THE VROL TRILOGY (81 page)

"Well Max, how old are you?"

"I'm twenty-eight, but if I get home I'll
pretty much be immortal."

"Well, that sounds good, I guess. Forever is
a long time, ya know?"

"True, true. Anyway, in my universe, mankind
travelled to the planet where I was born. I explained that to you
guys, but I kinda glossed over the whole fact that it probably
didn't happen here - in this world. The Vrol murdered the Earth of
my timeline, but here they didn't. There is magic here, and lycans
and vampires, and even nekos, but not on my world - not on Earth
and not on Azul."

"But, but you said that you trained as a
lycan and as a mage in the Ronnie Dormitory or something,"
exclaimed the confused woman.

"Rhönen Dominion, sweetie. In the
43
^rd
century. We're in the
29
^th
century right now. Gods
changed the world and brought back magic, as well as enhanced
bloodlines. Well, they will in the future. That is now - of the
past. Oh God, I'm confusing you. Sorry."

"No, it's okay. I think I get it now. So,
Lennie has a copy on your world and you freaked out. Big deal! Why
would you freak out? That's so cool! You could go back and tell him
stories about himself, ha ha ha."

Max looked at the first friend he made
upon arriving in Los Angeles as she giggled, and watched sadly as
her face turned to a mask of horror when he told her why he
was
freaked out
.

"No Jess. You see, the Lennie Johnson in my
world is Councilman Len Johnson, of the Azul Security Council, and
I am going back so I can, among other things, assassinate him."

"Oh wow, that's heavy. You carry a burden,
Max. I don't envy you," she said solemnly.

"Well, that's not all, really. Things here
are different too. In my timeline, Len Johnson had a son named
Ryder, who was a military officer, close to my age. So probably due
to the fact that Lennie here has such a long life, he and Jelly
waited to have a kid, where Councilman Len Johnson, with a shorter
lifespan, had his son earlier. It's also kinda weird, because in
the Dominion vampires don't live that long, and they smell a lot
worse. Maybe they are rotting too fast for the salubots to take
hold…"

"Okay, and that means what?" asked
Jessica.

"Nothing really, except that Lennie told me
they were going to name their kid Ryder until they decided to name
him after me. It's just creepy, that's all. I know they're
different people. Hell, they were born on different planets. I
don't even know Councilman Johnson's wife's name anyway. Maybe
she's not Jelly's doppelganger."

"Even if they were the same people, the
wives, and the sons were the same, what difference would it make?
What was wrong with Lennie's… the
other
Lennie's son?"

"Wellllll, he opened an airlock in a
spaceship, murdering dozens of pilots and techs, and then went to
Earth, tried to kill us, followed us to the
43
^rd
century, turned into a
full-fledged vampire, kidnapped and then tortured my wife who later
killed him in hand-to-hand combat. Yeah, that pretty much sums it
up."

"Um, Max, we won't say anything about this to
Lennie then. Agreed?"

Max looked at Jessica, who was in-between
laughter and crying, the situation was so off-kilter.

"So, she killed him, huh?" Jessica then
asked, wearing a deadpan expression.

"Yeah, remember the other night how I told
you guys about my wife pummeling a vampire's head until it was
liquefied?"

"Oh… yup. Definitely
not
going to talk about this one
with Lennie. Hey! Wanna beer? It's on me."

"Sure! That sounds great, even though you
could probably go up to someone and tell them to buy me a beer and
it wouldn't cost you a tooth."

"True, true. Hey! Now
I
have a question…"

"Yeah, what?"

"This morning, you told us to let Marko
through even though he was being a total dickhead. Did you… you
know,
fix him
?"

Max looked at Jessica for a moment and rolled
his eyes, trying to suppress his grin.

"Well, let's put it this way. Marko now has a
very magnetic personality. It's all part of an individual education
program I came up with. Similar to what I did with Adam, but on a
more extreme level for Marko."

Jessica started laughing as she made her way
to the bar to get Max his beer.

Chapter 18 - Skills

Daily life in Krynos' castle was more
complex than someone from a more
advanced
society would assume. The number of
people needed to ensure proper functionality was enormous. For
example, if you looked at food served in the dining hall - the
vegetables (mostly potatoes) not only had to be cleaned and
prepared, but there were buyers who would travel to the normal
villages to select the freshest produce. The meats were trapped or
killed by a team of
jägers (hunters)
, and even
they
had their own infrastructure with
apprentices, butchers and servants. They would bring the meat to
the castle, cure it and then provide it to the cooks who prepared
the meals. The most visible people were the floor staff who served
diners, but they were only a small part of the nutrition
operation.

There were dozens of housekeepers. They not
only cleaned rooms, but also hallways, windowsills, patios and any
other surface area. There was a laundry department within the
housekeeping department. While magic generally handled sanitary
issues, such as toilets, it was not readily available for basic
cleaning tasks, and it was made this way on purpose. When the
Prīmulī reinstated the magical energies that once flowed on Earth,
they were careful to keep the people from overly relying on them,
so potentially dangerous things, such as human waste, were taken
care of, while most everything else required hands and physical
effort, including laundry. Even castle lighting was provided by
candles and lamps, which of course, had to be provided by castle
candle makers and lamp artisans.

There was an accounting office, where
staffers monitored the influx of gold from the king's varying
sources, as he owned much of the lands and had a number of
operations, such as quadrinium mining, smelting, farming and
livestock domestication.

There were blacksmiths, and those who tended
to the castle's horses. There was even a contingency assigned to
the dungeons. There were weapons masters and their apprentices,
carpenters (who were kept quite busy, especially after castle
celebrations, as lycans had a tendency to break things) and of
course the castle guard, as well as the warriors.

Krynos was a king like no other. He fully
believed in a free and open market, and while he owned much land,
he was known to assist normals in acquiring their own properties so
that they could work toward their dreams. He didn't rule with an
iron fist. Rather, he reigned with strength and adequate amounts of
compassion. Well, except for vampires - he had absolutely no
tolerance for them, as he viewed them (and rightly so) as sentient
parasites. His kind, the lycans, was created to manage the
vampires, and to cull whenever necessary. They were to be mortal
enemies, immortally. Never in recorded history (that is, history
since the Prīmulī Restoration) had there ever been an instance of a
vampire doing anything noble, or of one befriending a normal or a
lycan. They were truly the epitome of evil, but were necessary,
much like viruses that could cause deadly illnesses were also a
sadly necessary part of nature.

Draagh handed Michael his ancient staff as he
looked out at the open field in front of the castle. Michael was
actually showing a bit of excitement, not having been able to use
any form of magic for at least twenty-five years. As he slammed the
staff down with a bit of panache, they were instantly taken to the
lady servant's locker room. The two immortals stood frozen with
stupid grins as they watched numerous castle girls walk around,
completely naked. That is, until they were seen. Once detected,
they were repeatedly pummeled with bars of soap and containers of
various sorts, the women screaming in anger and embarrassed
surprise. Michael again slammed his father's staff into the ground,
causing the two to pop into the middle of a live weapons
demonstration conducted by none other than Jennie. Almost getting
hit in the head by launched bolas, they popped back out to the open
field from where they started, laughing as they did so.

Bagatelle walked out into the open area,
unaware of the duo's recent adventures, and asked how they were
doing, as they seemed to be having a great time.

"My friends! How go the studies?"

"Hi, G. As my friends in Woodstock
would say,
Groovy man
!
Hahahahahaha."

Bagatelle inconspicuously spied the pair for
weed, but smelled none, unable to figure out why they were laughing
so hard.

"So, from what I have been told, Max was
slipping around the castle with Draagh's staff before he mastered
the skills to do it on his own. Do you have to relearn magic?"
asked Bagatelle.

"Oh no, G, I never forgot it. I simply wasn't
able to command it for so many years. We are doing this to
basically condition my father's staff, doing the same things Max
did at one time. The big difference is that I am going to attempt a
4D slip tomorrow, and not six months from now, like what Max
apparently did."

Draagh nodded in agreement with his son's
words, still unsure whether his experiment would work. He hoped,
for Jennie and Liliana's sakes that it would.

Michael spent the rest of the morning
slipping about the castle with his father's staff, and then worked
on practicing his own rusty cantus skills. By lunchtime he felt he
had polished up enough to take a break, and to join Liliana in
feeding her precious sharks. Fortunately, vampire wasn't on the
menu that day, so he didn't have to watch as a sentient being fled
for its life along a predefined death course. They simply threw
sides of beef into the water, watching as it all disappeared below
the murky turbulence.

"Well, that was certainly
enlightening," the archangel said in a droll fashion. He was still
uncertain if he should worry about Liliana or he should let her
into his inner circle, so he kept her at a slight arm's length, and
she knew it. What he didn't realize was that she was also analyzing
his character, and was not certain
he
was the right material to be around her
parents.

In essence, they did not trust each other,
but he wanted the entirety of his powers back, probably as badly as
she wanted the return of her father. It was fair trade, in any
case.

###

"My Lord, I am pleased that you are going to
assist in the rescue mission, if Draagh indeed can locate Max,"
said Jennie as she sat at the high table with the king.

"My dear Jennie, I run this kingdom and have
many duties, but you and Max have been like children to me. I go
not only because I want to get some fresh air, but also because I
desire to help extract the unfortunate lad from his current
predicament, whatever it may be."

Jennie felt her heart warm a bit after
hearing Krynos' kind words. She was still a bit hesitant about
bringing Liliana, but was leaning towards her being able to go with
them.

"On another note, I believe that within the
next three moons you will be able to join us instead of occupying a
cell."

"Yes, that would be fantastic. I'm still
struggling with the language, but I can at least get the message
across," responded the lycan woman. "I swear, once we get Max back
I'm going to work with him on it. He was always so good with
linguistics."

Liliana walked in and curtseyed to her mother
and the king. Krynos motioned for her to approach the table, so she
promptly jumped up and took a seat next to her mother.

"I am excited to go on the mission for Max.
King Krynos, may I be assigned with your team?"

The little girl knew how to pull strings, a
fact of which her mother was well aware. Krynos' eyes grew bright
as he smiled.

"Young lady, it would be my honor. We shall
fight to find your father - together. And when we bring him home we
shall have a celebration that will last a fortnight."

Michael walked into the main dining hall and
saw Jennie, Liliana and Krynos seated at the high table. Being new
to the Rhönen Dominion, Michael cautiously approached the high
table and bowed majestically before Krynos and his guests.

"My Lord Krynos. It is good to see you
again," said the powerless Taxiarch.

"Michael! Welcome! Please, have a seat with
us. It is not often that one can dine with one of the most powerful
beings in the universe."

"Um, I'm not… powerful anyway, my liege," the
archangel said quietly.

"Nonsense, my boy!" bellowed the king as he
stood up and slapped Michael on the back. "You shall soon be in
full control of all your faculties, thanks to your father. Why, he
told me so himself!"

"King Krynos!" yelped Jennie, "we weren't
supposed to reveal that information!"

"It is perfectly fine,
mi yerna
," said Michael, "as I was
aware of my father's intentions from the beginning. My abilities
shall be restored once we have secured the rescue of your
husband."

"And rescued he shall be!" boomed Draagh, as
he entered the dining hall. "We are going to find Max and bring him
home."