Worldwielder, page 6
Then her eyes drifted to another area of the mural, a darker area. Here the landscape was anything but picturesque. Here the people were doing anything but frolicking. Fire, crumbling structures, and perverse instruments of torture filled this area. The people were being chased by monsters, eaten, or tormented in enough grotesque ways to fuel weeks of nightmares.
As she stared at it, Melissa's dizziness turned to nausea, and she found herself retreating in disgust. She wanted to get as far away from it as possible. She wanted to get out of this strange, dark place. She was about to turn and run into the fog when her backpack collided with something. She froze.
There had been nothing behind her a minute ago, let alone anything anywhere nearby. A split-second later she heard what her mental sense was trying to tell her—it was a person she'd bumped into, and another stood close beside. She'd been too distracted looking at the mural to notice their approach. If they had approached. Perhaps they'd simply appeared by means of a locutor, as she now realized Luud had done in the campsite.
She wheeled about.
There stood two women. They were clothed from head to toe in faded leather armor, complete with helmets. Guns and locutors were clipped to their belts, and gold badges adorned their chests. One was short and fat, the other tall and skinny. They stared at Melissa with curiosity and displeasure, respectively. And though they couldn't have been more different, there was a certain facial similarity about them. Sisters.
Melissa could only wonder if they were associates of Luud's, a question which their appearance alone could neither confirm nor disconfirm. She had a strong urge to run. But her curiosity weakened it, and all she ended up doing was backing into the mural as the women stared at her.
The fat one spoke. “Hoo you geet here, pleeska?” Her accent was thick, but it sounded nothing like Luud's.
Before Melissa could form a reply, the skinny woman had nudged her sister in the side and pointed to Luud's locutor, still on the ground where Melissa had dropped it. “Use you eyes, Dulce.”
“Oh! Sorry Dez!” Dulce scampered over to the locutor and snatched it up, cradling it like a newborn child.
Dez kept a wary eye on Melissa the whole while. “You be here before, pleeska?”
Melissa shook her head. The urge to run grew stronger.
Dulce held up the locutor. “Then hoo you use thees?”
The woman's tone rendered it more an accusation than a question. Melissa made no move to answer, unsure what sort of trouble the truth might get her into.
“You understand what we saying, pleeska?” Dez asked.
Again Melissa gave no response. The women looked at each other. “We take her to thee base,” Dez said. After a nod from Dulce, they turned back to Melissa, then advanced.
But Melissa had had quite enough of being advanced on by strange people with pernicious motives today, so she turned tail and darted into the fog. Within seconds, the mural and her would-be captors had disappeared from sight.
“You foop! She getteeng away!” Dez shouted behind her. Both sisters quickly gave chase, as evidenced by the movement of their minds. Melissa could only hope their armor and other accouterments would slow them down enough to give her the edge. She would need all the help she could get, what with her lingering dizziness from using the locutor.
The thickening fog did her no favors. It seemed to grow in density as she ran. If not for the pair of minds behind her serving as markers, she was sure she'd have become hopelessly, circle-running lost in seconds. But perhaps she already was. This place was endless, formless, featureless. Where was the wall she'd seen earlier? A mirage of the darkness?
Then she had a sickening thought, her legs weakening. The locutor. She'd left it in the hands of Dulce. And without it, she might never be able to get out of here.
That thought alone wouldn't have stopped her running, but what happened next managed not only to drain her of all forward momentum, but send her stumbling to her knees as well.
The wall had appeared.
But it was much more than just a wall. It was covered in hundreds, maybe even thousands, of framed paintings. They were arranged in rows beginning at ground level and ending… well, there was no seeing where they ended, for the fog obscured it. A narrow ledge rested beneath each row, and rickety metal ladders were spaced evenly between every few columns. The paintings themselves were too tiny to make out, but even from this distance it was clear they were no ordinary paintings. For one thing, they glowed, and it seemed to Melissa that when she looked at them, it was a bit like looking into a person's mind. There was something faint her mental sense could detect.
By now she'd forgotten all about the locutor and Kyle and even the pair of women chasing her. This towering monstrosity before her had driven it all from her mind. But the effect was only momentary, as just then Dez burst from the fog, followed shortly thereafter by a breathless Dulce.
They wasted no time in dragging Melissa to her feet and clamping hands on her arms. Dez snapped a thick metal bracelet around her right wrist.
Melissa wanted to ask what it was for, but a far more pressing question had formed in her mind. This place definitely wasn't a fishing store, and it didn't look anything like Australia, so… “Where am I?” she stammered.
Both women burst into uproarious laughter. “Thee pleeska can speak after all!” Dulce exclaimed.
“Welcome to thee Gallery, pleeska,” Dez said with a wry smile, and together, she and her sister towed Melissa in the direction of the painting-infested wall. Melissa made no effort to resist, too absorbed in attempting to unravel why the locutor had taken her here, to a place called the Gallery that was some kind of giant… gallery. Where was Melton?
But perhaps it didn't matter, she realized with a churn of the stomach. She'd come here to rescue Kyle, but now she was the one who needed rescuing. It was a veritable disaster.
The closer the women brought her to the wall, the more terrified she became. She was in a freezing, shadowy wasteland in the custody of a pair of eccentrics who might be in league with the man who'd tried to murder her with a knife only minutes ago, and they were taking her to “the base.” Hardly a recipe for feelings of calm and quietude.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Dez gave her arm an unpleasant squeeze. “Shut eet, pleeska.”
“Are you going to hur—”
This time it was a jab in the stomach, and it was more than unpleasant. “Shut eet!”
Melissa gasped and would have doubled over if not for their grip on her. She had an overwhelming urge to kick Dez or spit in her face. But it was like the urges people have for money or fame. Abstract. She knew she didn’t have the daring to actually do anything. So she stared at the floor.
When they were a football field's distance from the wall, the women turned left and led Melissa alongside it until an opening appeared up ahead. It was a massive arched aperture, wide as two houses and high as ten. At its zenith, Melissa could just make out a word carved into the stone. LOGIKOS.
Up ahead, directly in front of a painting, a blinding flash of blue energy appeared and vanished in all of two seconds, leaving behind a man in a uniform identical to those worn by Dez and Dulce. Sure enough, Melissa could make out a locutor enclosing his hand. But the odd part was the way he’d appeared. It was almost as if he were coming out of the painting. Which was obviously impossible.
I'm starting to imagine things, aren't I?
They passed through the aperture, which led into a corridor whose walls, like those outside, were coated in paintings. The fog was too thick to allow Melissa to make out any in detail.
After walking for what felt like an hour with no change in scenery, she sensed the blossoming of a headache. She was near asking another question, even if it meant another blow to the stomach, when the women led her out of the center of the expansive corridor and towards the right wall. They halted in front of a painting. It was rectangular, the size of a large TV, and depicted a sculpture of a human brain, in front of which a hand held a sheet of paper with a drawing of a human brain. The sculpture and paper were lined up perfectly, such that half the brain was visible on one, half on the other. Beneath the painting was a small gold plaque that said Veritas. A glance told Melissa that every nearby painting had a similar plaque.
Then Dez did the strangest thing. Sticking her hand into her locutor, she lifted it to the surface of the painting until it touched, and for the second time today, everything around Melissa disappeared and she felt she was being crushed. But this time, she wasn't plunged into total darkness. Faint shapes swirled around on all sides. Buildings, hills, trees, and mountains zipped past at disorienting speeds. When the journey ended, her sight spun and attempting to walk was impossible.
“Hee. Thee pleeska don't know how to alight,” Dulce said with a chuckle.
As her vertigo cleared, Melissa saw they were standing in a small stone room, a solid door before them. Beyond the room, she could sense a crowd of minds. Blankets of laser beams, emanating from scanners in the walls, were sweeping her on all axes. Seconds later, the laser scan completed and the door split vertically.
A chamber was revealed, a great circular room with a high domed ceiling, its center dominated by a statue of a man holding—no, crushing—a planet in the palm of his outstretched hand. It was the same image, Melissa realized, that decorated the gold badges on Dez and Dulce's uniforms.
Far more interesting than the statue, however, were the… life forms. For they certainly weren't all people. Some were, but an equal number were the sort of creatures likely to inhabit a science-fiction aficionado's film collection, humanoid beings sporting extraneous limbs, unusual textures, and queer movements. The first coherent thought Melissa had upon setting eyes on the place was of Star Wars. The second coherent thought she had sent her mind reeling. “Holy Bobby Fischer,” she murmured, the threat of stomach jabs all but forgotten. “Every one of the paintings is a—”
Dulce laughed. “Hee. The pleeska not a foop.”
“Leetle good it do her,” Dez replied. “She end up just thee same as all thee others.”
Melissa wasn't listening. A series of disconnected questions had all connected in her mind at once. Why the locutor had taken her to the Gallery. Why she'd appeared next to the mural. Why the paintings gave her an odd feeling in the head when she looked at them. Why Dez and Dulce had taken her where they did. And most importantly, just what exactly Melton was.
She knew, in an instant, that she wasn't on Earth anymore. Maybe not even in the same universe.
EIGHT
Every touch, every sight, every sound, every smell took on a new, hopeless countenance in Melissa's mind. There must have been millions of paintings in the Gallery, and Melton was but one of them. How would she ever find it, even if given a lifetime? The impossibility of the task was a crushing weight upon her shoulders, and the women had to practically drag her up to a desk that ringed the base of the statue.
“Now pleeska, we find out thee truth. Why you really in thee Gallery,” Dez hissed into her ear as they stopped.
Only then did the women release Melissa’s arms, which had gone thoroughly numb in the last hour. She glanced at the locutor clipped to Dez's belt, well within reach. Escape. Freedom. So close… but it would just take her back to the Gallery, wouldn't it? It was the place between the worlds, probably the only way to get from one to another. They would follow her in seconds. And where would she go if she did get away from them?
Her eyes fell. There was no point in trying. And when she cast her gaze about the room again, she saw that every life form present was either wearing a uniform identical to Dez and Dulce's, or was sporting a bracelet identical to the one they'd snapped on her wrist. Her abductors, whoever they were, made a business out of catching people like her.
Glancing to the badges adorning the women's uniforms, the details of which were vastly easier to make out here than in the Gallery, she was rewarded with another clue. Rimming the planet-crushing image were the words Gallery Guard. So they fancied themselves some sort of police force.
“Another catch?” a bored woman behind the desk said to Dez. “What is that, six rezeurs for you two today?”
“Seven. Plees.”
“Ah. Pardon me. Name?”
It took Melissa a moment to realize she was being addressed. “Melissa Mabrey,” she said, seeing no point in lying.
“She had thees,” Dulce added, setting Luud's locutor on the desk.
The woman regarded it with a raised eyebrow, typing furiously into what may have been a computer, albeit one unlike any Melissa had ever seen. “Have you been to the Gallery before?”
“No,” Melissa answered.
At that, Dulce gagged, Dez stumbled backwards, and the woman behind the desk coughed. All three of their minds turned green.
“What?!” Dez screeched.
Dulce proceeded to yank Melissa's hair back and finger all over her neck. “She ees not wearing one,” she stammered to her sister.
Melissa jerked away at the first opportunity, wondering what in the world—no, worlds—they were going on about.
The woman behind the desk was typing even more furiously. “Take her to Accidental Alightings.”
Dez suppressed a gasp. “Thees not right. Thees no accident.”
The woman stopped her typing and gave Dez a dubious smirk. “Are you saying she's lying? Please.”
“Of course she ees not lying. But… I theenk we better to take her to Rogue Rezeurs.”
The woman shook her head. “No can do. It's probably a malfunctioning locutor. Happens every now and then. Accidental Alightings. It's policy. So I guess that makes it only six rezeurs today, then?”
Grumbling under her breath and shooting the woman a dark frown, Dez resumed her grip on Melissa's arm, and together with Dulce led Melissa behind the desk into an elevator set in the base of the statue.
“Thees you fault,” Dez hissed to her sister once they were inside.
“How ees eet my fault?”
“You… ees just you fault.”
“Why eet matter anyway?”
“Because you foop, thee boss not like eet when acceedentals happen.”
“But you hate thee boss, Dez.”
“Thee boss ees a foop, but he ees the one who geeves promotions.”
“Oh. Sorry Dez.”
“Shut eet. Eef not for you, I be a superveesor already.”
Just before the elevator doors shut, another pair of Gallery guards, holding between them a haggard man in dirty clothes, entered. Dez and one of the newcomers exchanged nods and names.
“Dez.”
“Toulouse.”
As the elevator descended, a glowing sign above the door displayed the name of each passing department. Initially it said Veritas Vestibule, but now it changed to Rogue Rezeurs and the elevator slowed.
The captive man had begun to babble desperately. “Please don't do this. Please, it was for my family. You gotta understand, the famine… I had to go offworld. There w—”
“Quiet,” Toulouse snapped, then the doors of the elevator opened and the man was dragged off into a dark corridor.
Melissa, though she knew almost nothing about this man, knew the most important thing—his pleas were genuine. He wasn't lying. She watched him disappear, a knot forming in her stomach. She knew that whatever would be done to him might just as well be done to her.
Dez noticed Melissa’s forlorn look. “Do not be sorry for heem, pleeska. He geet what he deserve.”
“What did he do?” Melissa asked.
Dulce answered. “He use a locutor. Ees proheebeeted. Ees why we guard thee Gallery. Ees why we keep eet secreet.”
“Why?”
Dez shook her head. “Why. Alwees why weeth thee pleeskas.”
Rolling her eyes at her sister, Dulce again answered Melissa's question, “Ees because, eef crazy people find out of thee worlds, bad theengs happen.”
Crazy people… like Luud or whoever's got Kyle. Bad things… like the graying. Though Melissa didn't feel at ease, this provided solid reason to believe the Gallery Guard wasn't working with Luud. Maybe they could even help her. It was too much to hope for, but she let herself do so anyway.
When the sign above the doors read Offworld Operations, the elevator came to a halt, the doors opened, and a man entered. Behind him, Melissa could make out a massive room whose far wall was dominated by what looked like a map, which showed a circle with ten arms branching out from it. In the center of the circle was a dot labeled Prota.
It's a map of the Gallery, she realized. Before she could make out any more details, the doors closed.
The man casually unscrewed his right hand and removed it from his arm as if he were doing nothing more than adjusting his glasses. He blew into the stump, then screwed it back on. This done, he directed an appraising glance at Melissa. “Where'd you pick her up?” he asked.
“Prota,” Dez replied.
“Hmm. Rather young for a rezeur.”
“Actually, we take her to Acceedental Alighteengs,” Dulce said, her eager tone earning her a glare from Dez.
The man raised his eyebrows. “An accidental? After all these years… They won't like this up top. Not at all.” He mumbled something to himself and got off at the next stop—Interworld Illusories—which, from the brief glimpse Melissa got of it, was a sprawling, desk-filled warehouse of a room.
Down and down the elevator went, passing more departments such as Mizoart Management, Lost Locutors, and Cross-world Contraband, until at last it came to a stop at Accidental Alightings. The doors opened into a cramped, decrepit hallway.
It was only as Dez and Dulce led her down this hallway that Melissa remembered something that had been lost in the shuffle of her thoughts since arriving on Veritas. “How'd you know I wasn't lying about being in the Gallery before?” she asked.
