GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 17

They're off on a tour of worlds to find a way back to theirs...

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Chapter 17.

"DUCK!"

Ingram obeyed Quester instinctively, and the glittering red-razor shards passed through the area his neck had just occupied, severing several strands of his lavender hair. He tumbled forward and dodged sideways, as Quester cast his last javelin.

The adorable blonde girl – seemingly younger than Urelle – with the frightening red eyes and glittering crystal-skeleton wings dodged the hard-thrown spear as though it had been a pillow and laughed delightedly. "You're very good! I'm glad we're getting to play!"

This monster's idea of play is something we're not going to survive. Victoria's thought was matter-of-fact.

Ingram, looking back over the smoking ruin of the formerly beautiful, lush landscape behind them, had no argument. If she didn't consider it play, we'd be dead already. Urelle –

     Found it, but you have to hold her off! Magic's too powerful here! If I do this wrong, I have no idea where we'll end up – maybe a dozen sheaves in the wrong direction, maybe so far off course that I'll never find the Seal again!

He looked at the others, saw Quester's antennae drooping, Victoria's eyes determined but hopeless. There's no way.

The girl – wearing some kind of brief red party-dress which, by all rights, shouldn't have survived a single passage-at-arms, but which instead seemed utterly untouched – was descending towards them, and a thousand balls of glittering energy began to coalesce in front of her.

Lady, aid us! He concentrated then, grasping his desperate need and focusing it on the face he remembered better than any other's, calling, calling out BERENIKE!

A maelstrom of blood-red sparks streaked towards them, impossible to evade, a hell of sanguinary lightning spheres. Ingram dove for Urelle, trying to defend her, knowing it was already too late –

Auric light streaked from above and a concussion rocked the hills, blowing trees down like blades of grass. "Now that I shall never allow!" shouted a clarion voice.

The flying girl's eyes were wide and surprised, and then she smiled, showing tiny, somehow adorable little fangs. "Ooooh, you look like you'll be fun to play with!"

Berenike shimmered before him through a heatwave, her energies far greater than the last time he had seen her. "If combat is your play, you shall find me a most interesting playmate!" she said, with her own smile. "But take a care your toys do not harm my friends!"

Ugh! I mean, I'm glad Berenike saved us, but she's completely disrupted the magical patterns!

"Berenike, you have to keep her away!" Ingram shouted. "Urelle can't do this with magic being thrown around everywhere!"

He could see her take in the situation in a glance – then streak forward, slapping aside another barrage of energy balls and taking the laughing, chandelier-winged girl over the horizon in a literal flying tackle.

With the threat and distraction removed, Urelle began murmuring to herself, preparing the jump once more. Ingram couldn't really make it out – he was too distracted by wondering how long Berenike could hold off the insanely powerful girl-child, and whether it'd be enough.

"We had best gather close," Victoria said, recognizing Urelle's invocations. "But what about Berenike?"

Ingram blinked, feeling stupid, before he realized what she meant. "Oh! Don't worry about her. She'll find her way."

Urelle flicked a quick, concerned glance at him and the distant horizon – where red and gold light momentarily overbore that of the sun. "She'd better. Ready!"

Once more they linked hands, and the light of the world reached out and hurled them across the void between worlds…

… to smack his face hard into a wooden door. Then Quester's ridged arm jabbed him in the back as the Iriistiik toppled over, Victoria on top of him, and Urelle dropping to send all four of them crashing in a heap to the floor.

"Oooough!" The impact drove most of the air from his lungs, and he fought to drag in enough air to protest. "Get… off!"

"Sorry!"

"Not your fault, Urelle. Though it is odd we arrived so… clumped," Victoria said as she untangled herself from the others, and extended a hand to help Quester up.

"Not so odd, Auntie," Urelle said. "You can't materialize inside a wall or anything, so we all had to come out in the same room, and this is… a really small room."

It was also a very strange room, Ingram thought. It was evidently some kind of washroom, but the particular design of the tub and other fixtures was utterly unfamiliar. "Where are –"

"What in the name of Christ and the Dagda is goin’ on in there?!"

The sharp tenor voice cut through the air. There was something about it that made all of them freeze in place.

The voice was distinctly annoyed. "I better start hearin’ some answers—and the right ones—or we’re gonna have ourselves a real ugly disagreement."

All four of them exchanged glances, then Ingram shrugged and turned to face the door. "Sorry, sir. We… um, didn't mean to intrude."

"That so?" The tone was nonplussed, maybe confused by the polite response. "You figure I’m dippy enough to buy that you snuck into my bathroom by accident?"

"That's… a long story."

The sigh was audible through the door. "Seems like I don’t ever hear any other kind. All right, how many of you are there? Sure as hell more’n one."

"Four, sir."

"In there? That’s gotta be nice’n cozy. Okay, I’m opening this door. Anyone moves funny ain’t gonna be laughing very long, savvy?”

"Understood," Victoria said. "You have nothing to fear from us."

"Swell. I were you, though, wouldn’t make any assumptions about the reverse just yet." The door opened.

Framed in the doorway was a tall, slender figure, with sandy hair, blue-green eyes, a narrow face, and, Ingram noted, pointed ears not quite completely concealed by the hair. He wore some kind of long coat, worn and patched, and an odd sort of formal-looking and equally worn suit. Of more immediate interest, though, were the rapier in one hand and the delicately-carved wand in the other.

Magic and martial skill combined? This man is likely quite formidable, Victoria thought.

The ears look Artan, but he looks more human otherwise, Quester observed.

I don't recognize the wand design, and I can't tell what enchantments might be on the blade, Urelle informed them.

Important thing is to not have to find out the hard way, Ingram replied. We just stay still until he's satisfied we're no threat.

For his part, the stranger was staring with narrowed eyes at Quester, disregarding the others. "And what exactly are you, bo? Never seen your kind before, and your aura don’t taste like this world or the Other."

Quester tilted his head. "I am an Iriistiik. We are from… very far out, so to speak. All of us. I assure you we are no danger to you, sir. May we at least exit this very small room?"

The man darted his gaze around, his eyebrow rising as he took in the rest of their party. "Yeah, sure, why not? Office is big enough. Watch out for the typewriter."

The "office" wasn't a very large room, though compared to the washroom area it was quite spacious. A large, battered desk occupied a good portion of the floor space, with one chair behind it and a peculiar black-metal device whose purpose Ingram couldn't imagine.

The man returned his wand to a holster under his coat, and put the sword on the desk, hilt still near enough to grab, before he sat down in the chair and glanced around. "Okay, start singin’. Who, why, whaddaya want, all the usual questions. I’ll speak up if I think of new ones."

"First, might we have your name, sir?" Victoria asked.

"Might as well, since you already been in my bathtub. Mick Oberon. Now who’re you, sister?"

"Sister"? The vernacular here is strange, Ingram thought.

     No doubt ours will sound strange to him as well, Quester said.

"I am Victoria Vantage," she said. "These are my companions: my niece Urelle Vantage, and Guild Adventurers Ingram Camp-Bel and Quester. A pleasure to meet you, Mick Oberon."

"Just ‘Mick’ is fine, or we’ll be here all day. Now I’m gettin' sick of hearing myself ask, so spill."

"As I said, it may be quite a long story. The shortest version is that we are traveling from… well, one world or reality to another, trying to pass a barrier that has been set up in our own world to prevent any from entering a place that we absolutely must reach. Your bathroom was just the location we happened to come through into yours."

His eyebrows had climbed high enough to almost reach his hairline. "Another ‘other’ world? You puttin’ me on? No, of course you're not," he answered himself. “Even if I couldn’t taste it on you, your bug-man's no Fae I ever heard of." He grinned wryly. "You people had some of the damndest luck, though; almost as whacky as mine. I don't figure there's five people in all Chicago that'd buy a yarn like yours, and most of the mugs here woulda filled you full of lead after one slant at Quester, there."

"Chicago is the name of this world?" Urelle asked.

Mick visibly restrained a laugh. "The city. The world’s called ‘Earth,’ because most humans got the imagination of this chair I’m sittin’ in. And believe you me, most of ‘em would run screaming from your buggy friend there, or else write him a real long letter on a Chicago typewriter."

I'm not sure what those last few words mean, Victoria said through the link, but at the same time I believe I know exactly what he means.

Yes. This world is, I presume, then, inhabited almost entirely by humans or very human-like people. Quester sounded unsurprised.

"So, you, yourself, aren't human, sir?" Ingram asked.

"You know, that ain’t normally a question I’m too honest about answering, but...” He gestured towards Quester again. "Nope, no human here. Aes sidhe, if you know what that means. Fae’ll do, if you don’t."

"'Fae'," Victoria repeated. "I know what that word means in our world, but you would not fit the description. What does that mean here?"

"Huh. That’s a little more complicated. It means... Uh, me. Pixies? Brounie? Bean sidhe? Dverar? Huldra? No? Crap.

"All right. If it’s supernatural and it ain’t a human witch or maybe a ghost, it’s one of us, see? And we vary. Most of us ain’t quite as, uh, distinct as your pal here, but there’s a few... Anyway, me, I get to walk down the street like any mortal. Lucky me." Mick leaned back in his seat. "So, you're just passing through? How're you gonna get back on your course?"

"That’s not too hard," Urelle said. "I've developed a spell to show us the way to the next, well, link in the chain of universes. If you don't mind, I'll try that right now."

"Knock yourself out. Ain't every day I get to witness magic I’ve never seen before."

Mick did watch intently as Urelle performed her now-familiar spell to detect the next destination. She sat back, startled. "Oh! It's close!"

Through her eyes, Ingram saw a bright glow – just over to one side of the room. But, as he thought about it, there was something different about the sensation, compared to the prior uses.

Unsurprisingly, she felt it too. "But… it isn't. That's… strange."

"So, it is and it isn’t. That’s real helpful. Say, the part of the world you come from didn’t have a real big sign on it readin’ “lunatic asylum’ by chance?"

"Well, I can sort of see it, just over to the side there, but at the same time, it feels like it's very far away."

Mick's eyes narrowed. "Show me exactly where 'just over to the side there' is."

She pointed. "In that little empty nook on the side of the room." She pointed to the corner, where Ingram could see there was nothing except maybe a little mold and mildew clinging to the walls. "But then it looks like it's somehow a long, long way past that corner, too."

Mick closed his eyes with a wince. "Of course that's where it is. This was just feelin’ way too easy."

Victoria regarded him with surprise. "So, you understand the answer to this riddle?"

"Your gateway, seal, whatever you wanna call it? It's in Elphame. The Fae realm. Sideways, the Otherworld. You're pointin' right to where I keep my own entryway."

"Wait, there's more than one world in this world?" Ingram said, trying to keep his tone from being incredulous and more just curious.

"It's hardly a surprise if you think about it, Ingram," Victoria said. "After all, our own mundane world also shares its existence with dozens, hundreds, of other worlds, such as the various god realms, afterlives, and so on."

Urelle nodded. "Probably most of the worlds we have gone to are multiple worlds within an individual universe. Universe being defined as some… oh, set of overarching metaphysical laws that distinguishes things like how magic and such work in each. That's why I have to adjust my spells each time I come through – although I think we're bringing a lot of our rules with us. So we can act, mostly, like we do back home, with just a little fiddling."

"A good thing, too," Ingram said, thinking about the implications. "If we didn't, you'd have to learn an entirely new tradition and approach to magic every single time we came into a new universe. It'd take us years and years to ever get home."

"This is all real interesting," Mick said, and Ingram thought that despite the cynical tone in his voice that the older man did find it interesting, "but you got yourself a problem. Elphame ain't safe even for me. You mugs got no idea how dangerous it is, and I don't think you can get there yourselves. Leastwise, not quickly, and you made it clear you're in kinda a hurry."

"But you know how to get there, right, Lord Oberon?" Urelle asked.

"What part of ‘Just Mick’ sounded like ‘call me Lord,’ doll? I gave up all that hooey before your grandparents were born. Yeah, I know how, but it ain't something I’m real eager to do."

Based on the way he was standing and the tone of voice, Ingram figured that Oberon was understating the case. He really didn't want to go. "You… left Elphame for your own reasons, I guess?"

"Real good guess. Not a lot of folks there are too fond of me, and a whole mess of ‘em might just tolerate the touch of cold iron long enough to help nail me to a floor."

"This is an office," Quester began. "You said it yourself. What kind of work do you do from this office, Mick?"

"I'm a PI.” Then, at the blank expressions, “Private investigator. You got a problem, can't do the legwork yourself, you come to me. Why?"

"Well, we have a problem that we can't do the 'legwork' of ourselves, as you see. Could we not hire you to do it?"

He paused a moment. "In theory, sure. But I don’t usually work just for dough—and even if I did, I don’t figure you’re carrying much of the local currency."

Victoria nodded. "That could be a problem. But we might as well see; would this be of any value to you?" She took one of her smaller pouches and dumped it on the desk – from what Ingram could see it was about ten or so Scales and an assortment of smaller coins, mixed gold and silver.

Mick almost overturned his chair. "Holy hell, don’t just go flashin’ that around! People get rubbed out for that kinda scratch!" He reached out, picked up one of the Scales, bit it. “Well, whaddaya know. That's the real stuff."

"I take it, then, that this is of value here?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, Victoria, gold's worth plenty here."

"Then," she reached down and separated out four more Scales, "I offer you the one you have and these four in addition. Will that be sufficient to convince you to open the way?"

“You know, normally I ain’t sure even this’d be enough to convince me to open that door. But that’ll buy a helluva lot of milk. More to the point, last thing I need is you bunnies wanderin’ around gumming things up. I got enough trouble comin’ from two worlds, last thing I need’s a third. So, all right, sister.” A slow grin spread across Mick Oberon's face. "You just hired yourself a tour guide."