Whistlestop (36 page)

“
So, young man, why can’t
the ogres and trolls join this battle,” Montrose asked.

“
Oh you will fight, but not
here. Those ships are not carrying the emperor’s army. They do not
need a fleet for that. He could fold them here in an instant. The
Evil One has been a very bad demon. At his request, Karl Galantine
has removed a large number of nuclears from Earth and intends to
use them here to obliterate your army.”

“
What?” Jeremiah shouted.
“I can’t imagine even the emperor doing something so heinous. Are
you certain?”

Jerry stared into space, glassy-eyed
and said, “It’s never been about Karl Galantine. Linger wants to
sit on the imperial throne. Karl was just a tool to make it seem as
though it was a conscious choice by mortals.” He turned to Jeremiah
and continued, “Old friend, you know that only one force has ever
drawn together the peoples of the realms to fight evil.”

“
The Knights of
Winterpast,” Jeremiah sighed.

“
And my father, my son, my
cousin and I are all here together. We are the end of the
line.”

“
There’s more to it than
that, Dad. Who always was the first to join the knights on their
crusades against the emperor? The Elves of Whistlestop and the
Ogres and Sprites of Bastion. Everyone is here, along with the
trolls, dragons and fairies. All together on this remote planet
where no one will ever know how they died.”

“
I still have a hard time
believing Linger’s family would let him get away with this,”
Jeremiah scoffed.

“
According to Lilian, they
tried to stop him, but now he has banished them,” Jeremy
noted.

“
Banished? What do you mean
by banished?” Jeremiah asked.

“
They are no longer in this
universe.”

“
But that isn’t possible,”
the elf said.

“
We should head back to the
encampment before anyone gets suspicious,” Jeremy said and began to
walk away. “It will take all the time we have to break camp and
assemble the teams.”

Lucifer Guerre sat on a golden throne
watching the universe rotate slowly in the open space in the middle
of the temple. His brother sat on the opposite side, lost in
thought. “Frankly, I don’t know why we’re just sitting here, Manny.
Just say the word and I will stop Linger from playing this stupid
game.”

“
You said it yourself,
Luce,” Manny smiled. “Your son and my great granddaughter have
unbelievable powers never seen before among mortals or even
immortals. I think we need to let this play out.”

“
You realize that I cannot
allow your side to win.”

“
Yes, and I feel the same
way about your side. Let me ask you once again. Did you give either
of them those abilities?”

“
No! As I said before, how
could either of us grant powers beyond our own?”

Emmanuel Peace stood and laughed.
“Don’t you see? There can be only one other option.”

“
But why now?”

A third voice said, “I can answer
that.” Luce and Manny turned to see an older woman standing against
one of the temple pillars. She looked remarkably like Lilian but
much older.

“
Hello, Mother,” they said
in unison.

She smiled broadly and moved toward
them, more floating on the breeze than walking. She kissed each on
the cheek and took their hands. The temple melted away and the
three were standing on a tall hillside covered in thick grass. The
surrounding countryside was veiled in fog, and the early morning
sun was just peeking over the horizon. “First, I want to say that I
am very proud of you both and thank you for taking such good care
of our children. You know, when I created this reality and the
equilibrium, I thought that good and evil were two sides of the
same coin. Souls would choose sides and there would be the eternal
struggle to make choices and learn. And it seemed that was working.
Everything we decided to do came to pass with some choosing good
and others evil with the net result a positive improvement, but
still the evil survived and even grew.”

“
So why change everything
now?” Luce asked.

“
Sometimes our experiments
can be so perfectly constructed that we end up building our
expectations into the experiment. We get the result we expected and
think that is now a proven scientific fact,” she replied. “Well, I
came to wonder if that was true or not, so I threw a monkey wrench
into the mix.”

“
Yes, I’ve been wondering
where Linger and Lilian got their unique abilities,” Manny
said.

“
But how does that change
the equilibrium, Mom?” Luce asked. “Ultimate good and ultimate evil
is just another equilibrium, isn’t it?”

She smiled and continued, “Well,
that’s where this gets interesting. I admit helping Linger gain his
powers, but I had nothing to do with Lilian.”

“
That’s not possible!” Luce
scoffed.

“
This is just crazy. How
can that be true?” Manny agreed.

“
Can’t you see that this
proves my point? Even when we play with it, the equilibrium
remains. If even I cannot change it, it must be a universal
truth!”

“
Well, that’s one
interpretation, Mother,” Manny said.

“
What other interpretation
is there, Son?”

“
Good is more powerful than
evil.”

Luce laughed, “So you think good will
ultimately destroy evil?”

“
No, I don’t believe that
at all. All I’m saying is that souls have a natural disposition not
to be evil. The pleasures of the flesh and avarice will always
overwhelm many, but in the end, the good outnumber the
bad.”

“
So, are you suggesting an
alternate experiment next?” their mother asked.

“
No!” Luce shouted. “I
think my brother and I can agree that any other such test take
place in a different universe. Manny?”

“
I completely agree. This
experiment is pushing existence to the breaking point. I think
enough is enough.”

Instantly, the three were standing in
the small hillside temple where Lilian was sleeping peacefully on
the straw mat in front of them. “So how do you think this happened
to her?” their mother whispered.

“
I have no idea,” Manny
sighed.

Luce shrugged his shoulders and said,
“Well, I think we are all about to find out. Mother, do you think
there is a chance that all of reality will fail? Was this
experiment worth the risk if it does?”

“
Those are excellent
questions, Luce, for which I have no good answers. The fact that
this child has so much power gives me some confidence that reality
will survive.”

“
Why not allow me to end
this right now? I will stop Linger myself.”

“
You really think you
could?” she chuckled. “Both your son and this girl can move among
the universes, and I honestly cannot recall giving that power to
Linger. It is possible that both may end up like me. Who knows what
would happen then? I certainly don’t foresee the two of them
sitting in the same room admiring the cosmos and respecting each
other. As Manny said, I think we have to let this play out, and
then we will all know.” The old woman kissed each of her sons on
the cheek, smiled, and then faded away to nothingness. Luce and
Manny were back in the temple looking at the spinning universe
between them.

“
Do you think Linger and
Lilian are more powerful than us, Manny?”

“
I honestly never
considered that a possibility until Mother mentioned
it.”

“
I still cannot believe she
created this mess.”

Manny laughed. “Well, it is her
sandbox and if she wants to kick the sand out, I guess we have no
choice but to go along with it.” Luce frowned, folded his arms and
slumped down in his seat.

The starship Terminus was the first to
drop out of the wormhole and into orbit over Paranaxis. Captain
Mark Temple waited a few seconds while the resulting whirlpools of
space-time around the ship dissipated, pressed the com-link on the
armrest of his seat and said, “My lord, we have
arrived.”

“
Well done, Captain,” the
Emperor of the Universe replied. “Is the enemy army still in place,
and what of the remainder of your fleet?”

“
The other ships are due in
less than one minute,” the captain replied.

“
My Lord Emperor, this is
Commander Nation. Our scans are showing a large force of many
different lifeforms gathered near the Woods of Elin. I can read
everything from fairies to trolls and more.”

“
That is excellent news,
gentlemen,” Karl replied. “The moment the other ships arrive,
launch all nuclear devices for aerial detonation two hundred feet
above the enemy. Lord Linger grant you strength!” The channel went
silent.

“
God help us,” Max Nation
sighed.

“
Old friend, I’m afraid
it’s too late for that now,” his captain noted.

“
Captain, the other nine
ships are here now,” the communications officer said from his
seat.

“
Max, once space has
settled, have all ships fire their missiles.”

Nation stared wide-eyed at the captain
for a moment as though hoping things would change, but the other
man did not even look his way. “Aye-aye, Captain. We are launching
now.” After a few seconds, Nation said, “We have a problem,
Captain. Launch control seems to be down, and sensors no longer see
the enemy force.”

“
What?” the captain shouted
as he jumped from his seat and headed over to the First Officer’s
console to see what was happening. The room lighting changed to red
as alarms began to sound. He pressed a red button and asked, “Tom,
what’s happening in the armory? Why aren’t you launching our
weapons?” After a few seconds of silence, he shouted, “Tom! Is
anyone down there?”

“
I think I can answer your
questions, Captain,” another voice said, and the bridge crew turned
to look at the captain’s station, where an elf was standing on the
seat with a staff in his right hand. Two human males and three
sprites had also suddenly appeared on the bridge. The captain
reached for his pistol but stopped when one of the sprites pressed
a sword against his neck. “I am Jedidiah Beetleweed Mosscatcher,
and my team has captured your bridge and the armory. Other teams
have done the same on all the other imperial cruisers. The
emperor’s twisted idea to obliterate us has failed.”

“
I have two hundred
soldiers on this ship, elf. Your tiny force cannot control
us!”

“
Everyone else on this ship
has already been folded down to the planet’s surface, so we most
certainly control this ship and its payload,” Jed said with a
smile. He turned to Jerry and said, “You and Simplot know what to
do.” He slammed the end of his staff onto the chair and the crew
and Jedidiah shrank from three to two to one dimension and
disappeared.

Jerry hurried over to the helmsman’s
station and sat down. Simplot flew over and landed on the console.
Simplot began to tap on keys and the view screen showed the
Terminus turning and leaving orbit, headed straight toward the sun.
Jeremy and three other sprites emerged from the elevator car and
joined them. “Good job everyone!” Jeremy beamed. “All the ships are
now on course for the sun. All the nuclear devices have been set to
detonate in two hours, but the ships should have been vaporized by
the sun at least half an hour before that. Is everyone ready to
go?”

“
Jeremy, what is to stop
the emperor or the Evil One from retaking the ships and coming
after us?” Simplot asked.

“
Lilian is taking care of
that.”

“
I’m sorry?” Jerry queried.
“Is she on one of the ships? What’s going on, Jeremy?”

“
Dad, it’s a bit difficult
to explain and I’m not even sure I understand it, but you have to
trust us. Lilian will not allow the ships to be diverted from their
course.”

“
Your father is correct,
young knight,” Simplot interjected. “How can this child do such a
thing? How can she stop the Evil One?”

“
Okay, let’s just try to
stay calm and focused on the job at hand. Lilian will do as she
promised. I can guarantee that. Also, we need to leave now to join
the real battle.”

“
Where is this battle,
Son?” Jerry asked.

“
Earth!” They folded and
left the empty ships to their final mission.

The moment Karl August Galantine
Armstrong realized the ships had been taken, he folded away from
Axis. He did not know if he could hide from Linger, but he did know
that he would be held accountable for the failure of the operation.
To hide his escape, he had memorized a long string of dimensions to
fold quickly again and again, hoping the resulting turbulence in
space and time would mask his ultimate destination. He was
extremely nervous and began to forget the sequences and ultimately
made up several. After his last fold, he found himself on a broad
grassy plain on a planet with a single white sun that was almost
set. Folding so many times had taken a toll on his stamina and he
collapsed to the ground and passed out.