Nightlord: Orb (114 page)

“I’m convinced you’re serious,” I told him.  “I apologize if I seem to be obtuse.  I simply don’t yet understand what magical feat you refer to.  If you’ll tell me what you want, I’m sure we can reach some sort of accommodation.”

“You’re surprisingly cooperative,” he observed.

“I get that a lot when I’m restrained and tortured.”  I didn’t add, “…by a fanatical vampire-hunter with access to an overwhelming amount of power.”  I only thought it.  He didn’t seem to notice.

“Oh?” he asked, sounding interested. “You’re restrained and tortured on a regular basis?”

“You’d be surprised.  I’m depressingly familiar with it.”

“Amusing.  But, if all that stands in the way of getting my answers is a little specificity, it is an obstacle easily overcome.  The feat I wish to duplicate is the opening of a nexus.  Until now, I believed as all magi believed:  a nexus was a radiant point of energy, nothing more.  Since you can obviously open one and release the full potential of a nexus, I want to do so.”

“May I ask why?  Not that I’m arguing,” I added, hastily, “but I’m curious why you would bother.  It’s clear you have more magical power at your command than anyone else—possibly everyone else—in the world.”

“Oh, this?” he sneered, waving a hand.  “My surviving children and grandchildren also draw on the same source.  While I don’t necessarily mind, their magical escapades require frequent discharging and some tiresome safety precautions.  They never seem to coordinate with each other, and sometimes their spells clash.  One will want to transform a garden of flowers into a hedge maze, another will want it to stay a flower garden, a third will be trying to invent a new fruit tree, and so on.  You see my dilemma.”

“So, let me get this straight.  I’m paraphrasing to make sure I understand.”

“Certainly.”

“You want to open up some other... uh, power centers.  That way your descendants can have their own domains and can stop making messes in yours.”

“Correct.”

“To do this, you sent out spirits to seek me in other universes so you could summon me here.”  It was only a guess, of course, but if he was willing to confirm it…

“In a manner of speaking.  I had an excess of mortals in my domain.  With the heightened level of power, even they could sense and, to a limited extent, use it.  Rather than allow them to clutter the place with their infantile efforts, I made use of them.”

“Mortals in your domain?” I asked.

“My domain is everything within about three hundred miles of the nexus you opened.  It was the largest shield I could raise, I’m afraid.  Still, I think it was well done.  It contains and concentrates the power from the open nexus, as well as acts as a primary defense against both magical and mundane interference from without.”  He smiled wider.  “It actually has some roots in your own work.”

“My own?”

“The Ascension Sphere you built.  While I don’t pretend to understand the subtle aspects of it, the principle is all that matters, now that I have the power to raise one of my own by an act of disciplined will.”

“You’re welcome,” I lied.  “So your mortals are the ones in, say, New York, Washington, Cleveland, Detroit…”

“Technically, not all of New York.  Only about half of Manhattan Island is within my sphere of influence.  I keep thinking I should expand the dome enough to get the whole thing, if only to make things tidy.”

“And how did you use them?”

“I called forth their spirits and sent them searching through the void for you.  Since I had no real way to locate you, I had them do the looking.”

“Logical,” I agreed, shuddering.  “Even several million people doing soul-searching would take a while,” I added.  “You got lucky.”

The man grabbed who knows how many people’s souls and simply set them to the task of searching the proverbial haystack for the dark needle.  Obviously, he was either very good at the focused wishing method or the formerly “useless” spells of the Atlantean Age were much more useful now. 

“It was not luck.  It was inevitable,” he replied, chuckling and sipping his drink.  “I had some idea where you would be.  Afterward, it was merely a matter of summoning you with the proper rite.  To be frank, I am rather surprised it worked on the first attempt.  I anticipated wearing you down with repeated attempts.”

“When your spirit-lady zapped the crap out of me, it kind of cut down on my resistance.”

“Beg pardon?”

“The spirit.  The astral form.  She discharged a bunch of electricity when she touched me, like lightning.”

Johann frowned and cocked his head, rolling the cup between his hands.

“I included no such spell.  Their sole purpose was to find you, not subdue you.  –wait.  Did you say ‘she’?”

“I did.  Pretty girl, billowing nightgown, dark hair?”

“That is not the one who found you.  You were located by a man.”

“I did see one,” I admitted.  “I saw the girl more recently.  She’s the one who electrocuted me.”

“Odd.  I have no report of such an incident.  I shall have to look into this.”

“May I trouble you to share your findings?”

“Indeed.  But I’ve answered enough questions.  You will now tell me how you opened the nexus.”

So I explained about the psychic tendrils of darkness and using a spell to guide them.

“In essence,” I explained, “I was the drill bit and pipe in the oil well.  The spell was the drilling rig.  I don’t see why you couldn’t do the same thing with a suitable spell, though.  Something like a drill bit with a power channel, maybe.”

“Hmm.  I foresee difficulty developing something to serve such a purpose.  You almost make me regret incinerating all the vampires I could reach.”

I didn’t say anything.  It didn’t seem to call for comment.  I wondered, though, if he meant all the vampires within three hundred miles, or if he meant all the vampires within range of any auto-targeting, homing, vampire-incinerating spells he might know.  While I was interested in the answer, I wasn’t interested enough to encourage him to demonstrate.

“Still,” he continued, “I have you.  I doubt I need anything more.”  He drained the rest of his cup and set it on the tray.  The kneeling lady simply faded from view.  Johann’s cloud-lounger shifted, moving him upright and fading away.

“You will duplicate this feat on a nexus within my domain.  If successful, I will attempt to duplicate it for myself.”

“What do I get in return?” I asked.

“You think you have a choice?” he asked, eyebrows rising in surprise.  He spoke to me gently, as though correcting a small child’s error.  “No, no.  I am not asking.  I am stating.  A question would end on a rising inflection, like so:  You will duplicate this feat?  What I said was not a question, so:  You
will
duplicate this feat.  Hear the difference?”

“I hear it, but I’d like to know what I get out of it.  I don’t want much. I’d settle for the opportunity to go home and pretend we never met.”

“No, I don’t think so.  I haven’t decided what to do with you just yet.”

“And if I refuse?”

The electricity came back on.  While I lay on the floor and hummed at about sixty cycles per second, the golden, glassy walls cleared into transparency.  Beyond was a starry night above and a brightly-lit, chaotic fairyland below.  As far as I could tell, we were in a high tower, but I was in no position to take notes.  I was busy smoking and vibrating.

“I’ll probably be back before dawn,” he told me.  “If not, I’m sure I can find another vampire and experiment with it until I figure out the procedure.  Auf wiedersehen.”

He vanished without fanfare.

I lay there and hated him.

On the plus side, at least I learned something.  While my body is undergoing electrocution, I can’t muster up the concentration necessary to retreat into my headspace.  It’s kind of like sewing on a button.  It’s not hard, once you know how.  Doing so under the influence of high voltage makes it a tad more difficult.  Maybe it was the electricity scrambling my brain impulses along with my peripheral nervous system.  I could think, at least somewhat, but I couldn’t seem to concentrate.  I guess electrocution will do that, even to a dead guy.

So I continued to vibrate and sizzle.  The smoke wasn’t only coming from under the manacles.  I was steaming a little bit, kind of like the science experiment where you stick a fork in either end of a hot dog and apply current.  If you don’t know the experiment, take my word for it:  It doesn’t end well for the hot dog.

Ironically, after a while the novelty of it wore off and I found myself growing bored.  The manacles continued to burn my wrists and ankles, but it was a steady, uninflected pain.  It would be one thing to have a torturer poking me with hot, sharp things wherever whim struck, unpredictable and unexpected.  This was a steady sizzle to go with my high cyclic trembling.  Maybe the best comparison is a terrible headache.  It’s there, a steady pain, constant and unwavering.  You can’t ignore it, but it doesn’t demand your constant attention, either.

There was nothing to do but wait.

It was a long night.

Captivity, First Dawn

The sky lightened in the east.  I didn’t feel it through the electro-frying, but I could see it, albeit with a jumping, jittery view while my eyeballs shivered.  After a time, the sky brightened to the point I could feel it; the smoke I gave off started to thicken.

Johann was there again.  It was a nice trick and I hated him for that, too.

“Goodness, I appear to be just in time,” he schmoozed, all smarmy solicitousness.  “Do you require water?”

I continued to vibrate and sizzle.  I would have glared, but glaring at someone requires the ability to focus and hold a steady look.

“Oh, yes.  It must be hard to speak in your condition.”

And then my sizzling was purely a function of the pre-dawn light.  Johann snapped his fingers and the transparent walls darkened to a golden color. 

I lay there for several seconds, letting my body do its regenerating thing.  I was, unsurprisingly, hungry again.  How much had I lost in the way of fluids?  How much tissue damage needed regeneration?

“Hungry?” Johann asked.

“Yes,” I admitted.  “It was a rough night.”

“So it seems.  Perhaps you should hurry with your breakfast.”

I spun to my left when someone appeared.  Another of the local citizens, I presumed.  Thank you, Mister Random Person, for giving up your life to the needs of a powerful magi and his vampire prisoner.  Sunrise was still in its early stages, so I was mostly dead.  I hurried, biting out a chunk of neck and bolting down the blood.  All the while, I tried not to think about how this person was another victim of circumstance.  Instead, I focused on Johann and the idea of ripping his head off his shoulders while keeping it alive.  That seemed much more palatable.

I finished the breakfast victim and left him on the growing pile; two husks instead of one.  Is two a pile?  If this kept up, it might be considerably more than two, and soon.

Johann gestured again.  The miniature cleaning whirlwind formed and wandered over me.  He waited, smiling and watching, until the dawn transformation was over and the cleaner disappeared.

“Now that you’ve had some time to think it over, perhaps you would care to ask your question again?”

“I’m not even sure what the question was.”

“Is that an implied response or a legitimate statement?”

“No, really.  I don’t remember the question.  I recently had some electroshock treatment—I can’t call it therapy.”

“Ah,” he replied, nodding.  “That’s understandable.  You asked what would happen if you refused my command.”

“Now I remember,” I agreed.  “Yes, that was it.”

“Would you care to ask again?”

“No, I don’t think so.  I suspect I understand the implied answer.”

“There you go.  A few more lessons and you should make an excellent servant.”

“I feel I should point out, however, I’m not going to be able to do what you want during the day.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.  You do seem mortal when the sun is in the sky.”  He shrugged.  “We’ll resume this after nightfall.  In the meantime, I trust you’ll remain here?”

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving,” I lied, rattling a chain.

“Good.”  And, before I could ask about clothes or food, he wasn’t there anymore.

The bastard could at least have left me a chamber pot.

I tried some more magic.  Everything I tried failed.  While I could feel energy around me, every time I tried to grab it, it seemed to ground out through the chains.  Here I was, in a major power center, and I couldn’t cast a single spell.  Moreover, I was in a sumptuous, even palatial room, but still chained up in a prison cell.  Nice as it was, it was also cold and uncomfortable with nothing but a hard, stone floor to lie down on.  All of which was probably by design.

My life has so much irony it should rust.  Bloodstains only look like rust, so they don’t count.  Of course, I don’t generally have much in the way of bloodstains, either.

Frustrated and more than a little angry in general, I lay down on the cold floor and tried to sleep.  It is a measure of my desperation that I was willing to have a psychic dream rather than dwell on my situation.  Pain, hunger, thirst… all of which is unpleasant, but the thing that really gets to me is boredom.

Besides, I might dream up a way out.  Unlikely, but it was a case of looking for a bright side.  In this case, a not-as-dark side.

I was dozing, half-asleep, when someone appeared in the room.  I would say I need to learn the spell, but it’s probably not too useful outside an overcharged power zone.

My visitor was a young lady, probably in her mid-twenties.  She was young, but with a rejuvenation spell she might be any age.  She wore a turquoise gown that almost reached her knees, belted with braided gold.  She wore light sandals with intricate, knee-high straps.  Her golden-blonde hair was done up in a complicated arrangement and held in place by a silver net.  She stood there and watched me until I opened my eyes fully and sat up.

“Is there a sign saying ‘Do Not Feed the Exhibit’?” I asked.

“Not one I’ve seen,” she admitted, cautiously.

“Could I trouble you to feed the exhibit, then?”

She gestured and a pair of translucent beings materialized, achieved solidity, and bowed before me as they offered trays of various delicacies.  Unlike Johann’s creations, these were brawny, male figures.  I thanked her politely for the food and drink, then practically insufflated the lot of it.  I recognized most of it—fruits, vegetables, various meats, and so on—but even the unidentifiable bits didn’t stand a chance.  It had been that kind of night.

Once I had the trays empty, they and their bearers vanished.

“Done?” she asked.

“I’m out of food, so yes.”

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.  I am Juliet Fries.”

“I’m Vladimir Smith, at least around here.  Call me Vlad.”

“A pleasure.”

“Likewise.  To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”

“Are you really a vampire?”  I showed her my fangs.  She nodded, unsurprised.  “And you aren’t getting along with grandfather?”

“Miss Fries, I see no reason to lie to you.  I got along wonderfully with your grandfather by ignoring him and being ignored.  I enjoyed this pleasant arrangement right up until he decided to kick over my tea wagon.  He snatched me from my own world and chained me up here,” I told her, giving her a metallic rattling for emphasis.  “After the night I just had, I’m torn between wadding him up like an old beer can or simply going home and ignoring him forever.  It’s a toss-up, with maybe ten percent more emphasis on the wadding than the leaving.”

“He can be… difficult,” she admitted.  “He wants to expand the magical dome he’s created and the dominion he holds beneath it.”

“I’ve heard.”

“He’s explained it to you?”

“Sort of.  I get the impression he wants to give you and your siblings your own domains to get you out of his hair.”

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed, startled.  “No, that’s not it at all!”

“Why am I not surprised?” I asked, tiredly.  “If this is another political problem…”

“I’m sorry.  Shall I go?”

“No, please.  Go ahead and tell me what’s going on.”

“He wants to take over the world.”

Megalomaniacal magi.  Well, with a power-rush like this, I suppose I couldn’t blame him.  I could blame him for his mistreatment of involuntary guests, but not for a little power-mad posturing.  I still wanted to kill him.

“And how does he plan to do this?”

“I’m not sure.  He has people from Washington and he’s working on them.  There are also a bunch of foreigners from the U.N. building, I think.  They figure into it, somehow.”

“That’s terrible,” I agreed.  “How can I help?”  I figured I might as well get some of my own irony in there.

“Do what he wants.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t want to take over the world,” Juliet denied.  “I and… well, some others feel Grandfather is not… I don’t know how to say this…”

“You’re worried he’ll be some sort of Dark Lord of Magical Evil and rule a world full of mindless slaves?”

“That about sums it up,” she agreed, nodding.

“So how does giving him what he wants stop him?”

“That’s not exactly what I meant.  He wants you to open up more of the nexus points, yes?”

“Yes.”

“You must give him what he wants, but not on his terms.”

“Go on.”

“If you give him another nexus to cap off and draw power from, he’ll only grow more powerful.”

“But you want me to open up a nexus for him, don’t you?”

“Don’t do it for him.  Do it for me.”

“Still not following,” I admitted.

“Some of us loved Grandfather before he became a power-mad tyrant.  We would stop his insane scheme, but we cannot defeat him.  He has some sort of power-lock on the open nexus, draining away most of its force for his own use.  We don’t dare try to break it.  If we try and fail, he’ll know.  If we try and succeed, we may be able to defeat him, but the lock is tied into the dome, too.  Military force from around the globe is watching the thing.  They might even nuke us.”

“It
is
the only way to be sure,” I mused.  “So, you want a nexus of your own?”

“More than one.  One would be too much of a risk.  With at least two, though, I feel confident we can overcome Grandfather without killing him.  Then we can try to help him, show him the madness of his schemes.”

“Sounds reasonable, and I’d be happy to help.  Trouble is, I don’t see how I’m—”

“Hush!” she snapped, looking frightened.  She vanished, Johann appeared.

“Good morning!” he teased, cheerily.  “I had a brief break in my schedule and thought I’d check in.  How are you feeling?”

“Hungry, thirsty, naked, annoyed, and in need of a toilet.”

“How frightfully discommoding it must be for you.”

“You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

“At my age, you learn to enjoy the little things.  Like this.”

No electricity, this time.  Instead, the floor heated up to scorching levels.  I did the hotfoot bouncing routine for a bit, then had the bright idea to stand on some of the links of my chains.  I spread my legs wide to step on some of the slack in my leg chains and grabbed my wrist-chains high up for balance.  That helped, but the floor was a stovetop and the links I stood on started to heat up.  It was a delaying tactic, but the only one I had.

“Clever,” Johann complimented me, applauding softly.  “Very clever.  I’ll let it pass.”  At his gesture, the floor stopped growing hotter.  I was still going to have blisters.

“You’re so kind,” I told him, trying hard to not sound mocking.  “So, you were talking about drilling a hole into a nexus?  You have one in mind?”

“I do.  Are you ready to participate in my little project?  Or do you need more time to prepare yourself?”

“You do realize I’m going to need to be in better shape to drill down that far, don’t you?  My vampire powers can’t reach that depth on their own.  It’s a taxing, difficult thing even with the right spells.”

“Hmm.  I suppose it would be.  Thank you for bringing it to my attention.  I’ll consider the logistics of it.  But I only dropped in for a moment.  I have a Chinese delegate I’m reprogramming.  If you’ll excuse me?”

He didn’t wait for an answer.  He also didn’t cool down the floor.

Okay, maybe twenty percent more on the wadding than the leaving.  I definitely hate that man.

While I stood there, naked, barefoot, awkwardly poised on several links of heavy chain, feet being lightly scorched by the radiant heat of the stovetop floor, Juliet reappeared.  I wished for swim trunks.  Juliet wore an expression composed of both amusement and embarrassment.  She took intense interest in one of my golden-bronze pillars and spoke to it rather than look at me.

“I see my grandfather has not lost his sense of humor.”

“That’s debatable,” I replied.  I certainly wasn’t amused.  “I’m not sure he ever had one.  Could you cool off the floor, please?”

She made a fanning movement with her hand.  Air moved quickly around my feet and the floor cooled rapidly.

“Better?”

I stepped off the chains.  The stone was merely warm.

“Much.  Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  So, will you do it?”

“Back up.  I know you want me to open a couple of… nex… a couple of power-points for you.  What I don’t see is how I’m going to be any use.  Johann has me chained up here with magic-proof manacles.  Doubtless he also has some sort of sentry spells, alarms, and other stuff waiting and eager to go off the instant I break out.  Since he’s unlikely to let me loose until it’s time to actually perform for him, how am I going to do anything for you?”

“We’ve been discussing it,” Juliet pointed out.  “We think we have a plan.”

“You
think
you have a plan?”

“We do have a plan.  It might not work.”