Kingmaker (3 page)

Smaller white, red, and yellow stones surrounded the blue stone in an intricate pattern that seemed to consist of five-pointed stars intertwined with Celtic knots.

She mimicked the scale of the drawing, figuring the gems were about twice as big as those in the picture so she put twelve inches rather than six between the blue and green centerpieces. Putting down the first few stones was easy. After that, it got harder.

Each gem resisted its placement more tenaciously than the one before, pushing back against her hand as she forced it into position, until she'd pushed it past some point of resistance. Once she got it close, it sort of snapped into place, letting her know that she was on the right track. On
a
track, at any rate.

By the time she was down to her last three stones, her face was drenched with sweat and her fingers and palm were bleeding.

She had to wrestle with stone number three. With stone number two, she needed both hands.

With the last stone, an insignificant green thing about as big as a ball bearing, she had to stand up, using all of her body weight to press it down.

The last gem flickered when she finally broke through its resistance, then the entire pattern lit up with a purple glow that would have looked entirely in place in a ‘dark side of the force’ moment in the movies.

Something twisted inside of Ellie, as if she'd been turned inside out, shoved through an old-fashioned clothes wringer, and then shook back to normal.

The purple glow gathered itself over the blue stone, striking at her like a fist.

She sat down on her butt, hard.

The glow dissipated and Ellie looked around.

She wasn't sure what she expected, but it wasn't what she saw.

What she saw was the glowing exit signs of the Robinson's May Department Store. Other than Ellie's severe case of motion sickness, nothing had changed. Except, she glanced at the clock on the wall and then at her watch. They had been in synch. Now her watch was fifteen minutes behind.

So, maybe, she'd crossed through the dimensions—only to end up back where she'd started. Still, something had happened. That power hadn't been her imagination: it had been frighteningly real. Whether it was magic or some super-sophisticated science, her parents’ stones made things happen. Unfortunately for her plan, whatever had happened wasn't useful.

She flipped through the rest of her mother's journal but the remainder seemed to consist of completely mundane, and boring, incidents from here on Earth. The time Ellie had broken her arm. Ellie's first report card from school. The day she'd earned her first black belt. It was all there in excruciating detail—just like a mother keeping an ordinary scrapbook on an ordinary daughter. The only excitement came when they'd spotted someone in a knight's uniform and fled Chicago.

One thing there weren't was any instructions on magic. Either her mother had never intended for her to use the stones to return, or she was missing something.

So, what was the problem?

Ellie helped herself to a handful of the jellybeans the security guard had missed and thought about it. She was sure she'd duplicated the pattern exactly. Besides the jewels seemed wedded to certain distinct positions. That pattern had brought her here, along with her parents. So, how come it hadn't taken her back?

She'd figuratively been banging her head on that problem for half an hour before the blindingly obvious answer hit her. Her mother's pattern had brought them to Earth. She'd duplicated the pattern and ended up on—Earth. Duh. What she needed to do was create a pattern that would take her away from Earth and back to wherever these stones had come from in the first place.

When the purple shock of dimensional travel had hit her, the stones had lost alignment, gathering themselves together in a heap in the center of the table. Now she picked them up, and stared at them, trying to garner their secrets.

She'd messed this up once already and had been lucky she'd ended up where she'd started instead of torn to pieces or sent into the vacuum of space where Earth had been seventeen years before when she'd been brought here. If she messed up again, she probably wouldn't be so lucky—she'd probably be dead. Which meant she had to get things right this time.

She looked at the stones, then at the pattern.

Although each stone was unique, almost all of them were faceted, each with a single rune cut into the largest face.

Only two stones were different. The blue and the green jewels that formed the center and punctuation mark of the pattern were smooth, with no marking or lettering to give them meaning.

Ellie took a deep breath and nodded. She'd assume that the cut stones were the pattern, focus, and power. If that was right, then the smooth stones defined the source and destination of the spell. Reversing the source and destination should take her back to wherever she came from originally. Maybe.

If that weren't right, then she'd probably never know.

She laid out the pattern again, but this time, the large green stone formed the centerpiece and the blue stone the punctuation mark.

The first pattern had been difficult. This one was nearly impossible.

She had to stop by the jellybean jar for energy recharges so many times that it ran out before she'd finished, and she went through two vanilla cokes from the soda machine in the employees lounge.

The last stone simply refused to move. It held itself in the air about four inches above its slot and hung there. She pushed with all of her might, but it pushed back, digging into her skin as if it stood on an invisible steel pole.

She hitched her backpack and pressed harder.

Her hand slipped against the unmoving stone, slicing a deep groove through her skin. Blood dripped over the pattern but the rock remained in place. Close to the pattern, but not close enough. Heat was building inside of her like a blast furnace, threatening to explode into spontaneous human combustion.

"Hey. Is anyone there?"

She'd forgotten about the security guard. The jewels’ glow might as well have been an alarm. There was no way he could miss them.

She pulled her hand back and the last glowing jewel stayed there—hanging four inches above the pattern. The heat flared up until she was in pain and literally surprised that her skin didn't blister. She couldn't move stone into place, but she couldn't pull it away and hide either. She supposed she could run, leaving the gems behind her, but she wasn't sure that she could get away from the heat that way and besides, she needed to finish.

In desperation, Ellie yanked her father's sword out and used the hard steel blade to press down on the jewel, pushing all of her weight against the metal.

Her arms’ strength lifted her feet off the ground—one hundred and ten pounds of woman, thirty pounds of supplies on her back, and a couple of pounds of polished steel, all supported by the tiny stone. What they didn't do was move the stone, at all.

"What the—hold it right there."

A rustle told her the rent-a-cop had gone for his gun. He probably saw himself as the great hero. Once they figured out who she was, he probably would be.

Ellie hooked her feet around the table legs and added that extra bit of shove to the equation.

Amazingly it was enough. The stone slid downward, incredibly slowly, as the guard drew his weapon.

She groaned as she pushed it closer—and then it snapped into place, dumping Ellie on the floor.

The purple shockwave swirled her away into an oblivion of gut-wrenching stillness.

"Drop your weapon and put your hands up."

Ellie felt completely disoriented, again. At least that burning heat had vanished, being replaced by an empty coldness. She was certain she'd had it right this time, but there was no mistaking the security guard's voice.

She dropped the katana and forced her eyes open. Open to sunlight and a dense green forest.

"Turn it off."

Sure enough, the rent-a-cop glared at her, his automatic drawn, his flashlight held like a club rather than something that could offer illumination.

"Turn what off?"

"Don't play idiot games with me. I didn't recognize it when you were playing with it, but I've read about holographic projectors and for sure there isn't a forest in the basement of Robinson's May. Turn it off by the count of five."

Since she couldn't turn anything off and didn't want to get shot, Ellie caught a deep breath and thought fast.

"Uh, try using your nose, will you. No projector could make it smell like forest."

He wrinkled his forehead. “Power of suggestion? Maybe a cheap pine deodorizer."

"Sorry, Toto. We're not in Torrance any more."

For a good ten seconds, the guard pointed his gun directly at her head. Finally he lowered it.

"I'm not saying I believe you, but what the hell happened?"

It was a good question.

In slightly orangey sunlight, the guard looked young, maybe a couple of years older than she. His dark-brown hair and olive skin showed a hint of Mediterranean in his background. He was tall and looked fit, but not bulky. A surfer type rather than a football player. If she'd brought him home, her mother would have thought he was great. Except she no longer had a home and her mother wouldn't share her enthusiasm and joy with anyone, ever again.

So, what kind of world had she ended up on?

The trees were big and leafy, but the looked just a bit off. The leaves were fatter than normal tree leaves. The light from the sun was a bit deeper, more orange than white. The air lacked the tang of smog that simply couldn't be avoided in L.A. no matter how hard the air conditioners tried to filter it out. But she also smelled a just a hint of burning wood, although she knew she'd never smelled that exact flavor of wood before.

Somehow, the jewels had worked. She'd traveled across the dimensions and, quite possibly, returned to the world of her birth—the world from which her parents’ killer had come.

Now, all she needed was to keep the overanxious rent-a-cop she'd brought with her from shooting her.

"You know anything about science?"

He narrowed his dark eyes. “I'm taking classes at Harbor College. Mostly history but I did take physics last semester."

"I think I created a dimensional portal."

"Yeah, sure, kid. And those LEDs are mini-black holes, right?"

Ellie looked at the gems, then gathered the heap up and slid them back into the pouch where she'd found them. They seemed important, and powerful. You didn't just leave self-glowing jewels that might be mini-black holes lying around.

"I don't know
what
they are. I don't know
how
they work. But I do know one thing. That sun looks a good bit oranger than good-ole Sol. And according to my watch, it isn't even midnight in California where we were three minutes ago, so what the heck is
any
sun doing shining?

"I knew I shouldn't have stolen those jellybeans,” the security guard muttered. “Somebody must have stuck LSD in with them. I'm stuck on
Gilligan's Island
with a preteen science fiction punk."

"Whatever.” Alone on a strange world, she wasn't about to correct his gender impression until she knew him a lot better. “There may be wild animals here.” Or unfriendly natives. Considering that her parents had fled and then been hunted down, unfriendly natives sounded distinctly likely.

He took a deep breath. “Right. I'm Mark. Mark Heath."

His smile showed the slightest gap between his teeth. Good, he wasn't perfect.

She took his offered hand and shook it.

"E—Ellis Winters."

"Okay, Ellis. You've proved your point. A dimensional portal is completely cool stuff. How about sending us back now?"

Ellie shook her head. “First, I'm not sure I can. Second, I
need
to be here. And third, don't you have any curiosity? I mean, is your life so great in L.A. that you need to rush back to your rent-a-cop position?"

Mark considered. Considering he hadn't had hours to think about this, he was handling things pretty well. “You will be able to get us back if things get bad, won't you?"

"I,” she gulped, “I think so."

"All right then, we'll look around."

"Good.” She could go back with Mark, make him leave the room, then return herself. But after completing two transitions already, even if one of them hadn't taken her anywhere, she felt wrung out. Besides, having someone with her made her feel a little better about approaching the unknown. And he did have a gun. Considering what had happened to her parents, that might be handy.

"All right, then,” Mark said. “Let's find some high ground and get an idea about what kind of place this is. And be careful. We may not recognize the sapient life forms when we first see them."

Ellie recognized a
SciFi
type when she heard one. “I think they'll look human."

Mark shook his head sadly. “Oh, sure. As if it's so likely that identical humanoid creatures would evolve on multiple distinct worlds. Not going to happen."

"The reason I think it's likely is that I'm from this dimension originally. That's how I got the jewels in the first place. And the pattern that brought us here."

He rubbed his hands together. “You're from here? Cool. Sounds like we should head for wherever your friends are, then. I don't suppose you know any beautiful princesses that need rescuing. I've got my Glock and I'm ready for rescue and reward."

"I'm not much interested in girls,” Ellie said. “And I was about one year old when my parents brought me to Earth. I don't remember anything but I'm not sure I have any friends. Someone came through the dimensional barriers two days ago and murdered both my parents."

Mark put his head in his hands and rubbed his forehead. “Are you crazy? You decided to give your parents’ killers a second chance to get you. I've changed my mind about saying here. Let's go back to Torrance."

"Somehow I didn't think the Torrance police would track them here without a little help."

He nodded slowly. “I guess that makes some sense. Good thing you brought me along, then. A kid like you isn't going to have much luck against killers."