Jigsaw World (34 page)

Tom and Karla went back out to the courtyard
table to while away some of the hours until the group’s return. The
Seer, Tyr, Heimdall, Arpad and Veritasia eventually joined them,
and a good time was had by all.

Markus stood before the Tree at the Place of
Beginnings. Vera stood by his side. The Sage, the Herald and
Charlie were already facing outwards to watch for opposition. As
Vera joined the defensive arc, the Sorcerer took up his guard
position at Markus’s back, while Cernunnos stood before Markus to
officiate.

“
Markus, we are come to use the
Staff of Infinity to work upon the Tree of Reality, here in the
Place of Beginnings.” Cernunnos said. “Are you ready to complete
your task?”

“
I am ready.” Replied Markus. He
raised the Staff as he spoke to emphasize his readiness. As he
spoke the now familiar change mist appeared, and spread all the way
around the group. There were voices in the mists, and obscured
movements were seen.

Vera saw movement in the mists, and she
watched carefully. What she saw surprised her. From out of the
mists walked Darrin from her demon hunting days in Catcall. The big
problem with that was that she knew that Darrin had died shortly
after Vera had hooked up with this motley crew. That meant that it
was a dead man walking toward her, and now that she could see him
better, she realized that she could see through him in
places.

***Turn away from this place*** his voice sounded in her
mind. ***You are disturbing what must be. Let us
sleep***

“
Don’t listen to the dead.” The
Sorcerer said. “They lie, and they do not want the world to go
on.”

As he said that, the air began to move and
became a high wind. Personal items began to be pulled toward the
mist, and against the wind. At the Sorcerer’s instruction, Vera and
the others erected a psychic shield against the opposition. As she
did this, Vera felt a stirring of power deep within her mind. She
felt that she could release this power upon her enemies, and
suspected that she might be able to sweep them from the local
reality with that power.

Following Cernunnos’ instructions, Markus held
the Staff of Infinity against one of the cluster of branches of the
Tree. The slight humming vibration of the Staff had become an
electric thing, jumping and dancing in his hands. He saw that where
he held the Staff, the branches of the worldlines began to merge
and change, so that where there was many spindly branches, there
would now be one well fleshed and healthy branch.

Several of the dead were ranged against the
shield, attempting to force their way into the presence of the
group. They could hear the pleas to stop and the curses of the dead
as they held the barrier. Now the opposition included telekinetic
forces such as that which started with their apparel and
belongings, but the Tree was not susceptible, and there was nothing
physical otherwise present, except for the group and their
belongings, so there was a very limited supple of missiles for any
poltergeist activities.

Markus was making good progress on the Tree.
The Staff felt like it guided itself along the branches as soon as
he would touch it to the branch. He was already over half finished
with the task, depending on subtle, almost artistic mental signals
to know when one part was done, and when to start on the next
branch.

Vera felt the power now spinning near the
surface of her mind, and it felt eager to be released to do its
work. She and the others were virtually immune to the pleas and
curses of the dead by this point, so to release a great weapon upon
the dead would seem like overkill, but even the A bomb needed a few
tests before they brought it out to remodel Japan.

Markus looked to be nearly done with his task.
The Tree was virtually throbbing with health, and most of its
spindly branches were gone, replaced with branches that any world
class tree would admire. It was now or never, if Vera wanted to
test her new power.

She took the lid off of the energy, letting it
spiral upwards and gather force. When it had come as far as she
could take it and either control or release it, she added a tiny
bit more energy to the maelstrom, and the energy pushed out into
the Place of Beginnings from her mind. In a few seconds, it had
spread out over the field between her and the ghosts and the
mists.

As it came up to the mists, it swept them out
of existence, and with wails and screams, and waning curses, it
swept the ghosts of the dead out of the world along with the mist.
She felt a delicious fatigue come upon her, and she leaned for a
moment upon the Sage. The others were somewhat amazed at what power
she had summoned. She felt as though it was a power over a portion
of reality that she wielded, and she was eager to develop it
further when she had a chance.

The use of the Staff upon the Tree was
completed, and the opposition was gone. Everything was once more
right with the world, at least as far as this part of the group
were concerned. It was getting along to the time to get back to the
compound for the night. It had been nearly two hours since they had
arrived, which meant that it would be about ten in the evening back
home.

The group gathered back together, and the
Sorcerer did his shadow thing to open the way back through the
wormhole and into the compound. The tornado of light lying on its
side appeared at his behest, and he led the group back through the
glowing light of its mouth, and into the parlor of the compound.
The group walked into the room, as the hallway double doors softly
swung shut.

The group was welcomed back with open arms.
That is to say, they were greeted by Tom and company, who had eaten
most of the edible foods, drank most of the good drinks, and who
bore the returning group no gifts. Tom had taken care of the food
and drink problem, having earlier used the credit card that he had
swiped from the absent Sage to order more food in the form of pizza
and subs, and drink in the form of soda and from one of the
bootleggers who lived down the street, and for some reason was set
up to take credit cards.

Markus and Vera headed straight for the
morning's newspaper. There were two sets of memories that were
related but significantly different from each other dancing through
their heads. They remembered that the Mar's mission was nearly to
the planet's surface, but they also remembered something about an
alien contact, and a successful Martian colony.

When they got to the newspaper, there it was.
A prospector craft had encountered an alien spacecraft in orbit
around the moon of Saturn called Titan. The first landing on Mars
had occurred nearly ten years ago, according to the updated
timeline, not this week as per the previous incarnation of the
timeline.

The colony had been established at the
original landing site on Mars nearly eight years ago, and had been
thriving ever since. Since then the space activity had exploded.
There were now hundreds of private and state sponsored prospecting,
scientific and even recreational ventures all through the Solar
system. There was even an orbital casino around Venus, and a
microgravity factory in orbit around the moon.

The four of them forgot whatever tensions
might have been between them previously, in the excitement of the
amazing changes that had been made to the timeline. They had also
turned on the television and tuned in Fox News to see what they
could see of the underpinnings of reality now. The first thing they
noticed was that the problems in the Arab world had dwindled to
almost nothing. Even the Palestinians and the Israelis were getting
along well.

Everyone and their kid brothers were getting
into the science circus. Most of the major corporations had either
started subsidizing the Science and Mathematics departments of
their local Universities, or even starting their own Universities.
The most popular majors in college were now Physics and
Astrophysics.

One of the most amazing things that the group
saw on the television was the absence of the monsters that used to
be around and behind most of the disasters that have always been
the mainstay of national news. When the news showed a new eruption
occurring in Alaska, there was no gigantic creature causing it,
just geological factors. There was no hint of vampirism, or
lycanthropy, or any news of empty graves or flesh eating
anything
/, except for the usual flesh eating
bacteria, of course.

It slowly dawned on the group that the world
had become a
better
/ place, even though they all had a
memory that it had always been this way. The memories of monsters
and paranormal things felt like a dream, but it was much stronger
than any real dream memory had a right to be.

In their excitement, Tom, Karla, Markus and
Vera temporarily forgot any differences that they might have with
each other, and discussed the world and their place in it. In each
case, the other three remarked that the one being discussed had
grown
during this process. All of them were developing powers that
astounded and awed them, and in some strange way were staking a
claim to their existence and their personas.

Tom and Karla had a connection between them
that was present all the time now, and a power was growing in them,
both individually and as a couple, that promised the ability to
deal death on even a planetary scale under the right circumstances.
Vera had shown that she had a power that could evict something from
the very fabric of reality. Markus had a more subtle evolution, but
there was something growing within him that would make him more
than he was.

After a time they noticed that it was nearly
one in the morning. Tom was due to deliver the Stone of Reality
tomorrow, and if he was to do it awake, he would need to get to
sleep. With a final Goodnight to all, Tom and Karla made their way
to bed and to sleep.

******

Karla opened her eyes. She could have sworn
that she heard Tom say something, but there he was, sawing logs in
the bed next to her. She was still hearing his voice just a little,
sort of muttering in the distance, but under her skin at the same
time. She could understand just enough of what he said to realize
that it was stream of consciousness stuff, hence it fit well with
the sleeping state that he was obviously in right now.

She decided to try an experiment. Mentally,
she thought “Wake up!” But she made sure that she didn’t make any
physical sounds. It worked like magic. Tom popped one eye open, and
looked at her as though she might have lost her mind.

“
Did you say something, Karla? He
asked. “I was busy sleeping.”

Karla looked over at the alarm clock and
discovered that it was 10:45. It was time to get up and go find
some food to eat, before the train that was the nonexistent stream
of time brought them to the moment when once again, they must visit
the Place of Beginnings.

***Let’s go eat***
Karla thought.

“
Let’s do it.” Tom said. “I feel
hungry!”

“
Do you realize that you just
responded to something I thought, but didn’t say?” She asked. “Do
you feel me in the back of your thoughts, like I feel
you?”

They had a little conversation about the ins
and outs of this telepathic link they seemed to have developed, and
then by mutual agreement, they decided that it was indeed time to
fill their stomachs. They left the bedroom pushing thoughts back
and forth between them as they made their way to the
kitchen.

They got to the kitchen, where Charlie had put
together a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes and hash
browns, with coffee, milk and some sort of tea that tasted even
stranger than Mate’ tea did. When Tom asked about it, Charlie said
that Tyr had brought it from some very aged version of the
earth.

They dug in as Heimdall spun a tale about a
world where there were gigantic insects. He said that they were
pretty strange, thicker bodied than most earthly insects, with more
curves and an odd geometry to their bodies, but they looked, acted
and moved like insects, only four to eight feet long insects who
had absolutely no problem with respiration or with moving about. By
the time Heimdall had espoused all of these qualifications, Tom was
beginning to believe that he was telling the truth, and had not
made the bugs up.

Charlie must have served in the Navy, because
he cooked in such large quantities that no one had to duel for the
last piece of bacon, or the last bit of egg. During the meal and
during the stories and other conversation, Karla and Tom had a
running mental conversation going between them. The connection
between them was getting more and more secure.

At first Tom was leery of letting Karla that
deep into his thoughts. He thought that she would be horrified by
some of his darker thoughts, but he had noticed her delving into
those, and she hadn’t flinched. She smiled as he thought that it
was magical when one found someone else who was just as bent as you
were.

After a while, Karla and Tom were as stuffed
as they could possibly get, always a wonderful physical state to be
in moments before getting into a possibly highly active situation.
Tom sat back and lit up a cigarette, taking a deep drag in blissful
contentment. He had a good feeling about today. He might get to be
the hero of the day, or he might be able to develop his talent a
bit more, or at least, something should show up during his task
that he will get to kill.