Posted by AlOmega on June 21, 2003 at 10:44:26:
There are Patterns and Patterns within Patterns. All Patterns lead to Gates. And the Gates are endless even though the Patterns are finite.
The mathematics comprising a Gateway are becoming clearer each time I travel. Entering the newly created Gate, I could see the distinct lines and colors which permitted entrance to the Over-Dark. Looking back, I watched the colors wash into the blackness of the Over-Dark. Within the Over-Dark, all is silent, mired in mists. A traveler either flows with the lines - becoming part of the Patterns - or fights them. It took me some time to learn that flow. Even now it’s difficult.
I moved from one Pattern to another as one would sail. Tacking permitted flowing against the Pattern Currents but this is difficult and not easily mastered. Each Pattern led to many Gates. And the Gates were without number because they appeared and vanished according to the whims of the Over-Dark.
I’ve often wondered if the Over-Dark is alive. But Gaite, my Master, has assured me many times that it’s not. Still I also know the Master hides many things from me saying He would reveal them when the “time was right”. When will the “time” be right? Ever?
I caught the Pattern of colors and lines leading to my Gate of Destination - my escape from the Over-Dark. My Master had warned that this place would be different. No longer would I have the Magic’s of the Worlds. This world would be full of technology.
But wasn’t technology just another form of magic?
As I flowed through my Gate of Destination, I curled up once more. Like always, this Gate spat me out as if I were some unwanted parasite. Several curses I mumbled after crashing into a brick wall. I felt thousands of stings telling me that several layers of skin on my back was forcibly removed. Well the Merreellee did not function well in the Over-Dark. I rose grimacing once more from the pain. Then the Merreellee entered the wound easing the pain to a dull throb and then .... nothing. The sights and sounds of the night crashed into my skull as my senses readjusted themselves. The smells took longer as the patter of a rat’s paws echoed through the alley. I could feel the Merreellee readjusted themselves waiting for more input. Well here I was. Now what?
The Merrellee are benign parasites that I had picked up long ago on another world of Might and Magic - a place where a good sword and a few well chosen spells meant the difference between life and death. Sure I could have removed them any time I pleased. But the benefits were many and one needs an edge - any edge - when dealing with the creatures I dealt with. Now anyone looking at me would have seen a male about two meters wearing a black skintight suit, slippers, and skullcap. Some might have seen my clothing ripple occasionally. That was because the ‘clothing’ - the Merreellee - provided protection while projecting a measure of fashion. At the moment only protection was called for. What ‘fashion’ there was remained to be discovered. I frowned and dropped a few choice words on the winds when I entered the city.
The fool Gate had placed me several hundred kilometers from my ultimate destination. Time to check in. Anyone watching me might have noticed a flash of light play on my forehead as the Diadem Jewel was activated. That and the rings remain invisible for the most part. That’s the way it should be.
A bunch of young men - hardly more than boys really - detached themselves from the darkness but that didn’t concern me. According to Gaite, my Master, I needed to ride a ‘subway’. That would take me to my final destination much faster. What was a ‘subway’ though?. I knew it existed underground and had ‘words’ written on the sides. Easy enough to spot, I figured. Normally I’d have caught one of the local beasts of burden to ride. This should prove easier. Though the smells weren’t clean, I’d compromise principles if the travel remained this convenient. And it was the stink of this technoworld that drove me to rush my mission.
One of the teens bumped into me.
“Hey! Look where you’re goin’”, spoke a pimply-face lad.
I looked him with the contempt he deserved and sauntered on. Two more decided to block my path waving blades. Fool, I thought looking at one, then the other before pushing aside and walking on. A fourth grabbed my shoulder. I let the momentum spin me around. Catching the careless fool’s wrist, I twisted, bring the fool to his knees screaming in pain.
“I have no quarrel with you...” I revised on seeing the other seven boys, “..or any of you.”
“Ya shoved Billy n did somethin’ to Mike’s hand. And ‘sides ya aint suppose to be here. No Nygger’s got a right to be here in our ‘Hood.”
“Excuse me for trespassing, gentlemen. I’m new here. Fact is I won’t remain a second longer than it takes me to find a ‘subway’. Could you tell me where to find that? Also, would you define ‘Nygger’?”
“You stupid Coon. Guess we just gotta...”
Four idiots seized my arms while two came toward me holding pipes. I smiled as twisting away I lay several blows to arms and legs before any of them could react. The blows were more in the nature of caresses to nerve endings and pressure points. But the pain was no less intense. After all I had no quarrel with them.
The gang clutching stinging wounds stumbled away - all except the two wielding knives.
“Foolish,” I said gathering both blades. Looking at the two I asked again. Directions to the nearest subway entrance came quickly this time. Suddenly the group broke as a body and ran. Having done with them, I continued to the ‘subway’.
Several blocks away they stopped gulping in huge quantities of stale air. I overheard Mike managing to squeak out...
“Hey. Didja see that?”
“Nope. And you didn’t either, Mike or you’ll be thrown into the loony bin. Aint nobody gonna believe it if ya says ya see’d a Nygger change to White.”
I chuckled once again shaking my head slowly. Humans, I thought heading down the stairs to the subway. I waited with the few others out in the late spring night. The second was mine, I realized on seeing the train slow. The ticket seller had not questioned when I leaped over the turnstile. Another benefit of the Merreellee - at least in dealing with Humans. The last stop left me some two kilometers of walking. But walking is good when the air smells clean and fresh.
Probably the city is the problem. I hadn’t seen a city quite so large in any of my ‘trips’ via the Gates. But what cities I’d seen, hadn’t aroused anything other than disgust. Death Traps. All of them were. If foodstuffs were stopped suddenly, the city - any city - would die in a matter of days. I’ve seen it before. Once long ago when the plague arrived on whiffs of rat-smells I had watched a city die. Sure I’d go to cities but I was rarely uncomfortable in them.
The change in air currents told me I’d arrived. The shifting star patterns confirmed it. Now where...... . Ah, there. I tapped an invisible wall and it parted. Foolish Humans? Even more foolish these. Remlacians should have maintained a guard even on maintenance entrances. Perhaps they would later. However I suspected they didn’t figure on Human incursions. Not here in their stronghold. I stopped once more needing more data. More directions. Precise this time.
Looking up, I paused. How to go there? Thirty meters high it was and even I couldn’t leap that high. Perhaps these Remlacians weren’t so foolish. A few meters away was another platform five meters high. This was much easier and there was another, and finally a third which gave me passage to the original.
My path curved to the right before entering a long, ambling hallway. I hadn’t traveled far when I captured the sounds of footsteps. Quickly I darted into a sliding door. As the door closed with a faint rush of air, I heard someone in the next room. That someone - a tall male brunette - saw me before the Merreellee could react. Nothing to do about that, I realized spinning him around. Before he could cry out, I gave his head a swift, hard twist breaking his neck. I lowered the rapidly cooling body to the floor. Nearby was another sliding door which opened to a very small room. Pushing him into a corner, I rearranged some hanging clothes. A cursory look wouldn’t announce my kill to anyone right away. I looked around the main room once more. I might be unfamiliar with most of the objects but I could make educated guesses as to their functions. My major concern, however, was gaining access to one particular room. My mission was to wait until a certain ‘someone’ returned, obtain an object, and bring that object to Gaite.
Why Gaite couldn’t have done the dirty work himself, was one more question added to the mix. Gaite had raised and taught me everything I knew - which was considerable. But he’d only imparted a fraction of his own knowledge. Much was unsaid; much remained hidden in Gaite’s mind; much would never be revealed. Why this was so, also bothered me. Couldn’t I be trusted? After all, Gaite was almost like the father I had never known.
Extending my senses beyond the door, I ascertained all was clear. I opened the door to the now empty passage. I’d gotten nearly five hundred meters further before I heard footsteps once again. This time I entered a smelly utility closet. As the sounds faded into the distance, I began again. Entering the next room was even easier than the utility closet. Apparently these aliens had never needed locks. I let my senses wander over the room and its contents. Nothing I could detect. Relaxing finally, I gave the Merreellee my thoughts on fashion. As I sat, I seemed to fade into the surrounding fabric of the divan.
Nearly an hour passes before I felt the change in air pressure. In fast mode, I could almost see the air replaced by a heavenly woman’s body. Clad in a lucid tangerine-orange elastic suit molded to her body like a second skin, I could see she was clearly non-Human. She was an assassin of some sort according to Gaite. Obviously she was highly skilled - though I tempered that with the knowledge that most of her ‘kills’ were probably Humans. She paused for a moment. I thought that she might have sensed me somehow - perhaps the moisture of my breath - the air currents of breathing perhaps. However, being ‘civilized’ meant not trusting her animal instincts. Gaite had warned me repeatedly about that. The lesson was clear and dearly learned in a deep forest of ferns and conifers.
I couldn’t help but watch as she removed her skintight suit. Yes, she was beautiful. Dark hair cascading over shoulders dusted lightly with freckles, small breasts announcing to the world her pride at being a woman, caused feelings in my loins that I hadn’t felt in months. She turned and faced me fully revealing sparkling eyes and a mouth quick to smile - though my eyes traveled in other directions. Her breath ceased as she sensed .... something - my own breathing, I realized. Careless, that. Not for the last time I wished I could read another’s thoughts.
I again reviewed what my Master had told me. Her name was Barbanne. Considered one of the Remlacian Empire’s best assassins, she was cold and calculating relying on her femininity when all else failed. Though hired to assassinate Humans, she was also thought to be part of House Troian’s rise to power. If true, she had risen high in the ranks of the Assassin Guild. As she turned to enter the shower stall, I noticed the tiny tattoo on her right buttock. I’d have to ask Master Gaite about that. Though I could have taken the suit - my goal after all, for some reason I had to follow her.
It was as if she sensed me enter. Uncanny, I thought. But she was alien after all. However she had adapted to Human. Maybe that was what drew me to her. She closed her eyes as I caressed her. Enough. Not too much nor too little. She closed her eyes and smiled knowing that I’d finally revealed my presence. Fingers touching body parts, touching lips, touching, always touching. Learning one another. The Merreellee gave way to this. That was part of what they were. But this woman, this creature, they did not like. If so, they would have let me know.
Still, it had been a long time since my own love had died so mysteriously, needlessly by a black dragon on a black night on a black, magic strewn planet that had no name but was a horribly twisted Earth. I missed her so. These thoughts hovered around me as we moved from shower to her bed.
A dangerous place I discovered on feeling the pinprick of a knife tickling my chest. Now she wore a different smile. A quizzical smile of amusement mixed with questions. I smiled in return which may have thrown her reflexes off. Perhaps that was why I could take the knife so easily. No cry would she give, I realized. She was much too professional for that. But her alertness changed to puzzlement as the Merreellee covered my flesh once more. Alien though she was, that repulsed her.
Repulsion was replaced by amazement as her blade scored above her navel. I pulled it up trusting to find vital organs. Her anatomy might be alien but they were similarly located as those of a Human. Then with a swiftness such as she had never known in one of the locals, I slipped behind her drawing the blade against her throat. No sound could she give out now.
Gathering the suit, I retraced my steps. No difficulty had I entering the Gate and Over-Dark. Instinctively I retraced my path to my Home Gate. I had been lucky. She could have sliced me quick enough. She had the opportunity - several in fact. Why hadn’t she? A puzzle to be sorted out later, I suspected.
Gaite received the suit nonplused like always. After a laconic debriefing, I was dismissed. But that night as I waited for sleep to come, I wondered once more. Sure, I’d been discovered and had to kill her. But perhaps she had let me. If so, why in that brief moment when life and death was in the balance, would she have chosen death rather than life? Perhaps she had tired of the life of an assassin. Perhaps I only surprised her. I knew deep within myself that my carelessness had caused her death. After all I could have stolen her suit without revealing myself. Gaite had mentioned this in my debriefing - that I had acted foolishly. But why she acted the way she had, I'll never know.
AlOmega