Castle War! (20 page)

“Isis, maybe we could cut it off a little early?”
 

“The data is coming as fast as possible, Jeremy,” Isis said. “We need all we can get for an effective spell.”
 

“Right.” Jeremy peered out into the nothingness. It was not black, not gray, not any color. There was a random shifting quality to it. Jeremy thought of being trapped inside the screen of a TV that was tuned to a blank channel, only it wasn't that bright. It was just murk out there, formless and void.
 

A nervous half-minute went by.
 

“Computer, is the hull pressure still rising?”
 

“Not as fast, but it's still going up.”
 

“Good. Maybe it'll level out.”
 

“Don't bet on it.”
 

The craft lurched violently, then was still again.
 

Jeremy had clutched the arms of his seat. “Whoa, what was that?”
 

“Don't quite know,” the Toshiba said. “We've run into some kind of turbulence.”
 

“Turbulence? What could it be? I mean, there's nothing out there to get all riled up.”
 

“It could be the pressure of bending space at the boundaries of the nonspace.”
 

“I don't understand that, but I don't like the sound of it.”
 

“In another few seconds, we'll either be mashed into atoms or...”
 

“Or what?”
 

“Thirty seconds to cutoff,” Isis said, her eyes on the Toshiba's readout screen.
 

“I don't know what,” the Toshiba said. “Something's happening out there. There are stresses coming into play that I can't even measure.”
 

Another convulsive shudder went through the traveler, this one more violent. Jeremy wound up wedged between the seat and the control panel.
 

“Should put seat belts in these things,” he said as Isis gave him a hand up.
 

“There are seat belts,” Isis said. “Right here.” She pulled out the buckled end of a belt from a feed mounted on the underside of Jeremy's chair. Jeremy inserted the buckle into a slot on the other side and it locked with a click.
 

“How did you find that? I never knew it was there.”
 

“That info
is
in the data base,” Isis said.
 

“Good. How's the data acquisition coming along?”
 

“We're almost through. We can—”
 

The craft turned upside down, then began to tumble end over end. There was something outside the view port now, a jumble of fleeting images: rapidly changing landscapes backgrounding a flickering blur of random images.
 

“What's happening?” Jeremy screamed.
 

“We got squeezed out of nonspace,” the Toshiba said. “Squirted out like a seed from a squashed melon. Now we're careening through the universes.”
 

“Stop us!”
 

“No can do, sweetheart. We're not staying in one continuum long enough to grab on to anything. We have about as much control as a runaway Mack truck.”
 

The scene outside the view port was changing like card faces in a riffled deck. Flurries of random colors and shapes, flashing landscapes, starscapes, patterns, and crazy quilts, all spinning dizzily.
 

“There must be something we can do,” Jeremy pleaded. “Engage stabilizers!”
 

“Stabilizers already engaged, Captain. Zero effectiveness.”
 

“Try thrusting!”
 

“Also zero effectiveness.”
 

“Reverse polarity on the graviton beam modulators.”
 

“Reversing. Negative function.”
 

“I'm out of ideas!” Jeremy wailed.
 

“We're out of luck,” the Toshiba laptop said.
 

 

 

 

Mizzer

 

Incarnadine dismounted and climbed the base of a fallen obelisk to survey the temple complex. There were three main structures and many subsidiary ones. All were in ruins, but one of the larger buildings had most of its columns upright. Two colossal statues, seated kingly figures in fancy headdress, flanked the entrance.
 

Pointing, he asked, “That one?”
 

Basrim, his guide, nodded. “That is it, Honorable One. The place you seek.”
 

“You're sure it's the Temple of the Universes?”
 

“Very sure, Honorable One.”
 

Incarnadine scowled. “Looks like an ordinary funerary temple to me.”
 

“But it is also a place of great power.”
 

“There are many such places around here. The Mizzerites knew what they were doing when it came to magic. When they cast a spell, it lasted for millennia.”
 

Basrim dismounted, came to the edge of the base, and looked up at him. “Will we be staying here, Honorable One?”
 

“Don't unpack anything. I want to take a look around first.”
 

Basrim bowed. “Yes, Honorable One.”
 

“You stay here.” Incarnadine jumped down and went to his mount. Unhooking his scabbard, he thought better of it and put it back. Going armed into a temple might trip an old anti-sacrilege spell. He didn't want any trouble.
 

“The Honorable One is wise,” Basrim said, smiling.
 

Incarnadine took off his dagger and stashed it in his bundle.
 

“I shouldn't be long,” he said, walking past Basrim. “If this is the place, we'll make camp.”
 

Basrim's bow was deep. “Very good, Honorable One.”
 

The temple was extraordinarily big, and did he indeed get a sense of the unusual. Danger? Perhaps. If only he knew more about the Mizzerites. There were thousands of worlds, and there were ancient and defunct civilizations in practically all of them, many of which were fascinating. He simply had never got around to this one.
 

A walled walkway led to the main temple and he followed it, treading in the ancient footsteps of the temple priests and pallbearers as they processed from the river with the casket of the king. The cortege of relatives, courtiers, and worshippers would follow.
 

A needle of stone, inscribed head to foot with arcane glyphs, stood to the right of the walkway, and he looked at it as he passed. He wished he had time to decipher the inscription. He wondered what the glyphs spoke of, what glorious and triumphant events the monument commemorated.
 

At the entrance to the temple he paused to look at the statues. They appeared to be likenesses of the same king wearing different ceremonial headdresses, one religious, he guessed, the other secular. Whoever he was, the ruins of his temple lay behind him.
 

He chuckled to himself. “'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'”
 

He mounted the temple steps and crossed the threshold. The interior was a forest of columns, all carved and inscribed. Despite the glaring sun and the absence of a roof, deep shadows lay within. Silence. He stopped and turned slowly. There was the smell of dust. Looking down, he watched a beetle crawl across the stone floor.
 

He attuned his senses and took the measure of the place. Yes, there was power here, but not nearly enough for his purposes. Basrim probably had not lied, but merely reported the local folklore. Now what? There was nothing to do but search blindly, temple after temple, ruin after ruin. There were hundreds of temples in this area alone, thousands along the river. If only he could have access to books, records, ancient documents. If only they existed! He had asked around, sought out various dealers in antiquities, but they had nothing that went back more than a few centuries. All that was known about the Mizzerites had been carved in stone by the Mizzerites themselves, millennia ago, and little of it had been deciphered. He could effect a translation spell easily enough, but how long would it take to find a reference to the location of the Temple of the Universes, if there was any reference at all? He did not even know what dynasty the temple dated from, let alone the specific king at whose behest it was constructed. Research would take years, and he didn't have days.
 

Besides, the temple might not exist; it might never have existed. All he had were vague legends about a place of power, the abode of the god of a thousand universes. There was nothing much else in the way of hard information.
 

He heard something off in the shadows. The scrape of sandal leather against stone. He searched the darkness.
 

A man came out from behind a column. Dressed in a tattered cloth cap and threadbare caftan, he also wore a crooked smile. His teeth were black and broken.
 

“Greetings, Honorable.”
 

Incarnadine heard more footsteps behind him. He turned his head far enough to see two more men emerge from the shadows. They approached, daggers in hand.
 

“Are you Basrim's buddies?” he asked.
 

The man held out his hand. “It would be easier for us all if you handed over your gold right away. If we have to kill you, here in the temple we must do it in the ancient way. Very slowly, bleeding you like a butchered animal. You would not like it, and it would be work for us.”
 

Incarnadine was motioning up a spell but the nearest man lunged, and he had to make do with natural defenses; he kicked the dagger away, then spun and landed a high kick alongside his assailant's head. The man went sprawling on the flagstone.
 

“Ah, you chose the hard way,” the first thug said, drawing a curved short sword.
 

“Your heart,” Incarnadine said, extending a hand and making a clawing motion.
 

“Eh?” The speaker was nonplussed. The third thug had edged closer but now stopped, dagger low and poised for an upward slash.
 

“I think your heart has stopped beating.”
 

The snaggle-toothed one guffawed. Suddenly his smile faded.
 

“Yes, you're feeling strange. It's your heart.”
 

The man put a finger on his pulse. A look of dismay sprang to his face.
 

“My heart!”
 

“I told you. Your blood has stopped flowing. You feel faint. The darkness gathers, and soon the long night will come.”
 

“No, I...”
 

The man collapsed, sword clattering on the stone.
 

The third man looked at his fallen accomplice, then at the stranger.
 

“A sorcerer!”
 

“Yes. And a pretty nasty one at that. Have you ever heard of the creeping phlox?”
 

“The what?”
 

“The creeping phlox. It starts on the toes—little red boils that turn to pustules. Then it works its way up the body. The pustules turn to oozing sores, the sores to masses of corruption. Every extremity of the body falls off, starting with the soft kind that hangs. Then the rot really sets in.... Well, not to put too fine a point on it, you got it, babe.”
 

Terror-stricken, the man fled out the back of the temple.
 

Incarnadine went behind a column and waited.
 

Presently Basrim came creeping into the shadows. He knelt over the one who had spoken first, then looked around fearfully.
 

Incarnadine stepped out from behind the pillar.
 

“Honorable One! You are safe. Thank the heavens, I thought you had met your end at the hands of these—”
 

“Your friends, Basrim?”
 

“My fr—? Oh, never, Honorable One! I have never laid eyes on them!”
 

“Now, why do I think you're lying, just like you lied about this temple?”
 

“But ... Honorable One, please! Let me explain!”
 

“Be quiet. Do the local legends say that this is the Temple of the Universes?”
 

“Yes, they do.
 

“Basrim, I'm warning you....”
 

“No! I made it up! Forgive me, Honorable One! An eternity of pardon!”
 

“Get up, get up. God, I hate it when they grovel.”
 

“An eternity of pardon, Honorable One! Forgive your humble servant and I will do anything, I will serve you always, faithfully, I will clean any part of your body with my tongue—!”
 

“Get your lips off the floor. Now, look. All I want from you is the truth. Do you know where that temple is or don't you? If you don't, do you know anyone who does know? Answer me!”
 

Desolated, Basrim slowly shook his head.
 

“I thought so. Tourists really get taken to the cleaners around here, don't they? Well, I should have known better. Okay, Basrim. That's all.”
 

Basrim got up slowly. “I ... I may go?”
 

“Yes.”
 

Basrim began to slink away.
 

“Oh, by the way, your first wife, the one with the lip sore?”
 

Basrim stopped dead. “My first ... you mean Altma?”