Fugue, page 91
Alden wore a thinking expression. I didn’t want to disturb him. The longer he took, the closer we got to sunset. I had no idea how long it would be, since I’d been out cold for a while, but I was willing to wait. My foot was thoroughly numb, so hanging by it wasn’t too much of a trial. Besides, I had my chest to distract me from my leg, and my missing fingers to distract me from my chest, and my head to distract me from my missing fingers. It’s a wonder I could concentrate on anything with all the distractions. Sunset couldn’t come quickly enough.
Might I be rescued? No, not likely. Firebrand was in the fireplace in Iowa. Bronze was playing with Gus or rebuilding her car. In this world, Phoebe was probably in class when I arrived. But my cloak—I was wearing it. It was disguised as a blazer or sport coat. How did he get it off me without it going all Tar Baby on him? It isn’t terribly quick during the day. Maybe he reacted faster. Maybe he’s a supernatural entity and didn’t panic like a normal human.
So, stall? Yes. It beat spitting at the chalk line. Besides, my mouth was dry.
“Sorry,” I slurred, “but I’m about to pass out. I think it’s a blood pressure thing.” I closed my eyes and tried to go as limp as possible. I heard him sigh. I wasn’t sure if it was a resigned sigh or an exasperated sigh. Since his footsteps retreated into the distance, I went with exasperated. At least I could take it as a sign he wasn’t able to read my mind.
Come to think of it, if he could read my mind, he’d know about gates and universe theory. He wouldn’t still think it was time travel. I took it as a sign he couldn’t read my mind, and my mind was exceptionally slow, today. Can’t think why.
I opened my eye again and continued to try for a relaxed, slow heartbeat. Every beat was a thud of pressure in my head and other currently-sensitive areas. My missing fingers still hurt as though they were still there. What did he use to remove them? A saw? A blowtorch? A chisel was probably the most practical, but would it still hurt so much? Or did he chisel them off and use a blowtorch to stop the bleeding? Of course he did. It just took me longer than usual to reach the correct conclusion.
To distract myself, I took a better look at the diagram around and under me. It was hard to see, not only because I had a restricted view of it but because my face and nose were so swollen it was hard to get my eye open. I had a little bit of a view on my right, but I couldn’t even open my left eye.
When I went down the hall in Phoebe’s place, the kitchen was on the left, so someone swinging at me would tend to hit more on my left side. Not necessarily, no, but the balance of probability was in favor. Even I could figure this out.
I tried to get a mental image of the diagram and couldn’t hold it in my mind. I blame the concussion. I decided I should cheat. I got a portion of the diagram, went into my headspace, copied it down, and went back to get more of it. Eventually, I had a pretty good rendering of maybe sixty percent of the thing. The rest I simply couldn’t see. The multiple chains wouldn’t let me swing around like a single one would have and turning my head was an exercise in pain.
My headspace wasn’t in great shape, either. The lights were a bit low, which I expected, and a number of books had been knocked off the shelves. I did some sorting and ordering of the mess, but every time I handled anything, the associated memories hit me.
Why is it I always remember the most embarrassing, unpleasant things whenever I’m in pain? I’ve done really stupid things in my life and they all come back to haunt me at moments like these. As if I needed another reason to avoid moments like these.
Don’t misunderstand me. Most of these memories had to do with Johann and his Theme Park of Crimson Delights. I can’t say I’ve been tortured by the best, but I can say I’ve been tortured by someone with persistence and imagination. I do not approve, but I accept this is the case. I try not to think about it and, by and large, I’m good at it. If you choose to forcibly remind me of these memories, expect to be met with an unreasonable amount of force as I try to make you stop. It’s like giant ants: I don’t want to talk about it. I’d much prefer to forget it completely, like it never happened, but I don’t want to try burning mental books.
Usually, when I have a flashback moment, I’m on top of it. If Leisel wants to roll over and pretend to pin me down, I can let her do that. I feel in control of the situation. I’m not enjoying it the way I should, but I can let her do it. For her, I will do my best to help her enjoy it. If Phoebe succeeds at a leg scissors lock during an exercise, I don’t react badly. I don’t lift her and slam her down; I slap the floor, acknowledging her success. I can even be buried in puppies or children and not mind it a bit.
Right now, I’m chained, hanging like a side of meat, in blinding levels of pain, and I’m clearly not at my mental best. Staying in my headspace and keeping my heart rate down struck me as extremely good ideas. Panicking, thrashing, and writhing in an attempt to escape were less good, no matter what the animal level of my brain thought. Getting too excited could burst something inside what’s left of my brain and kill me.
Wonderful. I’m facing an improvised test of humanity with an aneurism as the gom jabbar. The real irony is, if I were human, I’d probably be dead already. And, in my case, the blood must flow.
As for whether or not I was ultimately going to pass the test, the thumping and clanging from the hatch to the mental basement was a definite “no” vote. I ignored the scrabbling and pounding noises to focus on the portion of the diagram I had available. It was a simple containment diagram. So simple, so generalized, it was probably a two-way barrier to just about everything occult. I couldn’t reach out, but nobody could reach in, either. Was it deliberate, to block scrying or other location spells? And what were these extra symbols for? They didn’t seem to have any purpose at all, but could they be part of a second diagram, superimposed on the first? If I could only see the rest of it, I might be able to separate the two—
I lost my train of thought as Something in the basement started to wail. I screamed back at it.
“Shut up!”
It quieted. I stood up, crossed my mental study, and banged on the door to the airlock.
“You listen to me, you wailing little bastards! I’m trying to save my life, which means I’m trying to save yours! So shut the hell up and let me think! NOW!”
Metallic scratching noises come from the airlock chamber almost constantly. Often, there are distant wails or faint screams or other horror-type noises from deeper in the basement. Now, though, everything settled down. There was a bit of scratching, a bit of chittering, a bit of buzzing, and then quiet.
“Thank you,” I said, because it seemed appropriate. I didn’t get an answer, but I didn’t expect to. I’m not sure what I would have done if I did. Scream, maybe.
I sat at my desk and rubbed my temples, concentrating on staying calm. It’s not always easy, even in my headspace.
Okay. Diagram. Basic, unrefined, simple. What’s with the unrecognized ideograms? What did they mean? I thought I had a fairly complete alphabet or vocabulary or whatever you want to call it. Of course, these might be local symbols developed in this world—slang, if you will, or contractions, or abbreviations. It’s sometimes possible to use two symbols overlaid on each other, but not often. What do these ideograms do in the context of the spell? They don’t seem to have a purpose at all.
Why’s it so dim in here, anyway? Oh, right. Swelling, bleeding, concussion, all that stuff. Maybe I should focus more on controlling my blood flow and helping my healing spells do their job. Maybe I can also get a better grip on my pain perception and dull part of it out.
Considering the dimness in my headspace, I made it a priority.
Wizard meditation is a headspace activity. Normal meditation is different. They’re both states of mind, though, and sharp disturbances can disrupt them. I registered such a disturbance and came out of my headspace to see.
Alden was back. He had two gentlemen with him. I say “gentlemen” when what I really mean is a pair of homeless bums dressed in ragged, filthy clothes. They flanked him and didn’t look at me. They didn’t look at anything at all, really, just stared straight ahead.
Alden seated himself in his chair again and put down the little squirt gun. My face was wet.
“An amusing little toy,” he commented. “I trust you are rested?”
“I wouldn’t shay sho. Thay tho.” I grunted and exaggerated the correct sibilants. “Sssssay. Ssssso.”
“Not doing so well with the concussion, I take it?” he asked. I continued to slur a bit as I answered.
“The raised blood pressure in my head might have something to do with it.”
“A fair point, but I’m afraid I don’t have anything to tie you to if I lay you down. I’m improvising, as you can see.”
“Yeah, got that.”
“To business. What were you doing in 1959?”
“Believe it or not, trying to stay out of history’s way.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Okay.”
“Explain,” he ordered.
“You don’t have to believe it.”
Alden’s lips pressed to a thin line.
“Explain what you mean by ‘staying out of history’s way’,” he elaborated.
“Have you had a chance to look around here? Get a feel for the place?”
“Not much. I had trouble getting through your time-portal without being detected. The young lady you have guarding it isn’t sufficient, but she is annoyingly persistent.”
“Is she all right?”
“I presume so. She wasn’t there on one of my attempts, so I seized the moment. I couldn’t figure out how to adjust the arrival time or I would have bypassed her more easily.”
“Ah. It’s more an art than a science.”
“One which interests me deeply, among other things. We’ll come back to what I want. Right now, you’re telling me about this time and place?”
“It’s not like 1959.”
“Indeed.”
“No, I mean it’s gone downhill in a number of ways.”
“Not from what I’ve seen.”
“You haven’t seen enough. This time has serious problems. Sure, it’s got all-new technology and you think that would make everything better. It doesn’t. It’s barely keeping up with the massive population increases. On top of this, new technology means new weapons, which means new political rivalries. Oh, and new technology means new tensions over the required resources to build them. The world has grown more complex, more cutthroat, and more brutal.”
“Nonsense. Every single improvement in the quality of life can be directly attributed to advances in technology. The wheel, fire, the wedge, agriculture, medicine—it all adds to human ability, improving the whole.”
“Are you old enough to have observed this first-hand?”
“Some of it. It’s a logical extrapolation.”
“A funny point of view coming from someone like yourself.”
“A preacher?”
“No. Whatever you are.”
His eyebrows rose.
“You don’t know what I am? I should be offended.”
“I had other things on my mind.”
“I’ll see for myself, later.”
“You wish.”
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped, and smiled at me in a fashion so unfriendly it could have been one of mine.
“Penetrating your mental defenses, even when you are unconscious, is quite a daunting task. Nevertheless, I will eventually succeed, if I choose to make it a project. Which brings me to my proposition. Perhaps I need not do so.”
“Oh?”
“As you can see from the floor, I, too, have some mastery of the magical arts.”
I kept my mouth shut. I doubted he could make out the expression on my face. “Mastery” my ass. I’m not sure if Jon would have thrown him out as an incompetent boob or made him write each of the useful symbols a hundred times.
“My father’s bloodline,” he went on, “gave me the power to sway hearts and minds, but no real affinity for those forces you seem to work with at will. To that end, I wish to understand all I can of how such forces are controlled.”
“What does this have to do with me hanging like a side of meat?”
“I’ve already obtained much knowledge from others. Magicians are few and far between, and, individually, know little. Those with enough knowledge to be worthwhile refused to share it. Since they would not share their knowledge, I was forced to take what I could.”
“And you’re planning to repeat the process in the near future?”
“Not if I can help it,” he assured me. “In such a struggle, I do not gain all there is to gain. It is like wresting a cake from a unwilling baker. If you win, you have some of a cake, bits and pieces of a cake, but not a cake.”
“I understand how it works. You want me to take you on as an apprentice?”
“That would not be ideal, but it would be acceptable. I would rather discuss a quicker and—if you do not resist—more effective way.”
“Oh?”
“I can extract a gestalt of your experiences if you cooperate. I would learn what you know without damage or loss to yourself. We would re-live your life, or those portions of it where your learning and usage of magic is involved, so I could learn as you learned, gain the experiences you experienced.” He smiled, a warm, friendly smile. “It’s an ideal outcome. One can have the cake and eat it, too, as it were.”
“You want me to open my mind to you so you can rummage around in my memories to gain my knowledge of magic.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Be reasonable,” he chided. “You know it is only a matter of time before I break down the defenses of your mind.”
“How many years will it take? What percentage of my knowledge will you lose?”
I noticed a slight twitch by his right eye. I don’t think he liked the question. I think he wasn’t sure he could break down my defenses in any practical length of time. Practical from his perspective, I mean. Days? Weeks? How long would he invest in the project?
In reality, he had until sunset, but he didn’t know that. He was probably thinking in terms of how long I could hang there without dying, as well as the logistics of regular meals.
“Your defenses are formidable,” he agreed, “even when you are unconscious. However, the issue at hand is this. I do not want to break your mind open and attempt to catch whatever knowledge escapes. You possess a power over mystic forces beyond any I have ever seen. I want it, to whatever limits my own abilities will permit. I do not necessarily wish to deprive you of hard-won knowledge, nor is it necessary to do so, if you will cooperate. I merely want to understand it for myself. Is that so unreasonable?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because some of the powers I possess are too dangerous even for me.”
Alden sat back in the chair and pulled at one cheek, thinking. I wondered how he would take it. Would it encourage him, making my knowledge something he absolutely had to have? Or would the idea give him pause?
“What sort of power were you born with?” he asked, instead.
“I don’t understand.”
“I have seen the medical reports. You, too, are not fully human, but you are substantially different. More animalistic.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“More predatory, then, if it makes you feel better. Of what sphere and order was your father?”
“Why?”
“I am interested in your lineage.”
“Why?”
“Your ancestry determines much of your powers. So, tell me of your father.”
“Dad was a pretty decent guy.”
Alden frowned before an idea struck him. He leaned forward intently.
“Was your father a human? Could that be?”
“As far as I know.”
“It would take so long…” he said, leaning back in his chair again, talking half to himself. “Mortal seed in an immortal womb? Could it have such primitive, even atavistic effects? I would think the reverse would be more likely, but it might act as a corrupting, even atavistic influence…”
“If you say so.”
“Come to that, did you start with powers? Or were you a physical prodigy?”
“Still not sure what you mean.”
“Your birthright is of mortal and immortal power. You clearly possess considerable physical and psychic prowess, but do you have a talent? A singular ability? We all have some of the same talents, albeit to a greater or lesser degree. The strength to lay one’s will upon another, the physical might of our bloodline, the capacity to see the blazing heart inside the flesh, and so on. Could it be your particular talent to manipulate earthly forces and so influence the world? Or is your immortal heritage devoted mainly to physical might, and magic is something any of us might learn?”
“How do you know anything about it?”
“Normal people, even limp ones, aren’t as hard to carry as you are. I had a devil of a time carrying you out of the building, not to mention getting you hung up properly.”
I didn’t say anything. The idea he could simply hoist me over a shoulder and carry me was more than a trifle disturbing. Then again, I did hit him in the face rather hard, once, with no worse result than a nosebleed. I should have kept a sample and analyzed it. Hindsight. Dammit. In my defense, I didn’t think I’d need to. I thought he was strictly a local and, once we left, would no longer be my problem.
“No comment?” he asked.
“As far as I know, I wasn’t born with any special powers. I learned magic over time.”
“‘Over time,’” he repeated, and chuckled. His face lit up. “I just realized,” he went on. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why were you in 1959?”
