. We detonated one of those little X-bombs you made as a demonstrator, planted it right under the tarmac near the launch area. With any luck, it’ll look like those two blew up on their pad and took the others with them.”

 

     “So,” Brookings said with an answering grin, one that was unaffected by the fact that this little jest had cost hundreds of men their lives, “we have eliminated several problems and can take a bit more time with the main project.”

 

     “I see.” Fairchild sighed. “You idiots.”

 

     Brookings’ face purpled. “What?”

 

     “I called you an idiot, and an idiot you are.” As the other man opened his mouth to bellow, Fairchild stood and glared down at Brookings. “Silence!“

 

     The steel magnate stopped, mouth half-open. Partly it was from shock that anyone would dare speak to him that way in his own office, but Fairchild could also tell that it was partly because Brookings now sensed he was in great danger. Fairchild usually hid his nature from others, and he was good at it; but this was a time to be, shall we say, honest.

 

     “Good. Good. You can tell, somehow, that it would be unwise to bluster with me. You must have checked my background, Mr. Brookings. You are aware of something of my capabilities. Understand that what you know is not a tenth part of the truth.” He slowly seated himself. “Had you consulted with me, I would have been able to tell you why this was a terribly ill-advised plan. You are used to getting away with sloppy execution, far too used to it, because usually you are dealing with little people; the town constabulary, city or state governments, other corporations.

 

     “But this time you are dealing with the United Earth Military, and they are, I assure you, something of a harder nut to crack, and much less amenable to just looking the other way for a few dollars.”

 

     “We thought of that,” Brookings said indignantly. “There’s nothing to tie us to the –”

 

     “But there will be if we go ahead with the plan and any of the people survive, especially if they can betray the fact that the explosion of the launch pad came a few hours after the launch. Yes, yes,” he waved the others to silence, “launches are often delayed, and the ones who would know that – or not – would be at the base. However, while there were no wireless transmissions and, overall, a silence was imposed, there were in fact not one, but two communications following the launch but prior to your explosion.”

 

     The two looked at him with dawning worry. “How do you know—”

 

     “I know because I do not rely on others for my information. I’ll tell you no more than that. However, I will tell you WHO. The first was Dr. Bryson, and he called Kinnison shortly before the explosion. I would guess that he had discovered our… acquisition of X.”

 

     “That… is not good at all. We could have an accident happen to Bryson –”

 

     “And I would recommend you do it soon, yes. He’s the only person there who knows for a fact the launch was completed prior to the explosion – but that will not be true for very long at all.”

 

     “Then let’s have the second name, Doc,” Perkins said, “And I’ll arrange two accidents.”

 

     “Oh, not nearly so simple. The other was Dorothy Vaneman. Kinnison called her just after the launch.”

 

     “That’s not a problem. A little house fire and –”

 

     “—and if you wish to do that, by all means, do so. I will of course immediately separate myself from you and your organization and if necessary testify against you.”

 

     Brookings had never looked so much like an angry boar as he did now. “Are you daring to threaten me? You’ll go down with us!”

 

     Fairchild laughed, seeing his own cheerful blue-eyed countenance reflected in the wide, tinted window behind the Steel magnate. “Tsk, tsk, Brookings. I have carefully arranged it that there is no evidence of such a connection. Try to make one in court, and you’ll end up sued for libel.” He leaned closer, and the blue eyes were like ice as they bored into the other man’s brown ones. “I told you at the beginning that I did not work for you; that it was convenient and appropriate at this time, but that I reserved the right to change that arrangement at my, or my… allies’… whim.”

 

     Brookings was gritting his teeth, but Perkins appeared more used to judging whether a man was bluffing or not… and he’d decided Fairchild wasn’t. “Why not an accident to her as well, sir?”

 

     “Because I have studied Richard Seaton and Marc DuQuesne rather extensively. I have met both at a conference or two. And the two of them really only have one weakness. For Marc DuQuesne, unfortunately, that weakness is Richard Seaton, his only real personal friend. For Seaton, however, it is Dorothy Vaneman, his fiancee.”

 

     “But we just got rid of –”

 

     “Perhaps. But as the design of the Skylark made it virtually impossible for me to actually cause it to explode in a manner which would, at the same time, not wipe out half the Eastern coast of the United States, I had to settle for having it run wild. There is a good chance that this did, in fact, kill Seaton and DuQuesne; fifty hours of acceleration at that level would kill nearly anyone. And if they did survive it, they would need to find their way back, which will not be nearly so easy as they might suppose.

 

     “However, it is not impossible that they will do so. And in that case, gentlemen, I have absolutely no intention of facing down both Richard Ballinger Seaton and Marc Cassius DuQuesne, piloting that ship, without a little insurance. And Miss Dorothy Vaneman,” he concluded, with a smile that was slowly echoed by the other two, “is a most excellent piece of insurance.”

 

***

 

     I am starting to catch on to what you’re doing, and it’s even nastier than I thought.

 

     Feeling sorry for him?

 

     A pause. In a way… yes. But this is his adventure. And if I’m right, it’s going to be an even grander adventure than he could imagine.

 

     “I don’t know – he can imagine quite a bit.”

 

     Ahhh, the classics. I suppose you’re right, but it’s still going to be one hell of a ride.

 

     That it will. Strap yourself in for some more!

 

 

 

 

HYPERION ORIGIN: Chapter 8

 

Well, something had gone wrong… let’s see if they survived!

—–

 

 

viii.

     “DuQuesne! DuQuesne! C’mon, Blackie, don’t do this to me!”

 

     He was aware of aching pain, pain throughout his body, as though ever fiber of his being had been stretched out, pounded, stretched again, and wrapped around a bed of needles. Muzzily he forced one eye open, seeing Seaton standing… no, floating over him, dark circles under his friend’s eyes making him look as though he’d gone rounds with someone twice his size.

 

     “What… happened?” he forced out, his voice a croak instead of its usual powerful bass.

 

     At the simple words he saw immense relief wash over Seaton’s face and realized how worried the other man had been. “Thank God. What happened!? Don’t you remember?”

 

     DuQuesne forced himself to take a deep breath, although his chest – especially, now that he thought of it, the right side – screamed in protest. “Remember…?”

 

     Then it all came back in a rush, the launch, the cryptic static-laden message, and the runaway acceleration.  He lunged towards a sitting position, to be stopped by his acceleration harness and the flaming agony of his body. “Son of a –” he swore. “Sabotaged! Someone messed with the main power controls, put a short across the line…” he remembered the timing, “… on a relay hooked to the transponder signals. Once we lost the line, it cut us loose. Big time.”

 

     Seaton nodded in relief. “Okay, your brain’s back to firing on all cylinders.”

 

     “Half, anyway.” He unstrapped gingerly. “You know, I don’t remember strapping in at all.”

 

     “You must’ve done it when you slid into the couch right when it all went south. Reflex for a pilot – the right one, too.” Seaton indicated the interior of the cabin, which showed numerous dents and other minor damage. “Toward the end, the acceleration went really wonky – my guess is that the last few pounds of copper were distributed in patches inside the coating and so the acceleration axis shifted.”

 

     DuQuesne nodded, noticing that the armor shutters over the forward viewport had at least done their job and shut automatically when the high acceleration came on. “Makes sense. Holy moley but I hurt everywhere.“

 

     “So do I, but I’ll bet you’re worse. You took a fall first. C’mon, let me take a look.”

 

     Just pulling up the shirt made it hurt worse – and DuQuesne felt the fabric sticking in an all-too-telling fashion. Looking down at the acceleration couch, he could see a large red-brown stain on the one side. Seaton sucked in his breath. “Damn that’s ugly. How the hell did that happen? You fell on the side of the couch!”

 

     “Damned if I know. Maybe the acceleration … yeah, look, it’s more a scrape and a tear than a cut. Not that that makes it better.”

 

     “Well, we’ve both got to get back in working shape. I’m so stiff I can barely move.”

 

     “Amylophene for the stiffness might work.”

 

     “Oh, I’ll be looking forward to that. Not. First let’s get you wrapped up.”

 

     After tending as best they could to DuQuesne’s bruised and torn flesh, the two men used the amylophene rub; the chemical stimulated blood flow and, paradoxically, alleviated swelling, among other effects, but it had one very unpleasant side effect: it also increased stimulation to the pain receptors during application. By the time they had finished, both men were white and sweating. DuQuesne just sagged into himself and drifted about the cabin for a few minutes. “Whew! I don’t know about you, Rich, but I’m not sure I could take that again.” He flexed his arms. “But it did the trick. I can move perfectly well again, except of course my side.”

 

     “Same here, Blackie. I think that makes it time for breakfast.”

 

     The thought of food made DuQuesne’s stomach cramp with eagerness. “We must’ve been out a long time. I feel like I could eat a bear.”

 

     Seaton nodded, starting down the handholds to the galley. “I think we were out something like fifty hours, most of that under acceleration.”

 

     “Damnation. Judging by our prior ratio of acceleration felt and power applied… we might have had an effective acceleration there of something like fifty to a hundred gees.”

 

     Seaton paused, shock in his eyes. “That… over 48 hours? That would put us at something like a quarter to half lightspeed! We’d have passed Pluto and be on our way outsystem!”

 

     “Yeah. But let’s get something to eat first, then we’ll put in a new bar and start heading back.” DuQuesne thought of something. “Hey, you go put together some sandwiches or something; I’m going to check the secondary bar.”

 

     “The repellers? That wasn’t affected, was it?”

 

     “If we’re going that fast, they might have had to step up automatically based on demand.”

 

     He got to his board and keyed up the proper inquiry. Numbers popped up on the console, and for a minute he couldn’t make sense of them. What the …

 

     Then it did make sense, and he gave vent to another oath. “Seaton! We’ve got to get another bar in the secondaries, right away!” Suiting actions to words, he launched himself down the tube towards the storeroom.

 

     Seaton swam into view a moment later, towing a bag of wrapped sandwiches. “What’s the hurry?”

 

     “The hurry, my friend, is that there’s about twenty pounds of copper left on that bar – out of four hundred.”

 

     “What? That’s… ridiculous!” His disbelief didn’t stop Seaton from pushing DuQuesne out of the way – as, despite his attempts not to show it, Marc was finding it difficult to drag a new bar out of its restraints with the injuries to his side. “There. Let’s go check this out. But I’m betting it’s the board that’s off. That four hundred pound bar should last a long, long time, even if we were going at some chunk of lightspeed.”

 

     But one look at the bar was enough. The thin X coating was translucent and light shone through most of its length. “My… aunt’s… cats’… kittens… pants… buttons.”

 

     DuQuesne was too worried to laugh at Seaton’s newest expression. “C’mon, open the parallel clamp. I’ll get the new one set in place, you hit the switchover and we’ll pull the old one to recover the X.”

 

     Seaton nodded and, in a few minutes, the job was done. DuQuesne noted, with a frown, that the demand on the new bar was still very high indeed. “Rich, how many spares of the power bars do we have?”

 

     “Four of each. So that’s three more for the repellors.”

 

     “I think we need to get this crate slowing down as soon as we can.”

 

     Seaton’s frown was, if anything, even grimmer than his own. “Right now if not sooner.”

 

     The two men quickly removed one of the huge thousand-pound power bars from the storage area and locked it into the main drive mount, carefully taking the crumbling remains of the first and placing it in the bin for X recovery. “We don’t even know exactly what direction we ended up flying, DuQuesne,” Seaton pointed out as they returned to the main control room.

 

     “Doesn’t matter right now. Unless we’re completely off, most of the acceleration was along the main bar axis as intended, so if I just precisely reverse the alignment of the bar,” DuQuesne suited action to words, “and start her running, we should start slowing down. We’ll have some residual velocity from those last uncontrolled side thrusts, but it shouldn’t be too significant.”

 

     The acceleration at first seemed to be upward, drawing the strapped-in scientists towards the ceiling; however, due to the painstaking attention to detail in all features that had been applied to the Skylark, in a few moments the rest of the ship rotated slowly around the drive unit, returning the apparent acceleration to the more normal down orientation. “I’ve stepped her up to a full apparent gee, which should be something like ten gees. Once we’re both recovered, in a couple days, we can strap in and let her run a lot faster. I figure we can be stopped in a week or so, and then check our distance from the sun.”

 

     “At something like twenty billion miles, if we’re guessing our speed right.”

 

     “It’ll still be the brightest damn thing in the sky, though.”

 

     Seaton nodded. “True enough. And,” he brightened, “on the positive side, we’ll be able to be sure no one’s around to see our tests!”

 

     DuQuesne laughed for the first time since the drive had gone wild, and almost regretted it after the sharp pain in his side. “Ouch! That’s you, Rich – always seeing the sunny side of life.”

 

***

 

     All right, that was just plain nasty. But maybe not as bad as the original.

 

     As they say, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”.

 

     I might have known you’d have more up your sleeve. We get to see the other side of things?

 

     Of course. Just like the novels. Most of the time with the heroes, but we have to see the bad guys sometimes. How are the others doing?

 

     Most of them are doing pretty well – some are downright spectacular. I was spending some of the downtime over at Jasin’s –

 

     Ah yes. Tarellimade Shantrakar, right?

 

     A grin. Exactly. One of the best products of the immersive simulations ever, and he’s come to life exactly as Jasin and the others in that group intended. Some of the others have had issues… but mostly the bugs have been shaken out. A glance at the tank display. Oh, I see!

 

     Yes. It’s beginning.