ROAD TRIP FROM HELL
Richard had loaded the jeep with supplies before returning. Extra fuel, boxes of ammunition, several assault rifles, half a dozen large automatic pistols, and a grenade launcher.
“For the small stuff,” he explained as he showed Christopher and the women how to load and charge the rifles. He had spent a day teaching Lalania to drive the jeep. Alaine had only needed a quarter of an hour to master the machine gun. Christopher had watched it destroying a stand of trees and frowned at the inadequacy of his own armaments. His artillerymen had stared in slack-jawed lust.
“How do you know how to do all this?” Christopher asked.
“The internet,” Richard replied. “You can look up manuals. Ell borrowed a phone while we were over there. The question you should be asking is how did these girls master these skills so quickly? You think it took you only a day to learn how to operate a motorcar?”
At least he knew the answer to this one. “Rank. It makes everything easier.”
“Only to a limit,” Richard said. “But yes. It does something to your mind. This truly fascinating phenomenon calls into question everything we think we know about consciousness. You’d think you’d be more curious.”
“I saw a dragon turn into an elf,” Christopher said. “That made me curious.”
Richard shrugged. “The least interesting event I have witnessed. It’s just energy. A staggering amount, but just energy. This . . . this is how our brains work. This is complex.”
Christopher had finally had enough. “Look. While you were lounging around in an elven academy, I was fighting for my life. I didn’t have time for abstract questions.”
“As I understand it, you’ve been on that throne for a few years now.” Christopher sighed, all of the fight taken out of him when he realized how little he had changed the justice system of this world. “It had its own distractions.”
“That at least I can believe.” Richard was apparently trying to make peace in his own insufferable way. “But surely you noticed that people here, even people without powers, have tael.”
“Yes,” Christopher said. “I did notice that.”
“Didn’t you wonder what it is for? I mean, if tael lets you cast spells, Ell learn to drive a car, and Alaine jump out of a ten-story window, then what does it do for ordinary people? Why is it there at all?”
Christopher shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just a feature of this world.”
“Yes: a feature of this world, and no other. Which explains why you summoned me instead of Ramanujan.”
“Who?”
Richard frowned at him. “Srinivasa Ramanujan. The mathematician. He died in 1920. You really don’t know who he was?” He shook his head in dismay. “If you wanted the smartest man in the world, you should have revived him. I assumed you augured for a name, rather than simply relying on popular press reports. I had, until now, assumed my status as the greatest living intellect had been established by divine authority, not merely your stray recollections. But no matter. You cannot revive Srini despite the fact that he died young. Because he died without tael. There is no record of him in the cosmic database.”
Christopher felt his blood turn to ice. “Is that why I can’t reach Maggie?”
“Not at all. She died here. The instant she stepped across the threshold, she was infected. Should you open a permanent gate to Earth, everyone there will be infected within a heartbeat. Only the temporary nature of your gates so far has prevented it.”
“That’s an ugly word,” Christopher said.
“Yet appropriate. Like a virus, it sits in our heads, doing nothing for us. A benign infection, if you will, but we did not ask for it, and it gains us naught. You and I only profit because we have other people’s tael, as well as our own. As far as I can tell, our native quantity of tael only serves to register us with the magic system. We can be scried on, spied on, revived, and a select number of other effects less immediate than simple directed energy. For instance, no one without tael can be shape-shifted.”
“You understand,” Christopher said, scratching his chin, “that I had no un-taeled subjects to study.”
“Another reason I took Ell to Earth. That sympathy spell she does, where she makes you think you’re her best friend? That doesn’t work. But she could still disguise herself. It’s a bloody mess, it is. Like it’s completely arbitrary.”
That was something they could agree on. Christopher nodded his head in sympathy, but Richard shook his head.
“It only seems that way. There has to be an underlying principle, a purpose. If all that was necessary was cosmic tagging, that could be accomplished with a fraction of the standard amount. This is wasteful, and nature is not profligate without reason. Eventually I will figure it out.”
“Great. That’s great. I’m happy for you. Can we get back to the problem at hand?”
The man stared at him curiously. “What makes you think this isn’t?”
Their conversation was interrupted by an explosion. Alaine had figured out how to work the grenade launcher.
“Not as effective as one of your fire strikes,” she said with a frown aimed downrange where the logs they had set up as targets were lying in disarray from the blast.
“Except it works from within an anti-magic sphere. Which will prove useful, I think,” Richard said. “Christopher and I will both prepare that particular effect.”
“Is that where we’re at?” Christopher asked. “Preparing spells?”
“We are,” Richard confirmed. “We can leave in the morning.”
The words did not comfort Christopher. He had already fought and won against impossible odds and lost anyway. Nothing had convinced him that this time would be different.
Karl shook his head sadly. “I cannot decide which I regret the most: letting you leave or letting you take that vehicle away. Why didn’t you make any of those machine guns for us?”
They were standing in the courtyard while Richard checked over the preparations. He had made a list, although Christopher suspected it was merely a prop he could wave at people who weren’t moving fast enough to suit him. The man did not seem like the kind of person who forgot things.
“They’re hard. Also, you need smokeless powder or they get fouled and jam.” Christopher sighed. “And don’t even ask about the jeep. I bet it has electronic fuel injection. I can’t even guess how to manage that.”
“I can’t believe you’re going without me. Again.” Gregor was trying to make a joke of it, but the truth hurt nonetheless. Disa clung to the blue knight’s arm with a look of gratitude that took the pain away.
“I also feel the sting of rejection,” Torme said. “Though I know I have no reason to be anything but grateful. Still, it is the adventure of a lifetime and hard to miss out on.”
“It’s not my idea.” Christopher defended himself. “I wanted to take the whole army. Marcius told me not to.”
“Good advice even if it didn’t come from a god,” Lalania said, joining the little knot of men. “I have made a study of our legends. Stealth really is the key. An army would attract a plague of demons. And even with machine guns, I think we would lose.”
Christopher grunted. “I wouldn’t be taking jeeps.” It would probably take his merely mortal men several months to master the art of tank warfare, but Christopher would have gladly endured it.
Well, not gladly.
“As am I dismayed,” Cardinal Faren said. “This feels too much like a capstone. With Krellyan restored to us, our world is as it was, only better. This reads like the end of our chapter in your life, and I am shocked to discover I do not want that.”
There was a brief round of smiles at the irascible old man’s confession.
“Yet do not let my words weigh on you.” Faren reached out and took Christopher’s hands in his. “We will finish the work you have begun. Karl’s army will replace the knights. Krellyan’s Vicars will replace the Barons. Your witches will teach us your chemistry. Your smiths will teach us your physics. Your bards . . . well, they will do what they always do, and we will try to ignore it as usual.”
Helga bit her lip through her tears. “You are all talking like he will never come back. He always comes back. I was there, the first time, before any of you. He came back.”
Christopher hugged her and then reached down to pat the child clinging to her dress. “Of course I will. No one else knows how to make a decent bowl of porridge.”
They were ready: Alaine standing in the back of the jeep with her hands lingering over the machine gun, and Richard sitting in the passenger seat. Christopher wore his armor, sword, and cloak. Lalania and Alaine were in their elven chainmail, the elf with the big royal sword over her back and the bard with a rapier at her side. Lalania also had the lyre, which made Christopher a little uncomfortable because technically it belonged to the kingdom. Richard was unarmored, in only the light leather the elves favored. He was not unarmed, however; he carried a short-barreled assault rifle. All of them wore one of the heavy pistols he had brought back. The bullets for the pistols were huge, almost as big around as the rifles that Christopher had made. Richard swore they would stop a buffalo. Christopher, remembering the bull Karl had killed, suspected that Richard had never actually seen a buffalo and certainly not what passed for large herbivores around these parts.
Vicar Rana intercepted him as he made his way to the jeep.
“Do not upbraid me for my superstitions,” she admonished him. “They are the only comfort left to me these days, when my son makes bombs out of water and fire.” Johm’s first attempts at steam engines had a tendency to explode. “Just take this. Once before you marched in impossible danger, and I gave it to you then. Once again I do the same, in the hope of the same outcome.”
She handed him a heavy bronze jar, the magic water bottle that could sprout a firehose indefinitely. It was, as he expected, the one marked with the sigil of Marcius. He had no idea how it would help, but he could hardly say no.
“Thank you,” he said instead, “for everything.”
One last petitioner waited for him: the Witch of the Moors, in a flowing white dress. “I am not entitled to this color,” she admitted. “It is a symbol only. Yet you have won me over. My people will fare better under Krellyan’s reign than mine. I may choose not to renew my sovereignty. At the least I will serve your Saint loyally.”
“I would not go so far, my lady,” Lalania said. “As Christopher has made clear, the realm still requires magic.”
“You know I don’t actually have any idea what you are talking about, right?” Christopher said.
The Witch smiled. “I know. As I also know you are under a spell older than magic. Go with my good wishes, and succeed.”
He nodded, pretending it made sense, and hurried the last few steps to the jeep.
“I call shotgun,” Richard said. “You ride in the back and keep our gunner alive.”
Christopher climbed up to his assigned seat, checking his headroom. If Alaine swung that gun around too vigorously, he would get a knocking.
Lalania started the jeep. Christopher cast the spells that would last all day at his new rank, energy protection and strength. Both of them seemed likely to be helpful enough that he cast them on everyone.
Alaine handed each of the three humans a small potion vial. They unscrewed the tops and swallowed the contents. More of the elven night-vision magic.
“And a chaser,” Richard said, producing a six-pack of beer. “It’s traditional for road trips,” he explained, handing them each one.
“It’s warm,” Christopher said after the first sip.
“Like I said, traditional.” Then the man muttered something under his breath that might have been, “Bloody Yanks.”
Lalania drained hers in one go, tossed it over the window, and hit the gas. The jeep lurched until she slammed on the brakes, throwing them all forward.
“Just checking.” She grinned wildly.
Richard stood up, hanging onto the windscreen. He started chanting the gate spell.
Christopher looked around curiously. He hadn’t paid that much attention to the preparations and wasn’t sure what they were going to do for a key. His gaze fell on Major Kennet, who waved to him cheerfully. Christopher smiled and waved back, just in time to see Karl shoot the young man through the head with one of the new automatic pistols.
The boy fell, dead as a doornail, blood and brain spraying out from the blast. Christopher’s mouth went dry. Richard finished his chant and the rift opened, jagged, dark, and foul, a stench blowing in from the plane of the dead. Ahead Christopher could see an entire decaying forest of rotted trees and dead moss. To the side, he could see Krellyan kneeling over the body. The Saint caught his eye and nodded reassuringly.
They had found a volunteer to open the gate. Fortunately, it was temporary duty. Kennet had been brought back so many times, he must be used to it by now.
As Lalania accelerated toward the rift, Richard threw his empty beer can out of the jeep. Christopher gratefully raised his to his lips, no longer concerned about the temperature.
The forest was sparse enough that the jeep could wind through it, crunching over dried leaves and through huge spider webs that stretched from tree to tree. Christopher’s job was navigation; he had cast his compass spell and now held his hand pointing in the direction they should be going, regardless of whatever temporary detours Lalania had to make for the terrain.
Richard hummed a tune, his rifle in his hands and one foot up on the dashboard. “Should have brought some music,” he said.
Alaine was unamused. “As if this vehicle does not announce our presence enough.”
“I got one with the new mufflers.” Richard shrugged. “The smell of horseflesh would be worse.”
Christopher fished around at his feet, trying to find the rest of the six-pack.
“Why don’t we fly?” he asked. He wanted to try the air-walking spell and see whether the jeep’s tires could ride on little puffs of cloud.
“NO,” all three of them said in unison.
“Nothing would attract the bevinget more quickly,” Alaine said.
“That’s our name for the winged demons,” Lalania explained. “The other one, with the chains, is called a kjede. The Wizard of Carrhill’s books were very informative.”
“Oh,” said Richard. “I just don’t like heights.”
“Those are only two out of many,” Alaine said.
“Yes, but they’re among the worst, right?” It was strange hearing Lalania ask for confirmation. And from an elf, no less.
“The bevinget, definitely. Some of the others are less obvious and thus more dangerous for it.”
“I think,” mused Richard, “that mostly we’ll be dealing with the obvious today.”
The land opened up, turning into a dry riverbed free of anything larger than a weed. Christopher felt a little homesick, at least until he looked up. The sky was black and starless but not empty. A dead sun hung overhead, giving off no light; the land was perpetually dark, the night never-ending.
Lalania accelerated, driving faster.
“Watch out for drops,” he said, worried. “Or pot holes.”
“You watch out,” Richard answered. “Seriously. You have a spell for that, right? Can you put it on her?”
“No, that’s me.” Alaine kissed her fingers and then touched Lalania on the top of her head.
The bard immediately swerved, throwing them all up against doors, or in Alaine’s case, the gunnery frame.
Richard put his seat belt on. Christopher did the same. Lalania, quite sensibly, already had hers on.
“Sorry,” Lalania apologized. “I think that was a false alarm.” She swerved again and drove past a gaping hole in the ground that bubbled with some foul substance.
“Um,” Christopher said, his gaze having been directed outward. There was a crowd of skeletal figures, several hundred strong, running along the edge of the riverbank, black and yellow skin flapping from white animated bones.
“I saw them,” Alaine said. “They won’t catch us.”
Ahead of them, the land began to move. Bushes and dirt rose up, falling off a giant rotting body of something five or six times larger than an elephant. It might have been a dinosaur, once.
Alaine aimed the machine gun but held her fire. Lalania downshifted and turned, spraying sand. She cut around the hulking beast and left it behind.
“I concede,” Alaine frowned. “Horses would have been worse.”
“I know,” Richard said lightly. He had another can of beer in his hands.
“Where’s the other one?” Christopher leaned forward to ask but then had to sit up and point Lalania in the right direction. “Take that fork.”
She hewed around and sent them down a narrower channel. “No choice here,” she said. “Hang on.”
Corpses started popping up out of the ground, grabbing at the jeep as it went past. Most of them slid off or were crushed by the jeep’s solid front bumper. One managed to hang onto the passenger door.
Richard hit it with the butt of his rifle until it fell off. One hand remained clinging to the side mirror, unattached to the rest of the body. Richard kicked it off with his boot.
“This is the little stuff.” He scanned the sky. “We should see something bigger soon.”
“Behind us,” Alaine said. Richard looked over his left shoulder and sat up straight, trying to get a clear line of sight. Christopher had no chance; Alaine was in his way. Behind her he could see three winged creatures bearing down on them. Richard took a shot, the sound loud and sharp in front of Christopher’s face. He watched the brass cartridge fly out, bounce off the windscreen, and fall by the wayside. Alaine shouldered her rifle and began firing, raining brass over the edge of the jeep.
“Slow down,” Richard called over the gun shots. Lalania let the jeep idle down to a lower speed. Now Richard and Alaine had a steadier firing platform. He fired carefully while she blazed away. All three of the winged creatures fell, one after another. Alaine tossed her depleted magazine overboard and shoved a new one into her rifle. Richard scowled, apparently aware that his efforts had been completely unnecessary. Christopher was disturbed to see that none of the flyers had tried to retreat even as their wingmen died in the air.
“So much for unannounced,” Richard needled Alaine.
“I did that for you,” she answered. “The harpies have no interest in me.”
The jeep slowed as it crawled out of the riverbed. Now they were on a long, flat plain. There was no cover here, and Christopher was glad the jeep’s headlights were off. Any light would be seen for miles. Torches would be like fishing lures. At least the gunfire was only temporary.
“There’s our bigger,” Richard said, pointing ahead. Two small figures were drifting through the sky, slowly heading their way.
Alaine frowned. “If you would, Christopher.”
He cast his weapon blessing on her machine gun, expending considerably more spell energy than usual. This one would last for almost an hour.
Looking forward again, he realized the small figures were in fact huge. They had only seemed small because of how far away they had been. They weren’t far away anymore, and they weren’t slow.
Richard was fixing earmuffs over Lalania’s head. Christopher couldn’t get the muffs under his helmet, so he just put his fingers in his ears. Alaine squeezed a dozen rounds from the big gun and then did it twice more.
As the jeep zoomed between the bodies, each the size of a small wagon and slowly turning into smoke, Alaine actually wheedled. “Surely we can stop. It would take only seconds.”
“No,” Richard said.
“Why would we stop?” Christopher asked.
“Those creatures are almost legendary,” Alaine said, staring backward as they vanished in the distance. “A wealth of power unimaginable to mortal man lies on the ground back there, and this wizard of yours drives past it like a cheap taco stand.”
“Stopping to collect loot is how people get killed,” Richard said. “Ell’s stories make that clear, as if common sense and history were not enough. We’re not here to get rich.”
“Says the man who was handed his rank,” grumbled Alaine, but without heat.
“How do you know what a taco stand is?” Christopher asked, amazed.
“You don’t have tacos in your kingdom?” Alaine answered, equally surprised. “Are you sure? I thought I had . . . never mind. It must have been somewhere else.”
“Thank the gods Lalania can’t hear this,” Richard said. “We had burritos while we waited for the jeep to be brought up out of armory parking. She loved them.”
“Now I know you’re putting me on,” Christopher said. “You can’t get Mexican food in London.”
“Listen, mate, it’s a cultural haven. The most multicultural city in the world.”
Christopher had to stop arguing so he could tap Lalania on the shoulder. He pointed vigorously, following the instruction of his direction-finding spell, and she swerved again.
Richard muttered an oath. He leaned over and flipped on the jeep’s headlights. Then he cast the anti-magic spell and the world went dark, save for the cone of light cut out by the halogen beams.
Now Lalania drove through the night on merely mortal terms. She slowed instinctively, no longer guided by the trap-finding spell, but still driving faster than Christopher would have dared. He didn’t say anything, however, because she couldn’t hear him. Alaine was using the machine gun again.
The battle was not completely invisible. Columns of fire struck at the jeep, incinerating the decayed vegetation outside the sphere of protection. Waves of dark energy and at one point a giant hailstorm of mixed ice and flaming meteorites lashed around them. Christopher saw several of the huge winged demon forms pass overhead, and Lalania had to swerve around one that fell in front of the jeep while the machine gun tore into it.
A twelve-foot-long spear smashed through the windscreen and into Richard’s chest. The iron tip came out the back of his chair, impaling Christopher’s right calf.
“Dismiss the field,” Christopher shouted desperately, struggling to remove the spear. He pulled his calf off it, ignoring the blood and pain, put both gauntleted hands together on the spear head, and pushed.
Richard gurgled, blood spilling out of his mouth. He must have said the right words because the darkness went away. Lalania stepped on the gas. Christopher finally got the spear out of the man and quickly cast. He kept his hand on Richard, letting the healing power flow as he watched an invisible meter in his head winding down his spell power.
“You see why ninth rank would have been insufficient,” Alaine shouted in between bursts of gunfire.
The spear would have killed the lower ranked Lalania instantly.
“Nonsense,” Richard argued. “He would have revived me. With less than a minute’s death, I wouldn’t have even lost my prepared spells.”
The wizard leaned back and put his face close to Christopher to ensure that his words were heard. Christopher thought he was going to say thank you.
Instead, he said, “Your turn.”
Cryptic, but Christopher understood. He cast his anti-magic sphere. Lalania cursed loudly at the return of darkness but was drowned out by the shattering roar of a hailstorm. Ice in chunks the size of watermelons smoked as it fell and exploded when it hit the ground. The ground outside of the protected sphere was torn and broken.
Some of that damage landed in front of the jeep. When the wheels hit the rough ground, the jeep bounced high. If Christopher had not been strapped in, he would have been thrown out. Another giant spear slammed into the jeep and passed through his thigh, sticking into the floor. If he had not been temporarily airborne, it would have gutted him and severed his spine. He hung onto it for support until they reached flat ground again. Then he pulled it out and tossed it aside, tael binding his wound before he bled more than a gallon or two.
The next spear was aimed at the jeep. It impaled the hood. The engine started coughing.
“Okay, now we stop,” Richard shouted between machine gun blasts. “Here—no, there.”
Lalania locked up the brakes, and the jeep started sliding. Richard pointed at Christopher and gestured imperiously.
Christopher did the bravest thing he had ever done. He unbuckled his seat belt and fell out of the jeep. It plowed on, without him, and then the engine died. The lights went out, all sound went away, and Christopher was alone in the dark surrounded by monsters. And without magic. The anti-magic sphere was centered on him.
He decided to stay on the ground and play dead. Maybe nothing would notice him. This did not work. A horse-sized, fanged, cat-like creature, although its mouth seemed to be triangular in shape instead of the traditional arrangement, came bounding up. He rolled over, his sword held out between him and the beast, but it was only a bit of steel at the moment. The creature ignored it and put one huge paw on his chest to hold him down while it bit off his head.
Gunfire erupted. The tri-part mouth writhed and then came apart. The animal staggered back and died, its head reduced to pulp by Alaine’s machine gun. The jeep lights flared, and its engine raced as it circled around to pick up Christopher. Richard had used his magic to repair it.
“That’s right,” Richard said, extending a hand to pull Christopher into the jeep. “I earned honors at Oxford and went to an elven wizard academy so I could work in the motor pool.”
They raced on, although blindly. Lalania could not see beyond the headlights, and Christopher could not use his direction magic. Alaine steered her instead.
“This part is obvious,” she explained.
There were no more attacks. The machine gun was a weapon the enemy could not understand. There were defenses against it, of course— Christopher was wearing one of them, in the form of his cloak, which would have protected him from all those spears—but those defenses did not work without magic, as his recent encounter had demonstrated. Anything that got close enough to hurt them would be robbed of defense by the sphere and torn to pieces by the gun.
Lalania locked up the brakes again. The jeep came to a stop, idling, at the foot of a cliff that stretched up into the sky, beyond the range of his unenhanced vision.
“Now comes the hard part,” Richard said. “Also, the weird part.” He signaled with his hand, and Christopher dropped the field. That was the last of them. He and Richard could only master one each and still be able to prepare the gate spell.
With his night vision restored, he could see the cliff was five hundred feet high.
“You definitely want to strap in for this,” Richard reminded him. The wizard cast a spell and nodded to Lalania. “Drive on, miss.”
“It’s a cliff,” she said.
He pointed to a sloped bit at the foothill, steep but still navigable by the jeep. “Start there.”
She drove over to the slope and cautiously edged forward.
“Step on it, girl,” Richard ordered, and slapped her knee. The jeep lurched forward. Lalania grit her teeth and punched the gas, driving straight at the cliff, the jeep angling up sharper and sharper until it felt that it must tip over.
The wheels held. Even when the jeep was completely vertical, Christopher lying on his seatback like a bed, the wheels held. The engine whined and complained, the jeep slowing in its advance up the cliff side, and Lalania down-shifted.
“Might want to dump some weight,” Richard suggested, throwing a jerrican of fuel over the side. Alaine made a quick inventory of her ammunition stores and threw several boxes out the back, which was now also down.
Everything not bolted down fell into the back, most of it hitting Christopher on the way past. He caught the almost empty six-pack by its plastic holder, its one remaining beer still intact. After a moment’s contemplation, he regretfully threw it after the ammo boxes.
Alaine fired a few times while they drove up the cliff face. Fortunately, the machine gun was rigged for anti-aircraft fire, so she could aim straight up, which was now actually level with the ground. The various beasties thought better of pressing the attack and stayed away.
She also fired several times at the lip of the cliff, far above. Consequently, Lalania only had to dodge three large boulders thrown at them, one of them accompanied by a large troll that had been knocked loose by the machine gun. It flailed and wailed as it went past. Another dozen boulders fell, but they were launched blindly and fell harmlessly to the side.
When the jeep finally crawled over the edge, there was a crowd of trolls waiting for them. Alaine knocked down the front ranks with the gun, but they were already regenerating while their fellows leaped over them.
Christopher started throwing columns of fire. Richard added a few fireballs, and the problem went away.
Lalania advanced along the top of the mesa through the charred remains of the trolls, which blew away in a charcoal dust. A few hundred feet from the edge was a huge temple, vaguely Greek in architecture but on a giant’s scale. Not a single column was wholly intact; there were chunks of marble the size of cars scattered about, and the whole structure was missing a roof. She drove up a flight of shallow stairs, the jeep bumping with each step, and came to a stop on a well-worn marble floor.
Illuminated in the headlights in front of them was a single humansized figure, dressed in a black robe, skeletal hands clasped in front.
“WELCOME To MY PARLOR,” it said in a graveled voice, the weight of a thousand dead stones disturbed by a dreadful tread. Christopher remembered when the Wizard of Carrhill had pretended to be a terrifying undead monster. This was the effect he had been going for. Christopher vaguely wished the man could be here now, just so he could see how far short his attempt had fallen.