A Prison of Worlds (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 1) (16 page)

I
stood up and walked to the wall.  I hadn't paid any attention to the room when
I came in, but there was nicely framed art hung from the walls, and one side
was almost completely covered in shelves and books.  Naturally, I ignored the
art and headed to the bookcases.  I absentmindedly browsed the selections. 

“To
be honest when I got here I hadn't a clue what I might offer you as
compensation.”  My fingertips glided down the rows of books.  No occult books,
but a nice selection of psychology.  I haven't had time to study it since I
have been pursuing the magical, but I used to love reading about the subject. 
Most of it was wrong, but it never hurts to see things from another angle.  I
pulled out a tome with an interesting title, and while I thumbed through it,
asked, “But tell me.  How much is your sanity worth to you?”

I
heard a gasp behind me, and turned.  The floating man looked at me with the
whites of his eyes showing, terror pounded at my senses.  Oh, he thought I was
threatening to drive him insane.  I could, but that would be pointless.  Crazy
people are even more dangerous than sane ones.  “No, I don't mean to return
your insanity, I mean I provided a valuable service by curing you.”

A
hoarse laugh came from Kingston, “I wouldn't bet it was worth that much.”

“Well,
you may be a better judge at that than me,” I walked back to the ruined chair
and looked up at the man.  “Do you have a use for a favor from someone with my
skills?”

“In
the occult?”

I
blinked in surprise.  We had been obliquely talking about psionics, so that the
change of subject caught me off guard.  “I was considering my healing talents. 
I can heal the flesh as I healed your mind.  But I suppose my modest skills in
the occult seem to be more in demand these days.”  I suppose that when modern
science can literally resurrect the dead, but backing up a person's memory and
reloading it into a healed body is illegal, his disinterest in my physical
healing skills is understandable.

“Just
what are you?”

“You
don't think I'm human.”  I smiled wryly, but didn't say any more on his
question.  “Well, can you?” I prodded, returning to the original subject.

“I
hardly think one use of your services is worth a half billion,” Kingston said
doubtfully.  I was impressed he could haggle while dangling in midair, but the
very fact he was considering it meant that we may have a deal in the making.

“Well,
you can't have the money back,” I reminded him as he snorted in response.  It
seems the newly christened Edward Prince didn't care about the money.  That
either meant he was a man of principle and wanted justice or revenge... or he
what he had now dwarfed what I had taken from him.  Either idea was a bit
ominous.  Just because he wasn't frothing at the mouth anymore didn't mean he
was a nice man.  “What would you consider fair compensation?”

“Ten
uses of your services,” he stated.

“Ten
would keep me pretty occupied in your employ,” I shook my head in mostly
imaginary disgust.  The bartering had begun.  “Three services.”

“Bah,
you think you’re a djinn?” Kingston snorted in disdain and I had to swallow a
chuckle.  “Seven.”

I
almost smiled as he exchanged one number of mystical import with another that
had equal meaning.  “Seven services that use my healing or occult knowledge
only.  I will not be used as an assassin.  If I took life that lightly, you'd
already be dead.  In return, all transgressions are to be forgiven.  No more
assassins and no more threats.”

“Agreed,”
he grudgingly acceded.

I
slowly lowered him to the ground and we gingerly shook hands over his desk.

Out
on the street, I wandered a few blocks away from the center of the high-class
area.  I wasn't sure my agreement was wise, but short of a bloodbath or leaving
a trail of mind-wiped zombies, I wasn't sure what else I could have done.  The
man was brazen as heck and I was not sure he would have backed down, even if he
was fully aware of what he was dealing with.

I
paused to look up at the ever present holographic glow that permeated the spaces
around the airways that couldn't afford to pay for their airspace not to be
cluttered.  Here, in the better part of town it was toned down, almost
artistic.  There were animated scenes projected in the air, sculptures of light
and of course advertisements.  They were relatively tasteful, but people were
selling things to people.  The only places in the city that lacked such scenery
at night were areas zoned as residences, government owned land and of course
the Blight.

My
eyes slid over the ads.  After a year of living here, I almost didn't see them,
but my sight did register one of the art displays that included a rather pretty
display of the time.  I frowned as I realized I had only about thirty minutes
to get to the Tower Plaza.  This led to a puzzle in logistics as I weighed the
pros and cons of waiting for a taxi or walking.  In my mind, I imagined the
location of where I was and where Tower Plaza was and my frown deepened.  I was
almost directly on the other side of the Blight. 

A
taxi would be much faster than me walking there but who knows how long it would
take to get here, and it certainly would not cut through the Blight.  I knew my
way around the Blight enough to find the little holes in walls that had a few
underground book businesses going.  That should suffice.  I usually didn't go
there at night, but the identity I used had enough of a reputation to keep most
of the unsavory groups away from me. If I went in a straight line, it shouldn't
be too long.

My
decision was made for me as a security orb silently floated down from the
airways and started to strobe red and blue in my face.  “Excuse me sir.  Do you
have authorization for this zone?”

Glancing
at the featureless silver ball hovering in front me, I shrugged.  “I was just
leaving.”  I looked back at the way I had come.  I had thought I had left the
high-security area, but it didn't matter.  I was wandering in the direction of
the Blight anyway, may as well just continue.  The orb trailed me as I finally left
the affluent area.  It eventually stopped and floated as a sentinel against
roaming strangers.  The lights from the cars above and the advertising lightshows
gradually dimmed and went out as I reached the edge of the Blight.  Picking up
my pace, I hurried on.

This
area at night was almost pitch black.  Occasionally, some of the homeless
people that hadn't set up within one of the plentiful abandoned buildings arranged
a merry fire burning what they could find.  Other than this, there was no
light.  No street light illuminated the area, no building dared draw attention
to itself by having light shine through its windows, even if by some miracle it
had electricity, and naturally no cars flew overhead.  I had expected some
traffic.  Perhaps the news of the gang with the missiles had scared off even
the more intrepid civilians.

A
few people in the darkened alley moved towards me.  They must have recognized
me in the moonlight because they stopped and slunk back behind the detritus. 
Still, I started to feel uneasy.  I generally don't feel this way without a
clear and present danger, so I forced myself to pay more attention to my
surroundings.  The minor clairvoyance I had managed to develop didn't really
give me flashes of future events, though if I force myself into a trance I can
sometimes see some traumatic events in my near future.  It's generally not
worth the effort; however, when the probabilities converge I can tell that
something will happen. 

To
be honest, it's more of a parlor trick, but it does make it hard to take me by
surprise unless I am preoccupied, or thinking about some puzzle I read of, or...
well I suppose it is generally not that useful now that I think of it.  However,
this one time at least, I knew there was danger in the air. 

Looking
around, I examined he broken buildings and rubble around me more carefully,
slowing my pace minutely to allow a thorough inspection.  That was probably the
reason I saw the gun barrel nosing out of a shattered window on the third floor
a few hundred feet away.  I snorted a bit.  I had really thought I had
demonstrated to the people in the area that shooting me was a bad idea.  Oh
well.  I channeled a tiny bit of energy and reached out.  The fellow with the
gun had none of the resistances a supernatural or a psionic might have, and I
immediately got a nice hold of him and dragged him with a quick jerk out of the
window, smashing the remains of the frame on the way.  Once the flailing figure
was outside, I simply let him go.  A three story drop probably wouldn't kill
him. 

 I
quickened my speed back to what it was.  I was going to be late.  As I walked
past the crumpled figure, I checked his aura briefly to ensure he wasn't going
to expire due to the fall and continued onward.  Minor bone breaks.  The free
clinic on the south edge of the Blight would have that healed in a day.

I
was about to congratulate myself for only being ten minutes late when I heard a
shriek and grunting noises.  Frowning, I looked towards the makeshift
barricades in the cracked pavement that marked the ad hoc edge of the Blight,
and looked over to the alley I heard the fighting.  Crap.  Okay, twenty minutes
late isn't so bad, is it?

I
trudged over to the corridor of darkness where sounds of violence wafted on the
night air with a certain amount of sulking.  I didn't hear any modern weapons
or see flashes of plasma, so whatever it was it seemed pretty low key.

I
walked into the alley and right away knew reality didn't match my expectation. 
A badly bruised man in rags lay at the entrance, and five more stood facing
away from me that didn't appear to be dressed any better.  Two of them looked
like they had just picked themselves up from the floor and hadn't quite gotten
the hang of standing yet.  In front of them stood a blond woman dressed in a
flowing rich blue gown.  With lace.  She was holding in one hand a lantern that
had a hologram of a flame in it.  Kind of retro, but I thought it was odder to
see an obvious well-to-do woman in the Blight, rather than her lighting
preferences. 

I
was in a bit of a hurry, so stepped over the fallen one, got my foot under the
fellow, and with a careful bit of acceleration launched him twenty feet out of
the alley.  It was more of a boost than a kick; I had to be careful with
humans.  Turning around again, I grabbed two closest to me by the belts of
their pants and pitched them out to the same area.  By the time I turned around,
the remaining three had figured something was up and were turning to face me. 
I grabbed one more by his jacket and threw him into the street before the final
two finally tackled me.  I let them grab me and then, while they tried to
manhandle me, launched first one into the air, then the other in quick succession. 
I think I may have heard someone's bones crack as I threw one away, however it
wasn't mine, so I ignored it.

I
popped a force bubble on the pile of groaning people in the street and turned
around to the woman.  Without the milling people in front of her, I noticed
that she was a bit more striking than I had first noted.  The cloth was definitely
a silk variant and she was some sort of diadem in her hair to keep her blond
tresses in their place.  I really don't pay much attention to fashion, so the
feature that most caught my attention was the angular fine boned cheeks and of
course the pointed ears.

“Elves?”
I muttered to myself in a bit of shock.  “I didn't think this dimension had
real elves.”  My mind went into overdrive as I thought about that.  My home had
a few dwarves and elves.  Mostly poor SOBs that got stuck in the wrong side of
a random dimensional portal.  Since the apocalypse, my home had problems with
wild magic.  Some side effect of billions of people dying at once.  Although
they were significantly longer lived than humans, they weren't that different
otherwise. 

Still,
I am sure I would have noticed some mention of real elves during the year I was
here.  I suddenly had manic visions of newspaper headlines proclaiming elven
ambassadors from newly exposed enclaves full of magic-wielding pointy-eared
mortals and... and myself completely oblivious to this since I eschewed
watching the news or even being associated with virtual reality media delivery. 

I
grabbed hold of the reins of my imagination.  Jeremy would have mentioned it or
forwarded me a holo clip.  It was why I had him on retainer.  I knew I could be
terribly nearsighted, and it was literally his job to rub my face in things he
knew would interest me.  My brain finally slowed.  All this meant was that
other races besides shifters and vampires were hiding and hadn't come out of
the shadows yet.

“Thank
you stranger, but I was not in any danger,” the woman calmly offered, nervously
thumbing her necklace.  Perhaps that lantern wasn't as high tech as I thought. 
If these elves stayed hidden this long, chances were they were either just
visiting or had some pretty skilled magic users.  I had almost found my tongue
again and was working on a response when I heard heavy footsteps behind me. 
The woman looked behind me and called out.  “Ah, Sir Faramond I am most glad...”

That
was all I heard.  I had turned at the sound of the stomping just in time to see
a mountain sized man in full body armor straight out of the 14
^th
century.  I am pretty hard to surprise, but I think my brain was saturated at
this point because I didn't notice the usual clairvoyant warning as a fist the
size of a ham rocketed towards my face and launched me through the wall. 

I
am sure I didn't black out.  It would take a ground zero pocket nuke to make me
black out... or at least it would have if the ambient energy levels were high
enough.  Let’s just say I blinked due the agonizing feeling of having my face
compressed by some hulking brute in armor seven centuries out of date, packing
enough power to level Hiroshima for a third time.  When I landed I was weighed
down by tons of rubble.  Groaning, I levered the rocks and broken permacrete
off me, while activating my force field and gathering energy for my psi
swords.  I wasn't scared.  Truth be told, I was a bit too shell shocked to feel
much of anything except the need to not get my ass kicked again.

I
moved the last of the debris off me and saw I was in an alley.  The wall behind
me had collapsed, which was the material I was presently climbing out of.  In
front of me was a gaping hole that I could see another wall with a hole in it,
and another after that.  In fact, my vision was still not completely steady and
I had a lot of blood on my face and pooling in my eyes, but I think I counted three
entire buildings with their respective interiors completely demolished in a
wide, straight-line path. 

I
was surprised to see the twenty-foot-wide openings... I almost expected to see
a silhouette matching my own throughout the buildings like some cheap cartoon. 
I started to stagger through the ad hoc tunnels, gaining speed and stability as
I went.  By the time I passed the second building, I could see straight, and
the pools of energy in my hands were beginning to elongate into my absurdly huge
swords.  I saw a particularly large dumpster that looked promising and dumped a
large lump of energy to boost it into the air and have it follow me, wobbling
at first, but rapidly gaining speed.

By
the time I broke into the original alley that was my starting point, my shock
had worn off and I was deep into a very pleasant haze of anger that was doing
an excellent job of covering up the pain in my face.  The mad knight was still
there and seemed to be vehemently arguing with the elf.  There was definitely
shouting and hand-waving. 

I
didn't pay much attention to the details since I was focused on delivering a
payload of pain.  My entrance drew the attention of both of them.  The woman
was still waving her arms and the brutish fellow must have been somewhat
threatened by my huge glowing swords because he pulled out his own sword that
was about the same size.  It seemed much smaller compared to his body mass.

I
ran towards him and he brought his sword to a guard position.  Just before I
reached him I hit the ground flat.  I have to say seeing his puzzled expression
through his helmet slits was satisfying just before the dumpster sailed over me
and barreled into him. The entire mass swept him off his feet and carried him
through the wall behind him. 

While
he was doing his train wreck imitation, I noticed that there was another
dilapidated dumpster available in this alley, and telekinetically grabbed a
hold of it and started to raise it straight up.  I really didn't have much hope
of the dumpsters doing much damage.  From the damage this guy had done to my
face, I knew he was a major supernatural entity.  The walls I had been blown
through were negligible compared to the initial impact.  Doubtless he was at
least as durable as myself.  Likely only my fists and swords would do much more
than knock him around.

The
woman was still yelling in my ear, which is very distracting when you are
trying to focus on beating the crap out of someone.  I was doing my best to
ignore her when she stepped in front of me.