Nightlord: Shadows (74 page)

“Where is he?” I interrupted.

“He’s getting hauled up here on a boat,” Kammen replied.

“Okay. T’yl, would you work with Tort in doing those gate calculations, please? I’ve been meaning to use it, and I hope to when I get back. Torvil, Kammen, and Seldar—no weapon work for me today; I’ll be in Mochara. Other than that, we’re done here. I have a boat to catch.”

“Sire?” T’yl asked.

“He’s not coming here,” I told him. “I’m going to turn the boat around, take him back to Mochara, look at his soul tonight, and see if he’s guilty or not.”

“And then?”

I shrugged.

“If he’s innocent, I’ll see to it everyone knows that, then find the one responsible.”

“And if he’s guilty?”

“Let’s not ruin breakfast,” I advised.

Bronze and I went down the Kingsway at her best downhill speed. It’s a wide street that starts out fairly low on the central mountain part of the city, but it’s still pretty steep—twenty degrees, say. It curves quickly, though, flattening out with the contour of the city to maybe a one-degree slope. It has sidewalks for pedestrians to dodge onto and a slightly-raised expressway down the middle specifically for Bronze. It’s been explained that she has the ultimate of right-of-way down that strip of stone, and anyone on it is subject to being crushed, burned, and scattered in bloody chunks for miles for several miles, all without warning.

The explanation seems to be working; no one was in the way.

We burned down the road, intercepted the boat, and I found I couldn’t just turn it back. There was a lot of cargo and a lot of people on it. Instead, I hoisted the suspect over Bronze’s rump and we hauled him back ourselves.

He tried talking to me, but Bronze just went faster until he couldn’t talk over the wind. That suited me just fine. If he was innocent, a rough ride wasn’t too much to endure. If he was guilty…

In Mochara, I handed him over to the city watch with instructions to hold him, unharmed, and bring him to the city square at sundown. I think they could tell I was in a less-than-pleasant mood and saluted without asking questions.

I met with the parents, walked through the place where the body was found, examined the little corpse—she was about Tianna’s age, which did nothing to soothe my damaged calm—and ordered that the body be brought to the city square at sundown.

“Why?” asked the father, anguished. The mother just wept.

“Justice,” I replied.

I’m the King. I don’t have to explain.

Then I listened to the stories of those who found the body, tried to find out everything I could, and finally went to Tort’s house to sit and fume and think. I did more fuming than thinking, I suspect. Pilea tiptoed in to put a plate of cheese and crackers at my elbow, along with a tall mug of beer.

She’s a nice girl. I like her. And she knows not to poke the bloodthirsty monster that’s in a brown study.

Night fell. I ran through a quick cleaning ritual and mounted up. Bronze walked me to the city square.

My, but people do love a spectacle.

I did not expect to see Amber there. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. She nodded at me and stayed off the central, raised area that served as a public stage. If someone was going to be burned at the stake, this would be a good spot, I thought.

I looked at Frennin, the suspect. I combed through his heart and soul with dark tendrils, looking for the black spots, the grey spots, and the polluted streaks. Everyone has them. Some more than others, some blacker than others, and in some they run deeper than others. In due course, I found them. I examined them. I dove into them, plumbed them, swam in them.

I knew Frennin better than he did, and was disgusted. I wanted a bath.

With the girl’s body—Lia—right there, it was no trick at all to see her ghost, translucent and insubstantial, standing next to it and crying. Only slightly more difficult to ask her what happened.

When I finished holding the ghost of a murdered girl, asking questions and comforting her, I took her with me to… wherever it is I go. That place between here and there, now and then, and we met with the Grey Lady.

I think the Grey Lady was very kind as she took Lia’s hand. Maybe that’s just because it’s her job, her
purpose
, but I think there might have been something extra in that gesture this time. I would be pleased if at least one of the so-called gods had some empathy, maybe even pity. Or mercy.

When I came back, I practiced restraint. Instead of killing Frennin outright, I picked him up by his chains, broke both his arms and legs, and dropped him.

“Get this thing out of my sight,” I said. “Take it to a private room at the watch house. Bring Lia’s parents. Give them whatever sharp implements they might want, and give them leave to come and go in that room until dawn. If it dies before dawn, its wretched soul is mine.”

And we did. We went to the watch house and everything was done as I said, and with not only dispatch and speed, but with considerable grim enthusiasm. I sat quietly outside the room while Frennin shrieked and screamed, and I didn’t feel bad about it even a tiny bit, not for a second. When his soul finally came loose from his flesh, I grabbed it, ripped it apart, and I ate the son of a bitch.

I’m not known for my laws. I’m not even especially known for justice, although Lia’s parents might disagree. But I am known as, and will always be, a protector—and avenger—of children.

I spent a lot of last night being moody and grim.

I’m a vampire. We’re allowed to do that. It’s in all the brochures.

One of the troubles of being a king is that I have to think ahead about
people.
I can tell you what frequencies of light will be visible, or how waves interact in water, or how heat flows through solids, liquids, and gases.

But people, for all that I’ve digested so many souls, are still a mystery to me.

How can I keep things like Lia’s murder from happening? How can I prevent it? More police? Police can be corrupt, lazy, or just inefficient. Even if they are incorruptible, diligent, and efficient, in order to
prevent
a crime, they would have to be unreasonably invasive to the average citizen, which means there would have to be lots of them—roughly three cops for every citizen.

Fear? That might work for a lot of crimes, but for the really awful, sick things, there’s something wrong in the head with the perpetrator. They may be afraid, but, sooner or later, that urge is going to overcome their fear, or they’ll have an opportunity they think they can take and get away with. And, of course, for some thrill-seekers, that fear just makes a life of crime worth it!

I’m stumped. Prevention isn’t a perfect solution, because it doesn’t always work. Avenging the victims isn’t satisfactory either, because you just can’t undo some things. Once done, they stay done.

A division of effort between the two options, together, are the best we can manage, short of changing human nature.

On the other hand, the fact that I will look at the suspect’s soul and
know
if he did it does take a lot of uncertainty out of the criminal justice system. So I’m ahead on points, there. Plus, because of that certainty, whoever did it will
never
do it again.

That won’t help the victim, but it will keep the one responsible from making any more victims.

From the standpoint of a kingdom, I’ll call that a win.

The only problem is that I’m just one person. How do you set up a system of justice so that you don’t need my special talents?

Sometimes, people make me sad.

The morning meeting went pretty well; things are on track and proceeding at a rapid pace. I’m pleased with most things. For a while, I think things will lurch along fairly comfortably without my personal supervision.

I still have work to do on the sand table in the conference room, though. The enchantments on the table and the sand are trickier than I thought. I’ve consulted with T’yl and Tort and they have some spells that help, but it’s a case of salvage work. I have to take those spells apart, mix and match different parts of them, and tie it all together again. The spells the magicians use are tailored for a specific purpose; most of mine are designed to be
modular
. Take a piece here, take a piece there…

My sand table, when it works, to the extent it works, doesn’t work very well. I tried using a simple light-transmission spell, but that’s a nightmare when I’m trying to reproduce a multiple-source image. It’s simpler to have a spell to levitate and shape the sand; I’ll work on a holographic projection after I get the visual inputs aligned.

Another item on the downside, most of my council doesn’t want me going through a magic gate. They didn’t like the idea when I announced it this morning and still didn’t like it when the meeting ended.

T’yl’s the only one who doesn’t have a problem with it. I think he’s just not all that concerned about much of anything, now that he’s not going to die of old age. He’s gotten used to his new body and seems downright cheerful. Admittedly, people have had a hard time adjusting to him—not that I blame them—but he doesn’t dress like a stereotypical evil elf. He’s also much more friendly.

Okay, he’s not the most friendly and helpful person I’ve ever met, but he beats the hell out of the elf who used to occupy that body.

As for the rest of the council, I sympathize with their feelings, but things are going well here and I believe I can take a day. There’s a lot of stuff I want from an advanced technological society. Not just physical things, but
reference materials
. Books. Knowledge. I’m a physicist, not an engineer! Nor a chemist. Nor a microbiologist. Nor… nevermind. The point is, I have a lot of things I want to know, and I
don’t
. So I’m going home for a day or so to scout the place out and come back to prepare better for a supply run.

For this trip, I’ve got a sack of gold, a sack of diamonds—surprisingly large diamonds—and some clothes that should be either nondescript or at least not overly weird. There are a number of hand-crafted pieces of jewelry, as well, which ought to be valuable even if gold and diamonds are technologically manufactured. I’ve also got a nice, wooden case for my sword; I don’t want to wind up in jail for carrying an edged weapon ten or twelve times the legal limit in length. I figure if it’s in a case, then I’m transporting it, and hopefully don’t need a permit.

Hopefully, I don’t need it at all. I’m bringing it because it’s valuable, I can get another, and if I
do
need it, I plan to have it.

Okay, fine. I’m cautious, and I want a sword. I’m used to having one. The things are long, inconvenient, and often just in the way. I’m still attached to having one. Sue me.

I’ve settled on the reflecting pool in my backyard as the target point. It’s been a gateway before, so that might help. Since I know exactly where I’m going, I can use a lot of
my
power, rather than charge off the archway, to get there.

Later, when I find an arch to use for coming home, I’ll have all the charge and power of the Karvalen arch to help me, once I establish a pilot connection. The tricky bit will be making the connection, but I suspect I can afford something alive to help with the initial spell. Tort and T’yl will take turns in the gate room, monitoring the arch, ready to grab any trace of a connection and open it from this end.

After some discussion, we settled on noon as the best time to begin. Time doesn’t roll along at the same rate in different universes, apparently. Leaving at midnight might introduce me to a daytime scene, with disastrous results. At noon, if I hit a daytime area, all will be well. If I wind up jumping through to night, all will still be well; there would be a
very rapid
change, but, with no sunlight involved, I should recover quickly.

Bronze wanted to come along, but I vetoed it. I was going to risk attracting enough attention as it was. She didn’t like that, but I assured her that I would see if there was a way to bring her along on the second trip. This was just a brief scouting run, after all. She still didn’t like it, but agreed.

This is one of the main reasons I’ve taken so long to go through my gate: Nobody wants me to. They keep distracting me with the business of being King and suchlike. Well, except for Tort. She isn’t trying to stop me; she just made me promise to come back. She distracts me in much nicer ways.

Down in the gate room, we temporarily diverted the charging spells to the pool. T’yl, Tort, and I put ourselves at the points of a triangle and started working on the spell to open a gate.

I provided the targeting information and a lot of power; I remembered the pool I wanted to hit.

T’yl did a lot of the finicky work with the spell; he studied the modern spells for it when the Hand started using one in Telen. Those were similar to the one used in making the Great Arch of Zirafel, but I thought the modern versions were somewhat less elegant—as though cobbled together from descriptions. Possibly so.

Tort helped by defining the locus at the pool’s edge and providing energy channels for T’yl and I to push power into, as well as guiding the energy from the captives. Her magic bracelets also provided a sizable dollop of energy.

The water spun, gaining speed as we pumped energy into the spell. The last time I did this, it was with a crude version of the spell, brute-forced with a small herd of cattle for power, and more blood in the pool than water. Today, it was a streamlined, refined version of the spell, powered by dozens of living sources and three magicians—yeah, I include myself, from the standpoint of raw power.

The whirlpool formed in the water, reaching downward, ever downward, far beyond the depth of the pool. As I watched, I had a chance to really look at it. It wasn’t just a whirlpool of water; it was a writhing, circling mass of something else, too. The water was just the structure of the opening. What was really being twisted and turned was… what? Spacetime? Ether? Astral mist?

Contact!

Sunlight shone
up
from the whirlpool. Deep down, I could see sky.

Holding the portal open like that was draining; it didn’t become easier once the connection was established. Speed is always critical.

I jumped through in a forward dive as though heading for the bottom on the far side. There’s a trick, you see, to going through a portal that faces up-and-down, rather than side-to-side, like a door. With a door, you just step through; gravity is—if you’ve done it right—oriented the same way.

With a pool, if you just jump in, you fall down and through, then the local gravity has you and you fall back down and through, back and forth, until you either wind up floating in the middle and spinning around with the water, or someone cuts the spell and you wind up on one side or the other.

Potentially, part of you could wind up on one side, part on the other. Messy.

As I said, there’s a trick to diving into a portal like that and coming out gracefully on the far side, landing lightly on your feet at the opposite edge, and waving at your companions to show you made it.

I don’t have it.

The transit went cleanly enough, but I forgot that by diving like that I would be emerging on the far side upside-down. So, instead of shooting up through the portal like coming off a trampoline, I shot up through the portal like coming off a trampoline
backwards.
I tried to tuck and roll, sort of succeeded. I rolled well, thumping and banging down the side of a hill, finding every rock, stone, thorn, and spiky bit in the process. I eventually wound up skidding gracefully to a halt on my face.

I lifted my head, spat dirt, sneezed, and brushed mud out of my eyes. Grimacing, I climbed to my feet and took stock of my condition. Nothing broken—unsurprising—but several tears in my clothes and scrapes all over. Nothing outright bleeding, either, just oozing a bit. There was a patch of spiky-looking plants to my left that I missed by about a foot. Things could have been worse.

I worked my way up the hill back along the path I’d torn through tall grass and brambles. The pool was no longer whirling, just somewhat foamy and disturbed. It was greenish-black with algae and shredded plants. A stunned frog clung to one side and looked at me. The pool looked as though it had been untended for years.

There was no sign of the house. Not that I expected a house to be there; the last one burned to the ground, or mostly. The whole area was overgrown and wild, obviously left to Nature for some time.

According to the sun, it was either midmorning or midafternoon… north, that way, so east and west… okay, only about midmorning. I sat down, checked my scrapes carefully, and tried a couple of small healing spells. They worked, but it took a lot more effort than I liked; it was not a magic-rich environment. At least I felt better about my injuries. I didn’t think to bring bandages, but my spells could serve that purpose until my evening regeneration took over.

I hauled myself to my feet and collected my scattered gear. Time to hit the trail and see if I could find town. As I recalled, it was a long walk, but maybe I could hitch a lift.

As I set off, I noticed a large rock in the weeds. I didn’t remember it, and the shape of the top spoke of something manmade. I kicked through vegetation and cleared it, examined it, and felt a chilling shock.

It was a heavily-weathered headstone, which was unexpected.

It was Travis’ headstone, which was bad enough, but that fact only took third place in my list of shocks..

The dates grabbed my attention for second place: 1968 to 2071. He made it to about a hundred and three, so good for him; but how long past 2071 was it?

First place and the gold medal, though, went to the inscription: “I waited as long as I could.”

How long did I kneel there in the torn grass and weeds, staring at the stone? I don’t know. A long time, though, because when I came back to myself, it was well into the afternoon and I was hot, sweaty, and thirsty.

He was buried here, knowing that if I came back—no; knowing that
when
I came back—it would probably be through the same door I left through. He couldn’t have known I was delayed, or why. But he
knew
I’d be back. Eventually. And here he was to greet me, no matter what.

He was my best friend.

Immortality problems. Yeah.

I got up. There were no flowers around, nothing I could gather for his grave. All I could do was cut back the weeds and grass to clear a little space. I found a border of smaller stones around the area in front of the headstone, but the grass didn’t care. Still, I did the best I could.

Where does a soul go, here? Is there something that takes it by the hand and leads it to where it belongs? Or does it wander until it finds its own way? Or, since this world is pretty short on magic, does it simply come apart and dissipate? Does that hurt? If I had been here, could I have been his escort, or his doorway, into whatever comes next?

Whatever happens when a person dies, here, I hope it’s painless. That’s all I can do now, I guess, and that hurts, too.

The sun was definitely starting to go down. I didn’t want to get started on the hike into town and be caught by the side of the road at sundown—or in a car, for that matter. I searched around the place where the house once stood, finding foundations and the occasional bit of ancient ruin amid the overgrowth. My toe found the edge of the trapdoor to the basement, which caused me to cry out in something other than joy, then hop around for a moment before sitting down.