VirtualWarrior (2 page)

His old hiking boots which he pulled over some ski socks
didn’t go with the rich robe, but he’d buy more appropriate footgear when he
got there.

There.
An almost euphoric sensation coursed through
him.
There
no one knew him, and no one depended on him.

He poured the box of jewelry into a soft leather pouch which
he suspended from his belt. “Sorry for lying, Gwen. Except for the glass
earrings, this stuff is all destined for barter. I figure real gold and silver
are going to be just as useful a commodity in Tolemac as they are in the good
old US of A.”

In case Gwen missed the costume hint, he arranged his suit
on the bed with one arm pointing to the window. He took a final look at himself
in the mirrored closet doors. His hair was too short, but hair grew. There was
nothing he could do about the hole in his earlobe—or his tattoo. He checked his
watch. Time to go.

With a deep breath, he headed back down to the shop and into
the booth housing the
Tolemac Wars
virtual reality game. It was four
free-standing matte black walls surrounding an inner room, also with black
walls. The inner room had a wide screen for spectators who wished to watch a
player’s progress throughout the game. Players wore headsets and lived the
experience. It was expensive, heady, and very addictive.

He started the game and consulted his watch. With
satisfaction, he heard the nearby crack of thunder. The storm was escalating
right on schedule.

As the game warmed up, he felt sweat prickling his neck and
back. Despite his subtle and not so subtle questioning, Gwen had only vaguely
explained how she’d come and gone from the virtual reality game. Conjunctions
were important to the process. So were the designs of the ancient Celts—and a
power boost.

The stars were in alignment. Almost. The Celtic design he’d
taken care of at Sid’s Family Tattoos (Walk-ins Welcome) on the night Eve
deserted him.

The power, whatever it was, must come from someone or
something greater than himself. He didn’t
really
believe in any of it,
but he didn’t believe in anything in his life in Ocean City either.

The hum of the game filled the room. The words
Tolemac
Wars III
flashed on the huge white screen before him, filling the purple
Tolemac sky like angry clouds. The O in Tolemac was the flaming scarlet sun of
the virtual reality world. He felt as if he stood on a mountain, a distant row
of jagged peaks straight ahead. They were aglow in a wash of violet, crimson,
and gold.

The title turned and twisted, blowing in the wind across the
screen over a landscape of mountain meadows and towering pines. As the words
twisted, the sun faded and vanished, the O becoming the turquoise of a Tolemac
moon. The sky deepened to indigo.

A woman in green appeared by a stand of pines. She was
sweetly pretty, reed thin, gliding with elegant grace toward him along the
meadow. An uptight librarian dressed for story hour. “Prissy,” he said to the
screen. “Go tend your ice.”

The woman conjured a fire in her hands. She turned in a
circle, casting small flames from her fingers. A ring of candles sprang up,
surrounding her. The flames lit her face, touched her blond hair with gold.
Neil waited for what he knew came next.

She vanished.

The
Tolemac Wars
title shredded apart, leaving only
the turquoise moon behind.

Neil took off his wristwatch and set it on the control panel
where he could see its face. When he looked up again, three other moons were
rising slowly through a sky now filled with stars.

The view shifted, spun, turned.

Terrain sped before him on the screen, taking him deep into
a landscape of forest, an ancient night-filled forest, so dense it looked like
a maze. Finally, the dizzy kaleidoscope of movement halted and he was back on
the mountain meadow, now bathed in the luminous greenish blue of the four
moons.

Tapping a few keys with practiced ease, he chose the
character he wished to play.
The Unknown.
A man with no face, owing
allegiance to no one, taking part in the Tolemac wars if he wanted, fighting
for good or for evil if he wished. He could go either way. His choice. Not
someone else’s.

Thunder reverberated overhead, and Neil smiled his
satisfaction.

His watch said 8:03. Lifting the headset, he put it on.

He pressed
play
.

Ardra separated herself from her escort with orders that the
men make camp at the base of Hart Fell before full dark descended, and then
walked swiftly through the trees. Above lay the hut of Nilrem, the wiseman. At
the sunrising on the morrow, she would seek what wisdom he could offer in her
quest. She held little hope of much more than kind words and expressions of
sympathy.

Honor and duty required her to make the journey.

She had a long night of waiting ahead. As she moved to
higher ground, she quickened her steps. She did not want her party to know she
was about to indulge in an ancient ritual, a ritual of the old gods, one
practiced by old women.

Her serving women might nod in understanding, but they would
also be quick to deny any belief in the ritual. Men would smile and nudge one
another with their elbows. But at this time when she most needed help, she
would appeal to any god—ancient or otherwise. The folly of her superstitious
belief might result in ridicule and contempt, but follow the old way she must.

The ground beneath her feet was cushioned with pine needles,
a handful of which she put in her waist pouch along with her flint and eight
small candles. The occasional tiny woodland flower gleamed white in the
gathering dusk, filling the air with a soft, hopeful fragrance. She gathered
dry twigs as she walked along. A snap made her pause. She listened but heard
nothing more. No animals stirred. With a shrug, she moved on.

She came out onto a high meadow, her arms full of dry twigs
and branches. Despite the windy conditions, she gathered rocks and built a
fire, using the dry pine needles as tinder. It was a small fire, stubborn to
light. The eight candles she set out within the ring of stones were even more
troublesome.

Fearful the flames might die in the capricious breezes
before the sun set, but doing as tradition bade, she rose with a handful of
dirt and faced the red orb. It sat on top of a distant mountain. It appeared
impaled on the peak, its glow like blood oozing down the steep slopes. She
shivered. With great impatience, she waited, eyes on the horizon.

Despite the sun’s gleam, the sky was an angry purple, the
air heavy with expectation. Low murmurs of thunder came across the far plains.
Flickers of lightning traced paths between mountaintops.

When the perfect moment came—the moment when the sun was
just ready to set—she held her dirt-filled fist over the struggling flames and
slowly sifted the dust from her palm. The fire died. Next, she walked around
the ring of stones eight times. With each round, she sifted dirt, extinguishing
one candle in each circuit.

Breath tight in her chest, she then turned her face to the
heavens and awaited the coming of the conjunction—the first in fifty such
conjunctions—when all four moons would rise together. The ancients had believed
it was an augury—of what, she knew not.

They came. The first of the four moons, blue-green, smaller
than the sun, but magnificent in color, cast a green glow into the heavens to
mingle its cool color with the purple and red.

The rest of the moons rose. Legend said they were sisters,
holding hands to kneel before their mother, the sun. They brought a blessing,
some ancient prophesies said; a warning, said others. Some feared seeing both
the sun and the moons at the same time, in such a precise row. Others marveled.
Ardra felt only empty.

It was time to complete the ritual. She knelt, struck her
flint, and nurtured a new spark in a handful of dry needles and shredded cloth,
blew into the embers her wishes—prayed to the ancient gods just as women had
done since the beginning of time.

When the small coal was glowing, she scooped it up and
lifted it reverently to the orbs, then cast it onto the kindling as legend
demanded. She held her breath, leaned forward, willed the flames to survive.
The small fire crackled, took, ate the twigs, fought the errant gusts of wind.
Now she must light the candles anew.

A sound behind her made her look up.

Three men stood there. Dirty men.
Outcasts.

Her throat dried. With unsteady legs, she rose. The men held
rough sticks loosely in their filthy fists. She stumbled back, putting the fire
between her and them. They came at her slowly, their intent gazes skimming up
and down her like touches.

One grinned. His tongue licked along his lower lip. The
gesture sent a flood of fear through her.

She glanced over her shoulder, to the trees and the way down
to her guards.

The outcasts leaped over her fire.

She whirled around, but a man blocked her way.

A man afire.

She screamed. He stood bathed in the last of the sunlight,
rooted in flames of red and gold, his eyes black holes in his white face.

She danced to the left, stumbled on her hem, went down on
one knee. The outcasts fell upon her from behind. Pain flashed through her
shoulder from the harsh blow of a stick.

They tore at her jewels. One grasped her hem and tossed it
up.

The flaming man swayed and shimmered.

She fought grasping hands, kicking, clawing with her nails,
wordlessly begging the stranger for help.

The red and gold man staggered forward, clasped his hands
together, and smashed them down against the filthy head of the outcast now
questing beneath her skirts.

With a howl of anger, the outcast turned to the man. Another
outcast, his feral smile a gap-toothed sneer, raised his stick and signaled his
friends.

In an instant the outcasts had abandoned her and swarmed the
man. Suddenly free, Ardra scrabbled backward on her hands, then with a sob
forced herself to stand up and run.

The trees seemed so far away, her feet like iron weights.
Breath on fire in her chest, she hurled herself into the shelter of the pines
and scrambled up the trunk of a tree.

The vision of the red and gold man still danced in her
mind’s eye. The sense that he had been conjured from the air made her tremble.
Nay, her eyes had deceived her. It was just his scarlet and gold robes aflame
in the remaining glow of light that had made it seem so.

As she gripped the rough bark and pressed her head to her
hands, she could not forget his sudden appearance. He had come just at the
conjunction to save her. How she wished for some means to fight the outcasts as
he had fought for her.

Help. She must find help. Her heart pounded, her breath
seared her chest. Her men were at the foot of the mountain. But she must pass
the outcasts to reach them. Only Nilrem was near, and he was but an old man.

From her perch she could see nothing…but she could hear. She
wanted to press her hands to her ears and block out the terrible noises, but
doing so would deny the man who, barehanded, had come to her rescue.

She must find a way to help him. Cautiously she slipped from
the tree branches and crept to the edge of her shelter. The outcasts were like
scavengers on prey. They had stripped the man and left him sprawled on the
ground, his arms and legs outflung as if beseeching the orbs overhead for
mercy. Was he dead? Her eyes filled.

The three filthy men crouched with their backs to their
victim, arguing over his robes, his belt, and his pouch.

One of the men cried out. He shook his hand, flinging
something away as if it burned his fingers. The others peered at the object,
then also backed away, their arms filled with the man’s clothing. They darted
into the trees with their booty and disappeared.

Her first instinct was to go to the man. But she forced
herself to pause. Perhaps ‘twas just a ruse by the outcasts to draw her out.
When the crash of their progress down the mountain grew faint, she tiptoed from
the shelter of the trees.

They had left their victim no dignity in death. Drawing off
her cloak, she knelt to cover him, tears rising in her eyes. “If I had been a
man, I would have killed at least one of them.” With a hesitant hand, she
touched his chest.

His heart beat strongly beneath her palm. He rolled his
bloody head from side to side and groaned.

“By the gods, you are alive.”

There was hope.

She cast her cloak aside to examine him. How terrible it
would be if the man bled to death while she fetched help.

His hair was not bloody. His face was, but ‘twas not blood
that made his hair so dark. She wondered at the deep brown color, but could
waste no time on the matter.

Quickly, fearful the outcasts might return, she examined the
rest of him. He was young, his battered body as strong as a warrior’s. None of
his wounds looked mortal.

With a whispered prayer of gratitude to the gods, she stood
up and gave him a final look. Blood ran down his inner thigh, a thigh hard with
muscle. His stomach was ridged with muscle as well.

Then her glance fell on his right arm. She reached out to
assure herself that what she saw was real. Aye, ‘twas the flesh of a strong man
but painted with a serpent. It coiled three times about his arm. She rubbed the
tips of her fingers over the paint, then sat back to think. “This is a terrible
omen,” she whispered.

Gently she draped her cloak across the man’s body. He was
taller than the common man, though not as tall as some of her guards. If she
covered his feet, her cloak would come only to the middle of his chest. She
tugged the cloak up far enough to conceal the symbol on his arm, leaving his
feet exposed.

His eyes flickered open. “What happened?” he asked. He
licked his lips.

Ardra stood and backed away. He tracked her movements and
lifted a hand.

Nilrem
, she thought.
I must fetch Nilrem. He will
know what to make of this man and the strange symbol painted on his arm.

Something glinted in the dirt. A broken chain. She bent and
retrieved it. The outcasts had thrown it away, fearful of it for some reason.

Then she understood. Dangling from the chain was…nay, it was
impossible. It looked like glass, but glass could not be shaped in such a
manner. The flames of her meager fire flared a moment, illuminating the small
object. A rose. The personal emblem of Tolemac’s high councilor.

There in the dirt was another rose. She threaded it on the
broken chain and knotted it. Two perfect red roses created of an impossible
material.

She folded her hand into a tight fist about the token and
forced herself to go for help, when in truth she wished to abandon her savior
to the cold night.