Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) (26 page)

Freed at last from the Oni grasp, Paul crawled swiftly for
Capie. “Daneel!” he screamed above all of the racket. “Seven bad guys! Take ‘em
out!”

Paul reached Capie’s stasis field and looked back toward the
wall. Through the smoke, sailing majestically through the hole in the wall was
Daneel, the quantum computer and monitor, draped with Oni talismans secured
with gray duct tape, six feet in the air.

A figure dressed in shinobi shozoko (loose black clothing)
suddenly materialized in the dead center of the room and despite himself, Paul
nearly choked in laughter.

The ninja-rabbit, one of Daneel’s favorite video game
characters, stood in a semi-crouched position, his blue eyes visible through
the holes in his mask as he scanned the room. One long ear pointed straight up
while the other bent in the middle at ninety degrees, the tip pointed off to
one side. The ninja-rabbit’s nose wrinkled as it sniffed the air.

As far as Paul was concerned, this was proof positive that
Daneel had spent too much time playing this particular video game. Small wonder
that he had called up this image now to deal battle with the Oni.

The five foot tall rabbit deftly performed the Añjali
Mudrā, placing its paws together, its claws pointing up, as he bowed.
Then, as the Oni overcame their surprise and charged forward, the ninja-rabbit
rendered a screaming “Eeee-yah!” kiai. He leapt up into the air, thrust kicking
the nearest Oni squarely in the face so hard that the monster was hammered
backwards against a rock wall, cracking the mortar joints, with dislodged dust
swirling fitfully through the air. The Oni then collapsed in a heap to the
floor, out of the battle.

With screaming war cries, the remaining Oni lunged toward
the ninja-rabbit. However, the ninja-rabbit was incredibly fast, landing blows
and kicks on all five Oni while dodging all of their return wild swings.

Paul glanced over at Hamadi. The other wizard was very
slowly getting to his feet, still holding one hand to his injured head. Paul
edged forward, carefully skirting the battle and around toward the other
wizard, approaching him from behind.

One of the Oni leveled a plasma blast at the rabbit but the
energy passed through the video character without effect, blowing a large hole
in the outside wall of the castle.

Paul was suddenly grateful that he had connected seven Oni
talismans to Daneel. Combined, they gave Daneel enough power to withstand the
blasts even from the other Oni. The one thing Paul was concerned about was
Hamadi. The other wizard’s talisman was easily the equal of everything Daneel
was carrying.

“Eeee-yah!” shouted the ninja-rabbit again, and an Oni shot
through the air, upside-down and backwards past Daneel and through the still
smoking hole in the wall.

Not fooled by the ninja-rabbit, Hamadi blinked, his gaze
concentrated on Daneel. Gripping his talisman in his left hand, Hamadi raised
it and shot forth a blistering bolt of plasma.

Which reflected off a shield around Daneel. The deflected
energy vaporized a hole in the room’s stone wall as well as part of an overhead
beam.

As Hamadi prepared to fire another and probably more powerful
blast, Paul brought down a fireplace poker on the back of the man’s head.
Hamadi folded up, collapsing to the floor, no longer moving.

“Eeee-yah!” yelled the ninja-rabbit a third time, skillfully
executing a reverse jump kick and launching an Oni straight up and out the
gaping opening in the west wall, the hole that Daneel had used to enter the
room.

The three remaining Oni glanced nervously at each other
while the ninja-rabbit crouched in the middle of the room, eyeing them warily.
The Oni spread out, coordinating their attacks to come at the black clothed
figure from three separate directions.

On a signal from one of them, they attacked.

“Eeee-yah!” screamed the ninja-rabbit, catapulting himself
in a backwards summersault over the head of one of the Oni, feet connecting
with an intact section of castle wall and kicking again. The
ninja-rabbit-missile, arms stretched wide, took all three Oni out in midflight,
smashing them against the floor. The resulting loud crack made Paul wince. The
ninja-rabbit drop-rolled to the floor near Paul.

Stunned, all three Oni lay weakly moaning. The ninja-rabbit
rose silently to its feet, again performing the Añjali Mudrā before fading
silently away.

Paul stumbled forward, rushing over to Hamadi and reaching
down to snap up McDougall’s and the other wizard’s talismans. Then he lurched
over to Hamadi’s chair, snatching the Oni talisman from the brown seat cushion.
All the talismans of the other Oni lazily detached themselves from their owners
and floated casually through the air over to Daneel.

The Truth Mirror on the arm of the chair caught Paul’s eye.
He snagged it as well, stuffing it into a pants pocket, where it was a snug
fit.

“Gee, Pops, no more Oni? Shucks and dog-gone it!” laughed
Daneel crazily. “Big blast! I’m ready for the next level now! Bring it on!”

Paul jerked his head over to the stasis field. “We’ll battle
more of them later. Let’s get Mom out of the stasis field first.” And he
stepped towards Capie, his right arm raised high.

“In the name of—” he began.

“STOP!” snapped a stern feminine voice.

In surprise and bewilderment, Paul turned, looking for the
source of that command.

And his eyes boggled when he saw the woman in the mirror.

She was a dark-haired beauty, long flowing black hair that
swirled around her neck and shoulders, her green eyes flashing fire from an
angular face that sported high cheekbones and a set of fine eyebrows as dark as
night. She wore a long flowing black evening dress that accentuated a youthful
even provocative feminine figure. Her ruby red lips were set in a stern glower,
her hands on her hips, as she scowled at Paul, her face etched in granite.

“Think about it, do you not!” she snarled in an unyielding
voice.

Paul’s eyes swept the room. The image in the mirror was not
a reflection. There was no such person present in the room with him. Instead,
the woman’s appearance was projecting
out
of the mirror, not a
reflection
off
the surface of it.

Shivers ran up and down his spine and he involuntarily
stepped back, dropping his arm slowly.

“Who dat?” Daneel muttered as he drifted over to the
circular stairway leading up to the floor above, dropping his computer frame
heavily onto the fourth step.

The woman in the mirror scoffed haughtily first at Daneel
and then Paul. “Clueless, you two are. Wonder it is, you defeating Hamadi.
Senior wizard, is he.” And she stared at Daneel closely. “Metal wizard, are
you. First time ever, I’ve seen. Sight amazing!”

“Who are you?” Paul finally managed to ask, cocking his head
to one side. “And why did you stop me? That’s my wife trapped in there. I have
to get her out!”

“Ariel-Leira, some call me,” the woman declared haughtily,
looking down her nose at him. “Kill her, your spell will. Should not, you try.”

All the backwards words were starting to give Paul a headache.
“Why would it kill her?”

“Spell process, you know not,” jeered the image.

“Dad?” Daneel piped up, his face on the monitor screen grey
and anxious. “Mom? Ruck-stuck-tuck in the aox-box-cox?”

“Merlin?” Paul quietly asked.

The hologram of the medieval wizard materialized in the room
a few feet from Paul. Merlin and the woman in the mirror locked eyes on each
other at the same moment and their reaction was instantaneous. Both fell into a
crouch, their arms extended in defensive positions, loudly spitting and hissing
at each other like enraged alley cats.

Paul slapped his hands over his ears and winced, the
commotion was so loud! “Stop it, you two!” he bellowed. “Stop it right
now
!”

“What he said!” hollered Daneel in an even louder voice.

Merlin backed further away from the mirror, hissing more
quietly but hissing nonetheless. Ariel-Leira backed off on her cacophony as
well.

“Not to be trusted, that one,” she snarled angrily.

“Merlin is a product of a magical spell and my friend!”
snapped Paul heatedly.

“One of the mirror folk!” Merlin mocked with a grimace.
“Everything’s backwards with them. Can’t trust a word they say! They’re greedy,
selfish, everything they do is twisted!”

“Ah, but useful we are,” Ariel-Leira crooned proudly. “The
woman in containment, when this idiot nearly killed, where were you? Asleep?
Book reading? Useless, you are.”

For a moment, Paul thought Merlin was going to have a
meltdown, his face was so beet red. Instead, the medieval wizard crossed his
arms and turned sharply away. “The help of the mirror people ALWAYS comes at a
price. Don’t trust her.”

“But help, it comes,” the mirror woman replied insolently.
“Competence, worthy of a price.”

The strange turn of events had caught Paul flat-footed and
he knew not quite how to proceed. He glanced again at Capie, trapped in the
stasis field.

“Merlin?” he implored quietly. “Is she telling the truth?
Would my spell have killed Capie?”

To Paul’s surprise, Merlin squirmed while appearing
flustered. “I don’t know. Maybe,” he admitted in a low voice. “Depends on the
exact nature of the stasis spell that was cast. I wasn’t here when that
happened. If there were any spell conditions or materials used to enhance the
spell, then yes, there is some risk involved in removing her. I’d have to, ah,
run a few tests, to make sure, you see.” And his voice trailed off.

“Here, I was, when spell cast,” crowed Ariel-Leira.
“Specifics, I know. Help you, I can. For a small fee, of course.”

Paul shook his head, studying first Merlin and then the
woman in the mirror. Inside, he felt uneasy as he first clenched his fists and
then made himself unclench them.

“What is your fee?” he warily asked the woman in a strained
voice.

Ariel-Leira smiled airily. “Not high, is it. Place this,
tired of. Same room, always. Travel, places to see. When you leave, take me.
See? Price not bad at all.”

Merlin merely grunted but said nothing, still turned away
from the conversation in obvious disapproval.

Paul shrugged and weighed his alternatives thoughtfully
while studying Merlin’s profile. The super-intelligence was behaving in a
totally atypical fashion. Not only was he not offering any suggestions, useful
or otherwise, but he seemed to be responding in a clearly emotional manner.
Even now, Paul could see a mixture of such emotions sweeping across Merlin’s
face, ranging from embarrassment and a touch of fear, to stubborn pride, guilt
and worry.

Since Merlin seemed either unwilling or unable to help, Paul
snorted in impatience, turning back to the mirror.

“Fine,” he announced reluctantly with a grimace. “I agree to
your terms. Help me get my wife out of stasis and I’ll take you anywhere you
want to go. Within reason, of course.”

“Fast, not so!” came the response. “Not here, can it be
done. This place leave we must first.”

Even more warily than before, Paul asked the obvious
question. “Why not here?”

“Not here are the items special needed for the spell. Rare,
they are,” she announced arrogantly.

“Paul?” Merlin appealed to him as he shuffled his feet
nervously. “I really hate to admit this but she’s right. I know how strongly
you feel about Capie, how powerful your desire is to release her from her this
spell. But she is in no danger right now. Not really. On the other hand, you
and Daneel are. You can’t afford to hang around here, performing magical
experiments and ignoring Daneel’s condition. You need to leave this place and
the sooner the better. When you and Daneel are safe, then you can work on
releasing Capie. And that’s the absolute best advice I can give you.”

Paul swallowed hard and closed his eyes.

For a few moments, he considered the possibility of getting
the information needed to release Capie from Hamadi instead. After all, it was
Hamadi that had put Capie in the field to start with. He would surely know the
procedure of how to release her. In theory, Paul could use the Truth Mirror on
the
Errabêlu
wizard just as the other wizard had used it on Paul. But a
quick look at Hamadi convinced Paul that it wasn’t really a good option right
now. The
Errabêlu
wizard had been slugged really hard and indeed
appeared to be completely comatose. Even with magical spells, it might take
some time to revive him enough to interrogate him. And then, Merlin was right,
drat it all anyway! He didn’t have the time to engage in magical experiments!
Wrong time, wrong place.

So it would seem his only option was to trust the woman in
the mirror. And it would be no big deal, after all, to take the mirror with him
when they left the castle and then he could drop it off someplace along the
way.

Ah, leave the castle? And just how would they do that? With
a groan, Paul came the sudden and depressing realization that he had spent so
much time and energy rushing to Transylvania that he had not given any thought
on how to get away again, especially now that he was encumbered with so much
additional ‘baggage’ to haul off with him. Paul abruptly realized that he
simply could not afford to leave Hamadi or the Oni here. They knew too much and
would jeopardize Paul’s operations in Australia. And too, there had been all
the other wizard’s questions about the super-talismans. Obviously, the
Errabêlu
wizard had learned quite a bit from questioning Capie—and yes from Paul
too—under the spell of that magical mirror.

No, Paul couldn’t leave anybody behind. And that included
the mirror woman.

He mentally added up all the weight: six Oni bodies, one
male wizard, Daneel, Capie in her stasis field and now one large mirror in a
metal frame. Ugh, that was a lot of weight.