Last Merge Page 3

  The sun was down before they walked up the low flat hill the village sat upon. They stopped and listened for a long time, then followed the sounds of high pitched voices.

  ". . . not fair! I'm twenty-one, almost twenty-two. I should be the one advancing! I can't believe Orie, Tarm and Quizzie are going to go ahead of us!"

  "It's Raven's fault. If she'd make it here for practices our triad would be way ahead."

  "Plus she's too young to advance. We need to resort the Triads. Or maybe we should just raid them. Who do you think we should try to get?"

  Eldon slipped off the horse and whispered directions in the goat's ear, then strode out, leading the horse. He let his glow show, and just strutted past the speakers as if not noticing them. He veered up the side road, heading for the hot springs. He caught the avid stares, and the whispered speculation as to his identity and destination. Then the bare whisper of movement as the two huntresses took up his trail.

  Halfway up the trail, Heso galloped back and nodded the all clear. Excellent. No one was at the hot springs. He ducked under the first trees of the forest and followed the goat up the trail beside the ravine. The witches were closing in, and as he stepped out onto the warm bare rocks around the springs, they pounced.

  "Ha! A trespasser on the witches territory! That's going to cost you a kiss, my handsome fellow!" It was hard to be sure in the dark, but he thought this one's hair was red. The other was definitely light in color.

  "You know, Wing, we could advance right now." The blonde shrugged off her winter cloak and stepped out of boots.

  "Oh, Jac, what a deliciously naughty thought!" Now the red head started shedding clothes.

  Eldon started a low level round of his usual spells. Lust, just the barest touch of an orgasm, a bit drunken but not actually dreamy, a desire for a baby. Just so they'd be less inclined to change their minds.

  It was so dark neither of them saw Heso coming. The blonde yelped. "Hey what? Ah, ah!" A flash of virginity lost and, Heso's spells were suddenly stronger. The blonde started sounding gratified instead of furious.

  Must have broken the chain.

  The redhead ran out and started kicking Heso.

  Eldon ducked back into the trees and circled around the hotsprings. He felt a faint side glance of another virgin flash. Good, get Heso back in shape and then run like hell . . . But when he got back to the clearing Heso was only half changed, and the redheaded witch wasn't co-operating in her deflowering.

  Eldon winced. The mood those two had been in, rape was completely unnecessary.

  Heso was finally changing. Slowly.

  The blonde made a gesture, and the whole clearing was illuminated. She ran forward and kicked the partly changed Heso. "Get away! You horrible thing!"

  The dreaminess fled from the redhead's eyes and she tried to turn and see what was climbing all over her. She gasped in fury and outrage and started kicking and thrashing.

  Eldon caught the blonde's wrist as she prepared a fireball, and slammed a sleep spell down on her, hard. She staggered and he pushed the spell harder, damn these Ash witches were strong! Leaned on the spell hard and felt it, barely, take hold.

  The redhead was cursing and trying to throw spells, but Heso was distracting her with spells of his own, a bit randomly as he was obviously in considerable pain, half changed and stubbornly determined to finish what he'd started. There was another faint virgin flash, geeze, couldn't he get it in far enough to rip it? Eldon dodged as the redhead changed her aim to him. Heso shoved as he jacked, but she was jerking him around and keeping him off balance and not able to shove in, which worked fine until they both fell in the pool of steaming hot water.

  Heso was fine but Eldon jumped in to make sure the girl's head was above water, and got bitten for his concern. He left her clinging to the edge and scrambled out to grab his bottle of wine and pour some of it into the blonde as she struggled out from under the sleep spell.

  The redhead had managed to get a foot against Heso and was shoving him away.

  "Deflowering virgins isn't usually that hard, Heso! You can do it." Eldon poured wine into the pool and stepped back to watch the effect of all that sulfur on the nano thingies.

  The blonde blindsided him and her leap shoved them both into the pool and on top of Heso and the redhead. The redhead lost her leverage, and Heso kept his grip. This time the virgin flash was brilliant as the redhead screamed. Heso came with a yell, and the redhead screamed again. In rage, by the sound of it. Heso backed off and crawled out of the pool. He collapsed on the rocks, and the redhead in the pool . . . In the dark, he rather thought he could see her eyes flashing. She grabbed him, and well, wine in the pool . . .

  "Drain him!." The blonde witch pounced and attached herself to his shoulders. "Drain the damned animal!" Eldon choked on powerfully magic water, swallowed, and threw a couple of spells around for the sheer half drunkenness of it all. Nothing wrong with Gods and Goddesses . . .

  Heso jumped back in then and broke them all apart and Eldon managed to surface and breathe.

  "Hey! You guys aren't supposed to advance yet." A new female voice. "What do you think you're doing?"

  "They're ours!" The blonde yelled back, then boggled slightly. "I mean, they're nasty and bad, they raped us."

  "You followed us up here!" Eldon protested. There suddenly seemed to be rather a lot of female bodies in the pool. All over him. He was happy to oblige. Both physically and magically. Heso was tossing spells as well, and the pool was full of spells and he must have fucked at least ten women, except that there were only about half that number here. He lost track of how many had been virgins.

  Eldon pulled a bit of energy from the water and crawled weakly out. Heso had deflowered most of them, and probably had most of Nil's spells disabled if not entirely removed. All that was left was to retreat before any of the witches truly recovered from their wine enhanced natural urges.

  The redhead followed him, trying to throw a spell through the drunken euphoria. "You two should die!"

  "You followed and attacked us!" Eldon tightened his vocal cords into falsetto. "We can advance right now! Oh Jac, what a deliciously naughty thought!" He grabbed his clothes and started pulling them on. "Drain him, Drain the damned animal!"

  Heso had climbed out the far side of the pool and circled around to Eldon's side, or more specifically, to Eldon's pack and some spare clothes.

  "We ought to report you to Answer! Black widows!" Eldon grabbed Muffin, who was unwisely drinking from the pool and they faded back into the trees, still dressing.

  Heso cursed his cold feet, so Eldon boosted him up on Muffin and they trotted down the hill.

  The Grange Barn still had the corridor to Rip Crossing, and they dived through and hastened into the Inn. Somewhere, someone would have left some shoes and a coat laying around . . . actually there was a whole trail of clothing and footgear leading down one hallway. A the sound of a party, starting small and building in volume as they approached the glass doors to the communal pool, where an orgy was obviously in full swing. Heso found boots that fit, and a good coat, then they raided the kitchen and the barns for trail supplies and headed out without ever seeing anyone.

  "Ugg. A six hundred mile hike—and I hope to hell someone got the windows done." Heso wiggled his fingers. "Much better, but Old Gods, I thought those witches were going to kill us. I can't believe you laid a guilt trip on them, like that."

  "Me neither." Eldon slashed out and eviscerated a water lizard. Muffin snorted and danced away from it. "Maybe we should find someplace safe and den up for the night."

  "We need to go another dozen miles, get way past the witches' place before then."

  "Right. I don't think I've ever come down here." Muffin neighed in his ear and he winced. "Not so loud, lady."

  The soft thud of hooves came their way. He couldn't see anything until something horse-shaped materialized out of the night, blacker than the shadows in the starlight.

  "Phantom!" Heso's voice was a bit hi
gh. "That means that Rustle is here, and sometimes that means the Auld Wulf is here. Shh, shh! Be quiet!"

  The horses weren't the least bit quiet.

  A window opened somewhere in the gloom. "Can't you guys steal stud services at a decent hour of the night? Or in a sensible season of the year?" Female voice, exasperated.

  "Sorry, sorry, she drank out of the pool after the wine went in." Heso’s voice was a bit high and panicky.

  "Old Gods! Are you inviting horses to your orgies now? No, no. Don't tell me." The window slammed.

  They headed on south, with several interruptions, until the big black shadow creature turned back for home.

  The waning crescent moon topped the canyon edge and gave them more light, but they still stayed afoot, winding through odd rock formations until they spotted a nice high place they figured they could barricade from lizards.

  Heso slept while Eldon kept watch, then in the pre-dawn Heso took over while Eldon grabbed a few hours. Eldon wasn't as good at throwing corridors as some witches, but he was good enough to cut off four or five miles at a toss, get them over rough spots and across the river when it shifted and hugged the east side, and again when it shifted back. The six hundred miles to the Cliff House took them six days, and they staggered in happily in the afternoon to find Epee feeding the other three horses in the barn on the canyon floor, windows in their rooms and soft mattresses.

  ***

  "I hid on William's boat, and wound up going for a sail."

  Heso snickered. "The man nobody can lie to?"

  "Our conversation tended to be a bit acrimonious. 'You stiff little prick! If you were a man I could just seduce you into sailing me reasonably close to home and letting me go.' I couldn't stop myself from saying things like that. And he is a stiff little prick. 'You're a cold blooded criminal without the faintest hint of contrition, and you think I'm going to let you go?' So I tried reasoning with him. 'Well, I haven't killed anyone in some time. Personally. I suppose you'd assign me some guilt when the Disco people raided our home, endangered our children, and sent us fleeing across dimensions. What right did they have to do that? Speaking of cross dimensional cr, cr, cr. Aaeeiii!' It was really frustrating."

  Falchion was laughing. "Don't you just hate him?"

  "Yes! 'They were requested to act by the World you raided. Old Gods! That a woman would have anything to do with that mass rape and obscene stage setting . . . ' I told him I thought it was quite funny. Wish I could have seen the looks on their faces . . . He was offended even worse. So of course I seduced him. Oh, did you know he's cozy with the mermaids? I ended up having to fake being attacked by a mermaid, I bubbled myself and William dove overboard to rescue me. I came out of the bubble and sailed east until I found the shore, then south until I found a beach. I hit a sand bar just out of the surf and swam for it."

  "Well, what are we going to do about Jade and Betelgeuse? Not to mention Rior."

  ***

  Eldon was wondering if perhaps he was stuck in a looping nightmare. They all started with him walking from the Campsite to the corridors to Karista, through the streets to the Temple . . .

  If the witches were angry, they'd decided to sleep on it.

  :: Jade? Betelgeuse?::

  :: Here!:: Betelgeuse was wide awake. :: Run!::

  He threw himself through the corridor to Karista and ran.

  Right, bloody unlikely the Ash witches wouldn't be pissed about it.

  From the safety of the streets, he looked back carefully, and spotted two figures leaving the grounds. Familiar figures.

  Betelgeuse galloped up and hugged him, then stood back and frowned at him. "Lapwing and Jacana are really mad at you. You shouldn't do it as a goat."

  "That was Heso, this time. Nil put the Goat spell on him, and some other spells too. Lucky for him the Village was full of virgins who wanted to advance."

  She smiled a little. "Willing until they saw him. They were furious, but Answer said it served them right for starting it, and that they were both very strong channelers now, so they should be satisfied. And the other three got told off, too. Then all seven of them turned up pregnant with twins. A girl and a boy each." She tapped her toes nervously. "That's when I decided to come back. I got homesick for you doofuses."

  Eldon reminded himself that she was probably only sixteen or so. Maybe less. She looked bright and happy, and very young.

  Jade walked up and thumped his shoulder. "Which just goes to show you that even goats can be useful.

  ***

  The strange blonde woman looked around with apparent satisfaction. "Well, that's the last of us. Maybe we can stay out of trouble for awhile."

  Eldon snickered. "Rior, I presume."

  "You presume, you die. My home did its damnedest to change me back into what I was, then threw me out in horror when it realized I was infecting it with rebellion and independence. I'll be back to male soon enough." A chilly glance from Eldon to Heso. "But right now, we need to talk about gold mining."

  Eldon nodded. "Definitely. Something honest, that involves no crime whatsoever! I do not ever want Disco or Xen Wolfson to find me again."

  Chapter Three

  Q explains the problem

  Embassy World, Disco Headquarters

  Late Spring 1402 px

  15 Yusef 1404 yp

  Xen Wolfson hid a smile as he watched his sister try to explain what was plain to her.

  Q’s audience was a mix of dimensional physicists and politicians. However intelligent, none of them could see the multiverse, no matter how they measured and graphed and calculated .

  "And this thinner spray of worlds are Earths that had devastating nuclear wars. The One World is one of them." Thin gray lines, thousands of them, forming a stringy fog over a wide wedge of her model.

  Xen sobered. A year since the miniature Helios universe merged with another Earth, ripping it out of its place in its own universe. And we have only guesses for when or if it'll merge again, killing—again—billions of people.

  "What are these oddball colored lines going across?" The President of the Empire of the One was studying the translucent 3-D illusion intently.

  "I call them strays. Worlds so different than the worlds they split from that they've gone zinging off in unexpected directions, very far from the clusters of the more common differences that split their worlds." Q sighed. "It's . . . I really wish you lot would develop some machinery that could measure these things. In any case, the red lines, if you follow them back, departed from the main dinosaur line about sixty five million years ago, but internally have only experienced a few hundred thousand years, sometimes much less. They're both rare and scattered. But they've allowed us a glimpse into the past of our own worlds . . . sorry." She cleared her throat.

  Embarrassed to have gotten distracted. Xen suppressed a grin.

  "The blue are primitive worlds. A departure from ours about fifty-thousand years ago, with perhaps ten to twenty-thousand years experienced internally. Also rare, but with a much tighter grouping as they cross the area of interest." Q touched the wafer projecting the illusion.

  "However, what I want to show is that I've backtracked the Helios' micro-universe across the various membranes."

  A black line sprung up, wiggling through the cloudy specks of thousands, perhaps millions of other membranes—parallel universes.

  "Why isn't the line straight." One of the physicists glared at the model.

  "I think that having been ripped away from its home membrane, it—all five stars and however many planets and asteroids—is no longer orbiting the galactic center. But it passes through other membranes every few years and the similarity creates an attraction that jerks it around, closer to the equivalent bodies, even though it doesn't merge."

  Xen frowned. "Wouldn't that be a little rough on the other brane? Surely they'd get jerked too?"

  "Yep." She stuck her finger into the model. "Note that it wandered across the Hygeia branch. I suspect that has a lot to do with the plane
tary scale devastation so many of our branch's branes have experienced."

  Xen leaned and tracked the black line to its end, deep in the nuclear war branch. "And now?"

  "Now." Q reached and flipped a small tab of metal over, turning off the imbued illusions. She flipped a second tab over to the "on" side. A close up, now, with the membranes as a small gray crumples trailing the faint threads of their past positions.

  "The Helios Miniverse is, well, tumbling. Not around their world, or even their Sun, but around the center of mass of the Miniverse, which is two thirds of the way to the Alpha Centauri system. So most of the time when it passes through another membrane, another universe, it matches up so poorly that there's very little interaction. But the tumble's slow, so when it comes around to almost matching, it's almost matching for several years, as it passes multiple membranes with several possible merges. Mind you, according to them, they only merge every twenty or thirty years. In between they have plenty of time to rebuild their merge machines. But this interval of potential merging they are rebuilding in great haste. They are intending to merge soon. For whatever insane reason."

  The black line showed slight course changes where it passed through one crumpled membrane and clipped another. The other membranes it had passed were further away, and showed just a tiny deflection of the Miniverse's course.

  Q tapped the first crumple. "It's been a year since it merged with—and ripped the Earth out of—that membrane. It passed a dozen worlds at a distance, then had a close encounter. It appears to have been slightly diverted from a straight path when it passed this world, XC 12634."

  A world so devastated by a global nuclear war that no humans and damn few animals survived. There's a lot of them in this area. The One World got off lightly.

  "It bent, we could measure it." The Oner expert, Esna Withione was leaning forward, glaring as if Q was responsible for the looming disaster.