Jigsaw World (29 page)

“
No, but I will.” Tom replied. “I
think I will go find him in a few minutes.”

“
You might want to explore your
talents a bit more very soon.” Heimdall remarked. “So far, we have
seen Watcher’s immunity, Telekinesis, Precognition and the raising
of a most unique Aspect.”

“
Don’t forget my empathetic soul
and my magical ability to attract Karla.” Tom smirked. He really
didn’t like situations where he was the center of the conversation.
He got up and ambled slowly out of the Court door to find Tyr.
Karla went with him so that she could avoid being hit upon by the
various male sluts in the house.

Out in the courtyard, they found Tyr working
with Arpad’s horse, currying and petting him, and putting the
bridle bit into his mouth. It looked as though he was preparing to
take the horse out for a walk. It also looked like perfect
timing.

“
Where are you heading, Tyr?” Tom
asked. “I need to ask you about a dream and a knife.”

“
I thought that I would just take
the horse out for a little exercise.” Tyr replied. “If you two want
to come along, we can just walk him.”

“
Sounds good.” Tom said. “So I had
a dream with you in it before I met you, and you gave me a knife
made of silver in the dream, and when I woke up, I really had the
knife. Do you know anything about it?”

“
Not a thing, I am afraid.” Tyr
replied. “You probably either manifested it in this world, or you
pulled it in from some nearby Shadow. Either way, you are showing
promise in the manipulation of Shadow. Let’s see if you can Shadow
Walk.”

Over the next two hours, as they walked the
horse slowly down a country trail, Tyr instructed Tom and Karla in
the esoteric art of Shadow Walking. He explained that one needs to
cultivate a walking meditative state, and develop the ability to
visualize mental constructs with your eyes open.

He said that the process is relatively simple,
and is truly only different from normal life in that you are
consciously doing what you generally do unconsciously all the time.
Once you have entered the walking meditative state, you begin to
visualize those changes to the world around you that you wish to
create, and insert those visualizations into the world around you.
Little by little, the changes will become part of the reality
around you.

As they walked and talked, they practiced the
techniques. On the return trip, both Karla and Tom noticed some
small but exciting alterations of the world that they had tried
for. Nothing conclusive, you understand, but they were convinced
that they had indeed changed the world in a very small
way.

“
You two need a lot of practice,
but you are certainly able to Shadow Walk.” Tyr said as they
returned the horse to the courtyard, where he was earning his keep
cropping the grass. “Between that and Tom’s ability to manifest,
you are bound to have interesting times ahead.”

Tom was not usually prone to needing to feel
special, but he was starting to see himself as something other than
the average Joe with a body count that he usually did. Karla was
starting to get that look in her eyes, like she traded for an old
Pinto, and discovered that it was really a BMW under all that
dirt.

It was getting along about four in the
afternoon. They had the rest of the evening and night to kill. The
next ‘save the world’ event would start tomorrow, and would be the
setup for the use of the four artifacts at the Place of Beginnings.
They were footloose and fancy free, as the old saying
goes.

Karla and Tom went back into the parlor, where
the party was in full swing. It was actually not so much a party as
a television watching, subject discussing, game playing sort of
shindig. Everybody was there, except for Veritasia and Arpad. Tom
wandered over and sat down by the Sorcerer.

“
Turns out that both Karla and I
have a little talent in the Shadow Walking department.” Tom said.
“Once we get done with the current mission, I guess we ought to go
get a little training. Speaking of the current mission, I have a
question about it.”

“
I will set up training for you
two after this.” The Sorcerer said. “What is your
question?”

“
I noticed that the artifacts are
described to be unique tools of the Travelers.” Tom said. “But the
Stone was one of many that I saw taking out the Old Ones. Why is it
considered as singular?”

“
Because it is.” Came the answer.
“There was only one of the Stone, but it manifested itself in
several thousand different places and states, according to quantum
theory. One treatment of electrons in QT is that there is really
only one electron, manifesting throughout the universe. Probably
not true for electrons, but it is true for the Stone.”

Apparently the Stone really was one of a kind,
and the four artifacts really were unique tools after all. There
was nothing left to do except to drink, and talk and play until
bedtime. Charlie had already pointed out that the newspapers were
reporting a slightly altered world situation to the one that they
had reported on before their visit to the Place of Beginnings. The
wormhole still whirled behind the doors of the hallway, connecting
the place 73 years in the past to the present, but still the
changes resulting from the visit to that place had manifested in
the world they all had awoken in this morning.

The compound really was a labyrinth of rooms
and doors, and over the last few days, the group had explored most
of it. In one room was the paraphernalia of various games,
including a billiard table, chess and checker boards, a card table
and other more exotic gaming devices. Markus and Tom took control
of the pool table, with Markus racking the balls for Tom’s
break.

One of the things that Tom had found that he
did extremely well was to shoot pool, as long as no money or
competition was involved. Markus only got two shots on the first
game, and then Tom had won by shooting in all of his balls, and
then all of Markus’s. On the next game, Markus racked again, and
Tom revised his rules so that he could only shoot called bank
shots, while Markus could shoot any shots he wanted without calling
them. Markus got three shots in that game.

When Markus got tired of losing, Karla took
his cue stick from him. Tom could not see his way clear to throwing
the game, so he upped his rules to calling triple bank shots only.
Karla was a better pool player than most women were, so they were
fairly well matched with his handicapping system. He won the first
game by a smidgen, and she actually won the second one.

After that, they set up a target outside, and
had a knife throwing practice, with Tyr acting as referee. Tom did
alright with the various throwing knives, but he especially liked
the different weights of objects like screwdrivers and one
particular Navy Ka-Bar knife which had the leather on the handle
removed and replaced with a wire wrap, providing substantial
weight.

At about nine in the evening, the doorbell to
the outer door chimed, and when the Herald answered it, the Sage
was at the door. Looking beyond the door, the group was amazed that
the Sage was one of the first visitors to the compound to arrive in
a traditional fashion, that being in a car in this case. It was a
mildly indifferent reception that he received. None of the group
could really think of anything new that he would bring to the
party, so to speak.

Everyone returned to their favorite spots in
the parlor, where they watched the slightly altered news stories.
One of the groups of terrorists plaguing Egypt had been exchanged
for a different terrorist group. The President had issued a
slightly different Executive Order two days ago than the one he had
issued before the trip. Now the illegals pouring over the border
would be immediately deported instead of going through a long court
process.

While the news provided background noise, the
Sage caught everyone up on the last few days in his life. The fact
that nobody actually had any interest in the events of his life,
recent or otherwise, had never occurred to him. The fact that
everyone studiously ignored him, and avoided looking at him while
he was talking, took a while to soak in as well. After wasting his
time talking about himself, he finally got the hint and settled
back on the couch with a beer to watch the news.

There was no task planned until sunset
tomorrow, so everyone was letting their hair down tonight. This was
going to be one of those no alarm clock nights, where you went to
bed as late as you wanted, and got up as late as you could. It was
along about eleven-thirty that Tom grabbed Karla by her luscious
ass, and trundled her as quickly as he could to their
bedroom.

It took them about twenty-five seconds to
remove all of their garments, and within the next twenty minutes
they had touched every inch of each other’s skin. If Bailey had
still been alive, he would have been convinced that they were
intent on eating each other. Tom wasn’t usually that much into
kissing, but he really could not get enough of it with
Karla.

Everyone has had that person, usually for far
too short a time, when they had such a need to get as close to them
as possible. Even with naked skin against naked skin, still they
were not close enough. In such a need, one is never sure that it
would be close enough, even if one’s whole body penetrated the
other. The way Tom felt about Karla was like that. He would never
feel satisfied with how close he could get to her.

******

Light seemed to be everywhere. Tom barely
opened his eyes, and the light seemed intent on blinding him. He
turned over in the bed, where he found a slightly diminished
lighting, and the delightful sight of Karla’s teeth gleaming in the
light, skirted by a set of very kissable lips in the perfect form
and color schemata.

He reached over and touched her lips, waking
her up comfortably with the fingertip that he then inserted into
her mouth. He followed the finger with the rest of his body,
clutching every part of her that had a feminine curve to it. He
finally settled his hands one each on her butt cheeks, pulling her
hard against him, and even moving her slightly up and down in a
suggestive movement. What occurred next took about thirty minutes,
and would not be proper to be discussed by any parties other than
Karla or Tom.

When he finally had achieved a state of
wakefulness by the process of enjoyable activity that he had
engaged in, he was shocked by the realization that it was only
ten-thirty in the morning when he finally looked at the alarm
clock. He regretfully allowed Karla to cover the bulk of her skin
with clothing, so that he could escort her into the company of the
others.

When they reached the living room area,
several of the current residents had clustered around the outer
door. There was one hell of a thunderstorm brewing out there, and
the clouds looked suspiciously like those that Tom had seen in the
Predatory storms back in Phoenix. It was evident from the looks on
everyone’s faces that they all recognized the supernormal danger
posed by such a storm as well. Nobody was rushing outdoors to greet
the storm.

The Sorcerer cut in front of everyone, and
turned to face them all. “Okay, Minions. I can see that you all
recognize this storm. You have learned enough about reality to be
able to fix this. I want you all to look at the storm, and
visualize it being randomized into a normal thunderstorm. Nothing
more dangerous than random lightning or drowning in a flood of
water.”

It struck Tom about the same time it dawned on
everybody else that he was right. This was nothing that they
couldn’t tame. He focused on the storm clouds, and imagined and
then saw them being normal rain clouds. He felt the others doing
the same, although he wasn’t quite sure why he felt them. The
intention radiated out from the group like a blade made out of
diamond. As the clouds were pushed to change by the group, they did
change, no longer moving against the winds, no longer following
movements on the ground, just random and innocent of
malice.

Soon the feeling that something malignant and
intelligent lived in those clouds was completely gone, and the
thunderstorm was exciting only in that way that thunderstorms
excite. The group had all settled down with cups of morning coffee,
strong but not Tyr-strong brews. The Sage was the sort of asshole
that irritated assholes like Tom, but he did make a fine cup of
coffee.

Everyone was exhilarated by recent events,
proving themselves as they did against the thunderstorm. This task
was looking more and more doable for all of them. Tom especially
had proof of his talents, but every one of the four had proven to
have an ability to manipulate reality.

Veritasia had already been shown her talents
by Arpad, and the other beings present were all old hands at this
reality manipulation business. According to the Sorcerer, the
universe would put up a stiff resistance to someone trying to
change reality. Call it the universe, but it was the Observers in
the universe that unconsciously objected to someone changing their
consensus reality, even if the consensus was to have no cohesive
consensus, which was the case here.

No one knew exactly what form the resistance
would take. It could simply try to slip back into the original
conformation. It could manifest some deadly monsters to try to take
them out, or even things that begged them not to change the world.
Whatever form it would take, it would be resistance.