Carl Palmer looked around the kitchen again. It’s all neat, the heat’s working, checked the vents, the contractor will be here tomorrow for the repairs…
He shook his head, catching sight of his own narrow face with hazel eyes in the stainless-steel surface of the refrigerator. It just seems so futile. Sometimes I wonder if they’re right.
Coming to the little house by himself had been a mistake, he decided. Usually he brought someone else — his wife Katrina, one of his other friends like Joe or Rob — but this weekend everyone else had been busy, and Carl felt he’d put off the prep of the house as long as he could. Freezing weather was starting, and it had to be ready.
But ready for what?
He’d left the note on the table where Erik had left it when…whatever happened had happened. The police had looked at the note of course, there’d been a lot of running around and questions the first couple of weeks, but eventually things had settled down; the note was hastily written, with Erik’s usual sloppy handwriting, but it was clearly his, written with the phrasing his friends would expect. Aside from the fact that he had disappeared, there wasn’t anything to indicate that his friend had lost his mind or been the victim of foul play.
He found himself picking the note up again and reading it, as though reading it again would somehow give him a clue as to what had happened and why.
To whoever finds this note (probably Carl, I bet):
If you’re reading this, I’ve had to go away very suddenly. You might say I’ve been…called away. I’m not going into details on this, I don’t have time.
This is a legal document; if I don’t return within one year, you should treat me as dead and execute my will as will be found in my safety deposit box at Key Bank. For that year, however, I want everything maintained here for my return. Carl Palmer, of 3 Rowland Court, Delmar, is hereby given a full power of attorney to use the resources of my current estate to maintain my home, car (the latter you will probably find empty on Route 4), and other possessions. This includes paying all heating, power, telephone, and other bills of normal operation, and any maintenance or repair as may be needed. My brother David is named as a secondary power of attorney and oversight on the use of these resources.
Please forgive any failures of proper legal procedure; I have no time to consult a lawyer or rewrite this exactly. Basically, make sure things are ready for me to return anytime in the next year; after that, I’m dead.
Hope we will meet again.
Erik L. Medon
The note was both signed and had a blue blotch which turned out to be an improvised fingerprint; as near as the police could tell, Erik had rubbed a ballpoint pen quickly over the surface of his thumb and pressed it down, creating a readable fingerprint that verified his presence when writing the note.
Unfortunately, reading it again hadn’t added any more enlightenment. Try as he might, Carl simply couldn’t imagine what could possibly have gotten his best friend to up and disappear at something like four in the morning, with no warning, no build-up, no hints of what was happening or why.
“He was comfortable,” Carl heard himself say. Which was, really, the problem. Erik might not have been perfectly happy — he had regrets, of course, and Carl knew about most of them, but overall he was a pretty relaxed, cheerful, and — if you were being honest — slightly lazy geek who was satisfied to play RPG campaigns on most weekends, read books, write fanfic and stories for his own amusement, play videogames, and pretty much not expend much physical effort.
Dashing off in the middle of the night to an unnamed mysterious location for some unknown purpose? That was just about the opposite of Erik Medon’s usual behavior. Normally you couldn’t wake him up before nine even on a workday.
Carl sighed again. I’m getting depressed again. Damn him anyway!
The late afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows suddenly…shifted, and Carl looked up in confusion. It wasn’t the usual golden-pink color of the sunset, and it wasn’t the change in light of a cloud passing by. It hadn’t faded; it was brightening, and not with just one color, but many; the walls and floor danced with color, red, yellow, green, blue, as though rippling, flowing torrents of spotlights of all hues were cascading down in front of the house.
Carl got to one of the windows, looked out — and gasped.
A tremendous Rainbow stretched down from the heavens, reaching out of the nearly cloudless sky from some unguessable height to rest — or so it seemed — on the far side of the house, near the front door. There was not the slightest trace of rain, the grass was dry, the leaves tumbled in a faint breeze, yet that luminescent vision remained, illuminating everything with colors so strong and pure that they almost brought tears to Carl’s eyes.
Even as he registered this, really grasped that a rainbow had come to Earth in some impossible fashion, the Rainbow lifted, fading at this end as though picked up by some inconceivably mighty hand, dwindling away into a final flare of prismatic radiance in the heavens.
Carl sank back into one of the nearby chairs, staring out at the now perfectly ordinary fall afternoon. Did I really see that? What the heck was it? And with more than a bit of self-annoyance, and why the hell didn’t I snap a picture of it with my cell?
The front door rattled.
He jumped out of the chair and strode towards the door. I’m not expecting anyone else, so I wonder if someone’s trying to break into the vacant house. Bad timing for them, if so. His car was parked off to the side, so it wasn’t immediately obvious to a potential thief that he was present.
Just before he reached the door, it opened.
Two people stood on the doorstep. The one in front, opening the door, was a tall young man wearing what looked like some incredible cosplay outfit, a sort of crystal-armor thing, right down to the Ludicrously Oversized Sword. Then he looked up from the doorknob, from which he was withdrawing a key.
“Carl?!”
Carl knew, vaguely, that his jaw had dropped, that he was staring like an idiot, but he simply couldn’t help it. It was Erik Medon in front of him — but it wasn’t. Or rather, it was an Erik Medon who couldn’t have existed for the last twenty years. The lines of the face had faded, the wrinkles about the eyes smoothed — the hair that had been in full retreat had returned. And under that ridiculous yet impressive armor, there were muscles that his friend had never had except in his most active imagination, muscles that couldn’t possibly have developed in two or three months.
“Carl! So you did get my message! Thank God, I had a terrible vision of everything being seized and sold off, coming home to a vacant lot or something.”
“Erik?” he managed finally. “Erik? What the hell happened? Where have you — how did you — what are you wearing that — arrgh!” He shook his head furiously to clear it, since all the questions were crashing into each other and making a total mess of things.
Erik laughed, but not unkindly. “I’m sorry, Carl. I really am, but I just didn’t have a chance to tell anyone.” He turned slightly. “Poly, this is Carl Palmer, my best friend for, oh, twenty years or more. Carl, this is Polychrome…my wife.”
For the first time, Carl really looked at the second person, who now stepped forward, and for the second time found his jaw dropping. That’s impossible. No girl really looks like that. Not in real life.
But the impossible vision was taking his hand and shaking it. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Carl,” she said.
Carl forced his mouth closed, then gave the automatic response, “And I’m glad to meet you too. Um… excuse me for a moment.” He turned back to Erik. “WIFE?”
“Yeah.” For a moment his friend looked toward Polychrome (that’s a weird name, too…sounds almost familiar, Carl thought) and he looked almost awestruck, as though he still couldn’t believe it himself. “Yes, we’re married.”
Then Erik snapped himself back to the present. “Look, let’s go to the kitchen. I think we’d better order some delivery. This is going to take a little while.”
“That is an understatement,” Carl said, still trying to take in the changes. It’s Erik, no doubt about it. But he’s so changed. Yet… not changed, in a way. Almost as though he was… more himself than ever. He shook his head and grinned as he picked up the phone. “Okay, Erik, but I warn you — you got some ’splainin’ ta do!”
And Polychrome looked absolutely confused as her husband burst out laughing.
FIN.
[The italicized verses are the ones that Iris Mirabilis withheld from Erik and Polychrome]
Two paths before, and the way never clear.
One brings you joy, the other filled with fear.
All will hinge on the choice of one;
A choice only made before it has begun.
The one a Hero, True-Mortal born
Whose heart awaits call of Faerie horn.
Unbirthed as yet, and you must wait
Until the day decreed by fate.
Where three cloud-castles stand and face the sun
There the Rainbow Princess ends her run;
Cloud-wall ahead, dark storms behind
At last the fated place you’ll find.
Down the Rainbow all is changed, there is no familiar ground;
Only when your name is spoken shall you turn yourself around
And when you see the speaker know your hero has been found.
To the Rainbow’s Daughter a beauty will be shown
Might and mortal glory as she has never known
Set her feet to dancing, until they’ve skyward flown
Through the skies and homeward to stand before the Throne.
If no joy by dawning, if no dancing glory felt
Hope is gone now, shattered, lost, like first snow’s fading melt.
Return you to the palace and prepare you for the end
For mortal heart has withered, and Faerie has no friend.
Hero’s ways he now must learn, of strength and sword and will
Bring to the fore what lay within, and both will pay the cost;
For Rainbow’s Daughter teaches, the Prophecy to fulfill
And though she knows it not, her heart is forever lost.
Across the sky and sea, wisdom he shall
seek
That which he sought shall he refuse
And in rejecting wisdom gains he strength;
With one companion he sets out; another he must win
To brave the perils still to come and find his way within.
Within find danger, maybe doom
And then the saga’s done;
But safely pass where perils loom
And half the quest is run.
Wasteland to be crossed remains
Where only walk the dead
If the other side he attains
Follow where he’s led.
Army faces army
Fifty thousand strong
Both of Faerie, neither yielding
The battle will be long.
Forward always be the path
To city, once of Emerald, gray
Win you through the wizard’s wrath
To face your judgment day.
With him then the Rainbow’s Daughter
Sees love where once was friend;
But win or lose, your favorite child
Shall come home not again.
Now he comes to the end, few his friends, alone
Held by words and chains before the Warlock’s throne.
Sorely wounded shall he be, and then his fate be known;
If struck through the heart and silent, unable he to call
Then Ozma’s power sealed forever and darkness shall rule all;
Bathed in his heart’s blood but still with voice
Ozma’s name he calls;
Her power lifts him up, burns his soul away
But in those final moments he may win the day.
The following people contributed greatly
to the publication of Polychrome:
Wanda Beers: For Xander and Maddox - May your imaginations take you over the rainbow!
Ron Critchfield
Raja Thiagarajan: with thanks to Julie, and to Jason--who may enjoy it when he’s older.
David Churn
Paul (Drak Bibliophile) Howard
Bill Ryan: Wherever, whenever and however you write the result is always the same. Magnificent!
Rich Pieri
Thomas Talley: Very good book!
Chris: Keep writing!
Kevin Reid
Rob Masters
Chris Baumgartner
Terry Austin, God King of Trolls
Sean Haley: If it ain’t broke, I can fix that.
Sue Fisher
Caden, Ethan, & Isaac Osborne
Rob Hampson
Other Books by Ryk E. Spoor:
Atlantaea Universe:
Digital Knight (2003)
Phoenix Rising (2012)
Paradigms Lost (2014)
Phoenix in Shadow (May 2015)
Phoenix Ascendant (date not set)
Boundary Universe (with Eric Flint):
Boundary (2006)
Threshold (2010)
Portal (2013)
Castaway Planet (February 2015)
Castaway Odyssey (date not set)
Arenaverse:
Grand Central Arena (2010)
Spheres of Influence (2013)
Challenges of the Deeps (date not set)
Other:
Diamonds Are Forever (with Eric Flint; part of the anthology Mountain Magic, 2004)