Dream (33 page)

“That explains why they weren’t overjoyed when the gunpowder tagged two intruders,” Shad nodded. “And why they give incoming outlanders no real help: they want to maintain a specific number of outlanders here.”

“Just so,” Astkar nodded. “Both ordinary outlanders such as yourself and the more powerful intruders.”

“I suppose that’s why they were angry that we came up with a workable way to kill revenants,” Fred shrugged. “And taught others the trick.”

“Yes. And why they have forced unarmed commoners into the Great Field since,” Astkar noted. “The presence of the revenants in sufficient numbers has an effect in the arcane equation.”

“So what is the bottom line?” Shad asked. “Why all these years of great effort? What does the Council of Twelve
want
?”

“In a nutshell, they desire revenge. They wish to send something back along the roads to punish your world for what it did to their ancestors.”

“Thousands of years later and they’re still holding a grudge,” Jeff shook his head. “Who are these guys, the Irish?”

“What kind of revenge?” Derek asked.

“On this, I am not clear, but they have created something, a disease, a dark attacker which will infect the slave-artifacts of your world and smite them mightily, so mightily that their ilk will never rise again.”

“Slaves?” Sam wondered.

“There’s more slaves now than there were in the 1860s, just not in the USA,” Shad shrugged. “They call it human trafficking, but its still slavery.”

“They’re talking about computers,” Derek snapped. “Slave-master linkage? Database replication? They’re planning on sending a magically-based computer virus back.”

“Oh, crap-they’re basing it on the
revenants
,” Sam snapped his fingers. “Undead creatures which create mirrors of themselves when they kill a creature-the virus won’t just corrupt programs and documents, it will convert them into copies of itself.”

“What do you bet it can move like the revenants can move? Outside physical laws,” Shad said glumly. “It could jump into stand-alone systems.”

“The Electronic Age would die forever,” Sam sighed.

“It would create a new Dark Ages-a virus that acts that way, in defiance of natural law, would knock out everything electronic. The world would come crashing down. It would be worse than an EMP strike,” Derek threw up his arms. “Game over.”

“So, that’s the truth,” Shad said slowly. “And I expect you are going to try and stop them?”

“Yes,” Astkar said blandly.

“What do you need with us? We’re sixth level.”

“All that the Council has accomplished is bound up in a grand device, a device which has taken them generations to design and decades to construct. A device which is nearing the stage whereupon it can send the dark attacker to your world.”

“And we have to destroy it,” Fred shook his head. “One campaign hook after another.”

“We need your help to close the roads,” Astkar corrected the barbarian. “To isolate the device from them.”

“What good will that do?” Shad shook his head. “A hundred years here is fifty days in our world. We knock the thing out and the Council’s kids hit us less than two months later. That is not a solution.”

“It
is
a solution. The roads between our worlds exist only if held open, and once something has been done, it cannot be done again.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just as once you have been returned to your world you cannot be banished here again, so are the roads between our worlds: if those roads cease to be, they may never be reopened. New roads would have to be forged, using new methods.”

“Remember the Greek legend, the guy that went into Hades to get his girlfriend?” Derek nodded, enthused. “She looked back, and had to stay. He couldn’t go back for her.”

“So closing these roads stops the Council’s plot?” Shad was unconvinced.

“The term ‘road’ is a metaphor. When they are severed, the changes to our world based upon the Council’s modification of your minor belief system will cease, and all outlanders will be returned home.”

“The level system will be gone,” Derek grinned.

“Yes, although few people will notice at first. Knowledge will go back to experiences and effort, but with one exception. Or more to the point, twelve exceptions: the Council members have tied their powers to the roads. This act has allowed them to reach great power, but it means that when the roads stop, they only have what they learned, which is minimal.”

“What about you?”

“At the advice of my Lady I have acquired my powers solely through study and practice, slow methods but ones which will survive the closure of the roads.”

“What about the revenants?” Shad asked. “Will closing the roads affect them?”

“No, they have a different method. Since the Council originally exploited that method to start their undertaking, when the roads close that method is forever barred to them as well.”

“So basically your world will return to what it was before the Council started meddling.”

“Just so, with a few innovations that came from you outlanders.”

“Its like legal practice,” Sam mused. “You get a piece of evidence thrown out, everything based upon that evidence goes as well. The Council will have to find an entirely new method to open a road to Earth-they will have to re-invent the wheel.”

“So tell us about what it will take to isolate this device,” Shad said.

“The place where the roads join the device is akin to the Great Field: very disadvantageous for natives of this realm, but not to outlanders, and to a lesser extent the Twelve. My Lady will need you to protect her while she severs the connection there.”

“Speaking of protection, what does the Council have watching the device?” Shad asked.

“An army of undead. Wights, to be precise.”

“Wonderful.”

“I have a charm that will make you more effective against them,” Fu Hao observed.

“If you haven’t noticed, we aren’t exactly an army.”

“I will summon a force to accompany us; they cannot enter the final place, but the wights can, which is why you are needed.”

“How long will you need to break the device?”

The warlord shrugged.

“Better and better. We’re going to recover our gear and talk.”

“I’ll open with the observation that we are all going to die,” Shad said disgustedly. “You guys take it from there.”

“If she breaks the roads we go home,” Derek observed.

“If we believe her,” Fred shrugged.

“We’ve suspected that we were getting shined along for quite a while,” Jeff pointed out. “So far, Astkar has dealt the fairest towards us of anyone.”

“The key to a good con is establishing trust,” Sam pointed out.

“She was legitimately imprisoned, and I don’t think she’s lying about who she is,” Derek said thoughtfully. “I don’t think she
could
lie about it-as a ‘mancer I can feel the power coming off her.”

“That doesn’t mean she has a good plan,” Fred objected.

“No, but the fact is the Council dragged us here and has been almost no help to us since we’ve arrived,” Jeff said.

Sam pulled his pack from the cache. “She’s talking about taking on the twelve best mages this world has, with an army of wights to boot. That’s crazy.”

“Suicide, really,” Fred agreed, lifting out his pack.

“Shad, you’re quiet,” Derek observed.

“That’s because I’m going to help her,” the Jinxman finished tying his torches to his pack and slung it onto his back with a grunt. “You guys do what you want.”

“You trust her?” Fred was surprised.

“No. But she’s the first person we’ve met here who is doing something for zero personal gain.” The Jinxman faced the other Talons. “She got banished here, she accepts it, and she is still putting her life on the line for a world that has long since forgotten her. Anybody that stupid deserves my help.” The Jinxman grinned at his friends. “You guys can head back. I’ll tell you how it played out.”

“I’m staying, too,” Derek announced. “I didn’t go to Iraq to let these terrorists trash the US.”

“What makes you think she can pull this off?” Sam asked. “At most she’s got us and her pen-pal boy-toy.”

“She was the one the Emperor sent where things were the worst, right? And the baddies who ganged up on her here preferred boxing her in than going for a kill; I’m guessing that if it can be done, she can do it.”

“And if you’re wrong?” the Bard persisted.

“Feces occurs, dude. Just box me up and ship me home.”

Fred and Jeff looked at each other for a long moment and then Fred started snickering. “We can’t let the goat-banger upstage us.”

Derek sighed and shook his head.

“I’m sorry guys, I just don’t see it,” Sam hung his head. “I’m going home.”

“No harm, no foul,” Shad slapped the Bard on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it-I’m sure it’s just a result of your parents never loving you and the strain of going through life with a small penis.”

Sam gave Shad the finger.

“Jeff, get his stones mounted on his belly harness, Derek, let him copy out the locations and incantations. We need to keep a copy in case we need a plan B.”

“Plan B is to use twice as much explosives,” Fred objected.

“Plan C, then.”

The trip down the slopes was much faster than going upslope, although it wasn’t easy. The four Talons bickered and harassed each other as was their custom, Sam brooded, Astkar kept his own council, and Fu Hao smelled nearly every type of plant they passed. By the second hour she was able to stop wearing the cloth across her eyes so long as she kept her hat tipped low across her face. Each evening after dark she left the group to dance on high ground under the stars.

“So how did time pass for her in the prison?” Sam asked Astkar while the former Chinese general was trotting off to examine an interesting rock outcropping.

“Much like being in a dreaming state, into which followers were able to link views of the outside world,” the mage explained. “That is as much a part of the prison as the physical structure. Obviously, a person as resourceful as my Lady would have been able to extract herself if she had been fully aware.” 

“Sleeping Beauty,” Jeff observed. “Only instead of a kiss she needed a hand job from Derek.”

“I wish,” the Shadowmancer rolled his eyes. “When that door vanished I figured I was toast.”

“She really seems to be happy to see the real world,” Shad observed, watching Fu Hao chase a rabbit.

“Indeed,” Astkar’s sour face twitched into something that approached a smile. “Of course, the imminence of death makes each moment sweeter.”

“Death? I thought she said she could do this?” Fred objected.

“Closing the road is within our means. Surviving after the roads collapse and you depart is another matter entirely. The Twelve will be undone, but their undead horde will remain, and she will only have my assistance.”

“What about this army she said she was calling?”

“She works upon that each evening. The…well, I suppose you could describe it as dancing.”

“No, I mean why will they not help after the roads are cut?”

“They are of your world, shades of those who have fallen. The opening of the roads allows their calling.”

“Undead?” Shad asked suspiciously.

“No. Just warriors who are willing to suffer battle and risk the pains of death one more time in defense of what they once held dear. When the roads close they will return to their rightful place.”

“Leaving you and Fu Hao facing an army of wights,” Derek said slowly.

“Yes.”

“Both of you are expecting to die.”

“Just so.”

“Why? I mean, why
you
? Fu Hao is fighting for the land of her birth, but why are you fighting?” Shad asked.

“This is my land, my world,” Astkar turned his darks eyes to the horizon. “It is far from perfect, but it is what it is. The Twelve have much larger plans than just revenge-the dark attacker is merely the first step in their endeavors. If the Council succeeds their grand ambitions will grind the lives of tens of thousands of ordinary men and women into the dirt and reshape our world into something that is much worse than the tribulations common today. I am not inclined to stand by and allow that to happen.”

The Talons lapsed into a thoughtful silence as they worked their way down-slope. Tired of chasing rabbits and birds, Fu Hao rejoined them, flushed and smiling. “What a grim band of warriors,” she chided the group. “I have seen funeral processions that were more jolly.”

“We were just pondering the coming battle, my Lady,” Astkar gestured vaguely, perhaps towards the future.

“What will happen, will happen,” the warlord slapped her sword hilts. “No one ever won by sighing and weeping.”

“Hookers and beer!” Jeff grinned.

She missed the reference but caught the spirit and grinned. “The Tu-Fang resisted the formation of a greater state for generations, but I broke them in the field. The Yi, the Quang, and the Ba fell each in their own turn, undone by over confidence and a failure to understand their warriors. To win, first you must conquer your fears.”