Jake's Women (Wizards) (11 page)

20.
      
Norn Magic

“Yes, yes, yes, yes…” Betty screamed as I collapsed on top of her.

It hadn’t taken long because, well, illicit sex is often more exciting than the regular kind and knowing that Betty’s father might walk in at any moment gave me added urgency. What I lost in time I made up for in energy and I had been banging the headboard against the wall from the moment we started.

Betty giggled like a little girl. “It was lucky I started before you as you were so fast. Quite a ride though.”

She opened the drawer on the bedside table and threw a small medicine bottle at me. The label had come off and the pills didn’t look very appetizing through the transparent brown plastic.

“And these are what, Viagra?”

Betty put her hand over her mouth and barely suppressed further laughter.

“Jake Morrissey on Viagra? Not even the sheep would be safe. They’re Vitamin E, silly. You’ve got to keep up your strength.”

I pulled up my jeans as much to let her know she wasn’t getting any more as to avoid Mr. Hardy coming in with them still round my ankles.

“What superhuman power did you give me this time?” I asked sarcastically.

“Not staying power, that’s for sure.”

Betty got off the bed and started to put on her clothes. “It doesn’t work that way every time, Jake. The more you know me, the more insight you will gain over your powers. Or maybe I should have said ‘clear-sight’ as much as insight.”

I watched as she wriggled into her underwear. She was a pretty girl by anybody’s standards. Despite a certain amount of soreness I still felt a twitch in my groin at the sight of her luscious curves.

“How are your wives?” she asked. Despite that being a very ordinary sort of question, I could see she was tensed up.

“Both fine. And I have a son and a daughter to go with them.”

Mentioning the children made me hesitate. Betty had told me that her role in my life was not to have my children. Apparently, it was written somewhere in some Norn prophecy. I wondered if it hurt to know I had children with both the women I had married.

Whatever the reason she asked, she gasped at my answer.

“Oh my, things really have been changed.”

That stirred my curiosity. Betty was part Norn, a species of elf that could see the future and was long extinct. Strange as it may sound, predicting the future turned out not to be a survival characteristic, though I was almost certain it should have been.

“Why, what should have happened?”

Betty shook her head. “There is no
should
, Jake. There is only what is and what might be. That’s why prophesies are so vague; because there are many possible futures and a good prophecy covers them all. I knew you had changed the things that were the most likely before you arrived. I’ve had a vision that Valhalla may side with you and nobody has ever predicted that.”

“Tell me what you expected to happen.” A sense of dread had crept up on me and I found myself holding Betty tightly by the arms and shaking her.

“I shouldn’t, Jake. What possible good would it do?”

“I want to know.” I had put a compulsion on her that should have made her sing like the proverbial canary, but she brushed it off caually. I suspect Norns had that kind of protection built in.

“Let me go, Jake. You’re hurting me.”

I came back from where my fear had taken me and let go. She sat on the bed and rubbed her arms where I’d held them. I put out a hand

“I can heal them if you’ll let me.”

She shook her head and we remained like that for a while. Me standing anxiously and wondering what had come over me, Betty rubbing her arms and trying not to cry.

“That’s why the Norns died out. Despite the stupidity of it, humans and elves always want to know what was going to happen, and what could have been.”

“I’m sorry. This terrible feeling came over me and I took it out on you.”

“How did you get out of the Conference?”

It seemed like a strange question, but what the heck.

“I escaped. The Progenitors are still trying to get me back, though the Dragons may have stopped them. The Progenitors rules should have stopped them. I expect they’ve been reminded of that by now.”

Betty nodded as though all that made sense. For a girl on a farm in the middle of nowhere she was remarkably well informed on multiverse politics.

“In all the projected futures that didn’t happen, you never escaped. You bargained with the Progenitors to be released using releasing Diabli magic as a threat. You required them to remove your Representative status in a way that would humiliate Valhalla. Valhallan hatred of you would have become legendary.”

“Better the way it actually happened.”

Betty nodded again. “Perhaps, there were good and bad consequences. The negotiations would have taken a couple of days.”

She waited for me to work out what she meant. A day or two seemed to make little difference to me. Of course, I would have missed the births of Merlin and Morgana. Then it struck me.

“Esmeralda?”

Betty nodded. “In all the futures ever seen.”

“You could have warned me.” Again I felt anger flush through me. If Betty had told me what she knew early enough…

“She would have died, and so would you; desperately trying to reach her. You found a future that didn’t exist. You have no idea how impossible that is.”

I didn’t like it, but I was getting the hang of it. Betty would only tell me things that helped in the larger plan, and she would make that choice.

“And the bad consequences?”

“I should have noticed the moment you arrived. You are no longer carrying the Knife of Truth. Where is it?”

It took me a few moments to figure out what she was talking about. It was a small knife given to me by Betty. It had been part of the treasure hoard I found on the farm. I’d been wearing it when I was taken by the Progenitors.

“I woke up in a tank. I was naked.”

Betty didn’t seem surprised. “They would have returned your clothes and possessions had you negotiated your freedom. The loss of the knife is catastrophic. It may cost us the multiverse.”

I didn’t feel worried. Losing Esmeralda would have been much worse than losing a knife.

“There is no other knife like it, Jake. You have to retrieve it.”

It seemed to me; thinking about it. That if I had made a deal with the Progenitors I would never have been dragged into the Damaged Zone. I couldn’t help wondering if Betty and her Norn prophecies had anticipated that.

“And what of the Diabli?” I asked innocently.

“Long dead and forgotten.” Betty looked as though she was about to say more when her eyes fixed on a spot far beyond me. She stayed like that for over a minute and then she fell back on the bed, her eyes streaming with tears.

“Oh my God, Jake. What have you done?”

21.
      
Council

“And then she started thumping me and telling me to go. So I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Retnor blinked his golden eyes and started laughing. When a dragon laughs it’s best to be anywhere other than directly in front of him. Plumes of fire spewed from his nose in flamethrower manner and I threw up shield to protect both me and the furniture on that side of the cave. We get through a lot of furniture in the Bat Cave.

“What’s so funny?”

The sheets of flame reduced to tiny squirts of flame.

[It was not what you said. It was the Elders reply. They said that Betty was a true Norn. Not saying what she wanted you to do and then complaining when you failed to do it.]

Fluffy, err Retnor had been relaying my story to the Dragon Elders as I told it to him. I’d started with my visit to the Damaged Zone and finished with my visit to Betty. I needed advice and they were the closest thing I had to independent advisors. Anything I told Jenny and Esmeralda would be filtered through their feelings for me.

The other important thing to bear in mind was that anything I told Retnor would be known to the Elders anyway. Dragons only have privacy in the sense that other dragons have little interest in what they are up to. They have a collective race memory that stores everything that ever happens to any of them and they are always in telepathic contact with each other at some minor level.

[The Elders note that you have not described the magic you used to enter and leave the Damaged Zone. They applaud your logic and foresightedness.]

Retnor used a claw to stroke my cheek. [Your talent for trouble continues unabated, Jake. I would caution you to avoid telling your wives about your physical relationship with Betty.]

I found myself grinning. “There are levels of stupidity I think I have risen above.”

[We can only hope so, for the sake of the multiverse not to mention your own.]

“Have the Dragons spoken to the Progenitors? I don’t want to spend my life looking over my shoulder.”

Retnor stared into space for a few seconds.

[Words were exchanged at the Temple in hop space. Dragons who had been representatives in the past found tracers within them. Some of the words spoken were angry. The Progenitors say they will not make any further attempts to capture you, and the Dragons have agreed not to release knowledge of the tracers to the other worlds.]

“Will that work? They told the Valhallans I was safe and look how that turned out.”

[News of the tracers would bring about the end of the Conference Between the Worlds. The Dragons think this is enough of a surety to guarantee the Progenitors keep their word.]

“What about the Knife?”

Retnor paused.

[If you return to the Conference World to try and retrieve it, the Progenitors will capture you. The Progenitors will become aware of its value if you seek its return. That will guarantee you never see it again.]

I sighed. “Damned if I do and damned if I don’t then?”

Retnor nodded his massive head.

“If Betty thinks it’s that important, I have to go and get it.”

Fluffy said nothing, but I could see he agreed by looking in his eyes.

I’d spend a few days with my wives and children first. If this was going to be a suicide mission I needed that; plus they’d kill me if I never came back without letting them know I was going. Or something like that. Women are wonderful, but they use some process I don’t understand in place of logic.

[I will go with you,] my friend said and raised his wings in the air like a gigantic parrot.

Well that decision was made, though it left me feeling depressed. I decided to visit all my friends before I went, and check they were all alright.

[The Elders have a request.] Retnor sounded apologetic. Okay, strictly speaking telepathy didn’t use sound, but it was amazing what you could get across when using it.

[They would like permission for me to look in your mind to find the information the Grasshopper said it had given you.]

“And not the information on how to get there?”

[Jake, I will not take that from you.]

I trusted my dragon. I wasn’t sure that dragons weren’t capable of lying, but I was sure he was as good as his word.

“What do you want me to do?”

[Sit in what’s left of the armchair, relax and think of nothing. When I start to probe, you will feel it and you must let me in.]

Thinking of nothing is one of my favorite pastimes. The mind probe tickled and I had a strong desire to block it, which I fought off manfully. Seconds later it was over.

“Did you get what you wanted?”

[The Elders wish to speak to you directly.]

Okay, that was unexpected. The Elders tended to shout and a long conversation with them could bring on a headache, but it must be important. I braced myself and nodded.

[JAKE MORRISSEY. THE CREATURE YOU SPOKE TO IS GRETOR AND IS THE OLDEST DRAGON ALIVE. WE THOUGHT HIM LOST WHEN THE UNIVERSES PIERCED BY THE DIABLI DISAPPEARED. THE INFORMATION HE PLANTED IN YOU WAS MEANT FOR US.]

“Couldn’t he have written a letter?” Humor was largely lost on the Elders, but I swear I heard a mental sigh.

[THE DAMAGED ZONE IS FINITE AND SHRINKING RAPIDLY. WITHIN ANOTHER TEN THOUSAND YEARS IT WILL BE GONE. POSSIBLY SOONER, AS THE FIREBIRDS THAT GIVE IT HEAT AND LIGHT ARE DYING]

Now that was my kind of timeframe. The grandkids would be grown. “You want me to rescue Gretor and the other dragons?”

[THERE ARE NO OTHERS AND GRETOR DOES NOT WANT YOU TO RETURN. THE DIABLI STILL LIVE. THEY SEEK A PATH FROM THERE TO HERE AND YOU MUST NOT GIVE THEM ONE. THE DIABLI ARE BRILLIANT SCIENTISTS AND MAGICIANS. THAT YOU MADE THE JOURNEY PROVES IT IS POSSIBLE AND IT IS CERTAIN THEY WILL FIND A WAY IF THEY FIND OUT. GRETOR INTENDS TO ATTACK THEM IN THE HOPE OF SLOWING THEM DOWN.]

“Just because I got there doesn’t mean they will escape.” After all, it wasn’t as if they had the Progenitors after them.

[LIKE ALL THE ORIGINAL INTELLIGENCES, THE DIABLI ARE EFFECTIVELY IMMORTAL AND FIENDISHLY INTELLIGENT. WHEN THE WAR WAS FOUGHT, THERE WERE LESS THAN A MILLION OF THEM AND NONE HAD BRED IN RECORDED HISTORY. THEY ARE SELF CENTRED BEYOND UNDERSTANDING AND THOSE THAT SURVIVE WILL BE GENIOUSES BY THEIR STANDARDS. THEY WILL FIND A WAY TO RETURN BECAUSE A WAY IS POSSIBLE.]

Just what I needed. Still, if it took them ten thousand years I probably shouldn’t be too worried. The dragons take a very long world view and usually I can’t see much beyond tomorrow. I shrugged.

[Jake, the Elders are very worried.]

“About something that might happen in a hundred or a couple of thousand years from now? And anyway, didn’t the Dragons defeat the Diabli last time?”

[No Jake, the Diabli defeated themselves when they believed they could undo the effects of their weapons. The massed forces of the multiverse were already defeated.]

I took a few moments to digest this new information.

“Looking on the bright side, they were too stupid to know when to run away last time. Nobody has ever accused me of that level of stupidity.]

[They were defeated by their hubris. We cannot rely on them doing that a second time.]

Now that was a gloomy thought. I decided to consider the problem again when and if I recovered the Knife and returned in one piece.
One problem at a time; unless they all come at once.
Now there was a motto to live by.