Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods) Read online

  Comet Fall

  Pam Uphoff

  Copyright © 2012 Pamela Uphoff

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN

  978-0-9839469-7-7

  Cover by P.A. McWhorter

  Image Credit: NASA

  This is a work of fiction.

  All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional.

  Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  The Witch Families

  About the Author

  Other Titles by the Author

  Excerpt from an Upcoming Release

  Chapter One

  1367 Summer Solstice

  Asia

  Rustle Neverdaut dropped her binoculars and resorted to magic.

  Uncle Lefty leaned over the side. "What is it?"

  "That white thing up on the mountain. I think it's man made." Rustle ignored the indulgent look he gave her. She'd been exploring since she was three, and at fourteen she could tell snow from whatever that was up there. Over there.

  The airship, while hard to steer and infuriatingly subject to the whims of the winds was a great way to travel. Persistent winds from the south had taken them a good ways north of their desired path this trip, but hopefully they would be able to head south soon to one of their corridor points.

  Her father, brother and Aunt Question stepped over to see what they were staring at. Never stepped back to compensate and checked that the little kids weren't going to get tipped over the edge. Rustle backed over to her and the floor's tilt decreased further.

  "It's a dome. I'll bet it's been there all along, but we've missed it in the snow cover." Lefty lowered his binoculars. "No doubt the Earthers. Let's get down and out of their sight and check them out."

  Earthers! She'd been around them briefly when she was a little kid. This could finally be her opportunity to examine the cross-dimensional travelers as an adult. Near adult. Her expression must have given her away.

  "No, Rustle, you are not going." Her father frowned at her. "You kids will stay here."

  She sighed. Still a child, in everyone's eyes. And it didn't help that she was a logical thinker, either. Jek and Obsidian were six years old, and Topaz two. They couldn't be left alone, and if there was trouble up there, the strongest four magicians should be the ones to face it. Not the solo Crescent Moon.

  They pulled weights out of nowhere—actually a transdimensional bubble—and peddled madly to spin the 'propellers.' The airship slowly sank and landed on a flat spot lower than the dome and out of sight behind a shoulder of stone. They set the anchors and Rustle took over the cooking—over a magically heated rock, not a fire that might give them away—so the others could leave right away.

  "This isn't fair." Havi grumbled.

  "When we're a bit older we can go out on our own."

  "Dad is so over-protective, he'll be treating us like kids when we're twenty." Havi grumbled and wandered out to look wistfully upwards.

  The wagon base of the airship was a bit small for all of them for a long season. Rustle sighed. It was great to have all of both families together but goodness three babies had made a big difference. Of course when they'd explored in an ordinary wagon, half of them would have been out on horseback most of the time, and they'd slept out whenever the weather permitted. She missed that too, even though the airship was so much faster.

  She sat and brought out her own maps.

  She'd traced out the outlines of the continents in one of the Auld Wulf's books. The continents as they were on the World where he'd been born. Her World showed the results of a different history of plate tectonics. The largest difference was what had once been the continent of Australia. On this World it had been split into three pieces, one part had moved north to become part of an upraised Indonesian continent. She'd heard that the western third was shifted toward Africa, and the other was a small continent or large island in the extreme south Cific. The Auld Wulf's World had a long sea between Africa and Europe. She'd personally seen the chain of fresh water lakes that were all that remained of it here. The mountains of her Europe were taller, as well, and extended further west.

  All the differences were probably driven by impacts with comets.

  Fourteen hundred years ago one of the millions of multiple Earths had discovered multidimensional travel and disposed of their genetic experiments on this bombarded planet. It had been roughly a thousand years since a comet had collided with this World, killing most of the descendants of that exile. Seven years since Earth—possibly the same Earth—had again found this world across the insubstantial dimensions.

  They'd found it inhabited, and capable of defending itself. But they hadn't gone away altogether. She stared at the rock blocking her sight of the dome. What were they up to?

  ***

  The two metal rectangles at the base of the white dome were easily identified as the standard offices and homes the Earth people had brought with them. Lefty and Question worked their way around the dome until it was between them and the rectangles, then slipped across the bare ground to its side. The door on this side was plain and bare, not even a knob. They both leaned on it, felt it carefully. Fortunately it was warm enough that the heat differentials were detectable in the latching mechanism.

  "I hate doing infra-red. And I really hate things that just need brute force applied to a solid mass." Question grumbled. "Never would have this open in a second." If she weren't sitting back behind a ridge watching.

  "And set off the alarm, too. See the wire?"

  "Ah, an electric circuit, now that's more my speed."

  With a bit more finesse and sweating over pulling a bar on the door on the other side, the latch clicked free and the door creaked stiffly ajar. They pulled it the rest of the way open to peer, and then step inside.

  "It's a telescope." Lefty whispered.

  "A huge one." Question cleared her throat. "There's no one in here, probably because it's daytime. So we don't need to whisper."

  "Yeah." His voice was low anyway, and he prowled and poked. "Wish there were more books."

  "They keep a lot of information on these computers of theirs." Question eyed the thing on a desk. "Never and I didn't get far enough into learning their machines for us to use them."

  "Huh. I remember what you said, and they had them at Gate Camp too." Lefty found a pad of paper with scribbled notes. "Wish they had bette
r handwriting." He set it back exactly where he'd found it, and prowled further.

  "There's not much back here. Do you think we could hide and watch?"

  Question nodded. "We could duck out of sight, not have to use a light warp. Then they wouldn't be alerted to us by any static."

  "And if they do come back, we warp light and maybe they won't realize what causes the static. We'd better tell Dydit and Never though, or they'll be down here figuring we need rescue." Lefty looked a bit absent minded for a moment.

  "Right." They settled down comfortably, picked up the paper pad again, and amiably argued over the various possible meanings of diagrams and scribbles. As the day faded they replaced the pad and moved to their nook to hide.

  Footsteps crunched on gravel. The voices of the approaching Earth people were clear in the thin mountain air. ". . . set up that sweep of . . . "

  "Turn in these preliminary results. . . "

  ". . . whole thing pinned down . . . "

  ". . . time if they want to try . . . "

  The main door opened for a pair of men.

  "It's just a matter of time, they must see that. They have to do something." The speaker was a rotund figure, young and earnest looking.

  "Don't bet on it. Some politicians live to emote all over disasters after they've happened. After all, they've ignored us for almost seven years now." The cynic was taller and thinner, with blond hair cut short. Older than the first one, but still in his twenties.

  "I know. But if we don't warn them, try to do something, we're no better, are we? Now, the sky is clear tonight. We'll be able to extend our data six days further. If the circle of uncertainty continues to shrink, most likely it'll exclude a strike, and we can forget the whole problem." The fat boy turned to one of the desks and the computer on it.

  "Or at any rate put it aside until the next chunk of Hygiea, be it comet or asteroid comes along." The cynic punched buttons and the long strip on the roof rose then slid aside. The whole dome rotated, and then the telescope swung to point out the open strip.

  The fat boy tapped away at the desk in front of the computer. Apparently the pattern of his finger movement meant something specific. Rather like a really finicky spell.

  Rectangles midway up the walls lit slightly, bright specs like a picture of the stars, and then red circles.

  "All right, here are the projected probability circles. Ninety, Ninety-five and Ninety-nine percent probabilities of a strike if the asteroid's orbit has put it in any of them, right now."

  "Scan's complete, overlay them." The cynic said.

  The faint spots of stars blurred into short streaks and a faint comet filled and overflowed the inner circle.

  "Well, that's it." The fat boy pushed back from the desk. "A ninety-nine percent chance that the lead comet of the group will hit this planet in six months. Good thing it's a small one."

  They both returned their attention to their desk tapping. The rectangles changed, showing a new batch of stars, circles . . . and the "scan." Most of the stars became streaks. A few dim spots remained.

  The thin one nodded. "A few chunks of rock. No sign of anything that will hit in four and a half years. Let's check placement for the perihelion in eight and a half years . . . "

  Every thing changed again, now the circles were renumbered, the innermost a mere eighty percent. Lefty heard Question's breath catch. Another comet filled the screen, star streaks barely visible through the haze. The brightest part centered in the circles.

  "Well." The thin man rubbed his hands up and down his pant's seams. "I hope the orbit will change before then. Because that one's a planet killer."

  Chapter Two

  1367 Early Summer

  Karista, Capital of the Kingdom of the West

  The Auld Wulf really hated official appearances. They were in one of the smaller conference rooms in the maze of the palace, a collection of diplomats, bureaucrats and military personnel.

  And gods.

  I am not really a god. Just. . . a powerful man who has lived for a god-awful long time. And for my sins, they call me the God of War.

  He stood at the back of the room, tried to stay out of the business of the government. He could see Lefty, standing quietly at parade rest. The young man had reported to the King before. Often enough to be able to not look nervous. Major Lebonift was the highest ranking magic user in the military.

  King Rebo looked over his selection of people. He'd obviously had time to read the written report. Lefty's presentation had been for the edification of the few who hadn't. He'd had to answer a lot of questions. "So, we need to contact these Earth people for exact information. Figure out how to shield hundreds of cities when we have fewer magic users than shielded three cities last time. Try and find all of the gods. Not pray so we don't distract you lot." King Rebo sighed. "Rufi, I'm going to place you in charge of everything on the other continent. Leano, you're in charge here. Fossi, you know the magic users better than the rest of us, so please stay here to help your father and brother not step on too many of their toes.

  "Rufi, you'd better keep Major Lebonift, you are going to need his expertise over there." The old king looked edgy, as he glanced at the people standing respectfully at the rear of the room. Gods, wizards, witches, mages.

  "Well, I can't order you around, so perhaps I should offer you any help I can provide."

  "Thank you, sire." The Auld Wulf nodded politely. "We'll try to figure out a way to shift the comet so it misses, or if that won't work, shift it to hit where it will do the least damage. They did say it was a small one. With this in mind, we'll see if we can talk to these Earth people."

  The King shifted uneasily. "Good luck. Try to not get them too angry. Just in case throwing ourselves on their mercy turns out to be the only way to survive the big comet. Eight years . . . "

  ***

  The Auld Wulf moved them all back into his winery.

  "Going to make us walk home, Wolf?" Harry snorted.

  "You're just too used to people coming and going from your place," the Auld Wulf retorted. "I think we need to all pool our knowledge, which in my case involves a hell of a lot of books. Come this way."

  Most of them had seen his library before. The door shed attention, but it wasn't sealed.

  "These are the reports on the Earth people," he tapped the papers on his desk. "Any of you who haven't read them ought to start there. Then we'll need to get specific."

  He walked through the very crowded shelves he'd sworn he was going to properly catalog Real Soon, to the end wall of the library. He'd been swearing that for a thousand years . . . He unsealed the entrance.

  "Damn. You just beat my junk room cold." Romeau snickered.

  The Auld Wulf grinned back. "No this is just the library annex, the junk room, well, it even scares me."

  He wiggled back to where he vaguely remembered stacking history books . . . "All right, here's a historical overview. Now mind you this is the history of the World all us gods came from, and ends several years before we were exiled. How it will mesh with the history of the world Never and Question visited, I don't know."

  Never smiled. "I'll let you know." She held her hand out for the book; her eyes drifted toward all the others back there.

  "Dydit." He frowned at the wizard. "Stop looking so damned nervy. We need to analyze these gates of theirs, I doubt we can duplicate them, but we need to not be completely helpless in the hands of these people.

  "I know you've been bashed so many times you see nearly everything as a potential attack. So you've been dodging lessons. Justice is gobbling them up."

  "We're the only ones who can see these dimensions?" Dydit's face was stiff and inexpressive.

  "The only adults, there's a pack of kids, but we're out of time."

  Harry sighed. "The comet was so far away, and so fast when it was close enough to push . . . I had a couple hundred friends and their families crammed in the Tavern."

  The Auld Wulf twitched his shoulders. "When we failed to
push the comet far enough away, I traveled the winery, closed two bubbles around it and rode it out. I wound up in, hmm, probably not far from Cadent, so I was actually pretty far from the hit. We kept checking, I had the place crammed full too. We'd open the bubble, look out . . . With two levels of bubbles closed, almost no time would pass for us, while it streamed by for the outside. It was nearly a century, outside, before we decided it was time to come out and face the mess."

  "Three cities." Harry said. "Only three cities survived. Towns, really. Maybe a hundred thousand people, total. We need to do better this time."

  "So," Dydit glared. "Where do we start?"

  "With lessons with Gisele and Harry."

  Eventually they all trickled home, most of them with reading material. The Auld Wulf sighed and gave a corner the beady eye.

  Rustle unwarped the light, let it flow naturally. At fourteen she was still slender and childish of figure. "What can I do to help?"

  "This time the comet should be small." He rubbed his face, more tired than he liked to admit. He'd been genetically engineered to live forever, but his body seemed to cycle through phases, and he was old now. In the past, he'd stay like this until something happened, generally a injury, and that would trigger a renewal process. He'd sleep for most of a year, and occasionally even longer, then reemerge looking and feeling young again. If he'd known he'd be trying to do something of this magnitude, he'd have jumped off a cliff or something a year ago . . . "But they come in so fast, there isn't much time to do anything."

  He walked back to the library. "I need to catalogue and sort all this."

  "I'll do it!" She was all bright-eyed and eager. Thank god she looked so young, Dydit and Never's daughter. Not a complication he could afford. He could use some female companionship, but he'd better look elsewhere for the next decade . . . or at least four or five years.

  "Certainly. I think there are some astronomy texts in here somewhere. You could read up on comets, when you find them."

  ***

  They'd kept a watch on the Earth people's Gate Camp since shortly after their arrival seven years ago. So they knew the routine the Earth Troops kept and appeared a day before their regular contact home, on a hill, in plain sight.