Christopher Leeson

Detective Rick Watson had been working on the same case for months. He had been put on the trail of Jason Morretti, a criminal mastermind operating out of New York City, but he had been continually frustrated in turning up the evidence needed to put the man away. Alas, a minor raid that he had been unexpectedly called in on had brought disaster. The raid had aimed at shutting down an illegal bio-lab operating in upper New York state and had been very hush-hush because of its suspected ties to traitors in the US government. The operators triggered a self-demolition rather than have it captured.

The explosion had caused Rick Watson to be washed over by a biological soup. This random concoctions of cultures had sent the detective to a hospital where he lay semi-conscious for weeks. To say it bluntly, whatever it was that drenched Rick, it had progressively transformed him into a woman.

This was all new to the doctors who treated him. When he finally came full awake, Rick was astonished. The department was willing to pay for his restorative sex-change surgery, but they also explained that such would put him out of action for a year. The more Rick thought about that, the less he liked it. He -- now a she -- was determined to solve the case that she was working on. The department couldn't afford the disruptions that a public disclosure of the accident would have brought on.To prepare Rick to return to work, the department provided her with the paperwork for a new identity. Rick chose the name of Rita Holmes -- a joke in reference to her real name of Watson.

With the aid of senior officers, Rita evolved a new plan. The woman she had become was very fine looking. She would present herself to the Morretti gang as a spoiled trust-fund brat and start working undercover on the edge of Morretti's criminal underworld, seeking every day to get closer to it.

Despite her hard work, Rita, was finding this case his/her toughest yet. It really bothered her that she hadn't been able to deliver the goods as a man, and it only seemed harder to do now that she was a woman. Shaking off her doubts, she set upon her goal with steely determination. She had already spent months studying the criminal’s past, his contacts, and his habits. What she needed to do at this point was to learn how to impersonate a natural woman.

First, she met with a voice coach who helped her change the way she talked. She learned to speak more softly and use words and tones that evoked the feminine. As a rich kid, she had to dress like one, and that meant learning a lot about women's hair, makeup, and clothing. Finally, Rita felt ready to start attending the events and affairs that Morretti normally frequented.

At first, Rita kept her distance from the man himself, easing herself into her role by observing gang members from the sidelines. Little by little, the infiltrator started to make connections with some of the people who regularly attended the events. With them she established her identity as Rita Holmes. These efforts allowed her to get invitations to gatherings from people whom Morretti knew. At the affairs, she manipulated her contacts into introducing her to the powerful Syndicate man.

For a crook, Morretti was genial. Nonetheless, he proved out a distrustful man who kept any new acquaintances at arm's length. Becoming frustrated, Rita decided to see if by acting more boldly she might establish an actual social relationship with her target. Up to now, she had been conducting herself like a proper young lady. That was getting her nowhere. She came to believe that she had to make some drastic changes in both her manners and her appearance if she was going to make an impression on a man like him -- a man who already had on call all the women that any man could possibly use.

With the help of advisors called in the NYPD, Rita modified her style. Hardest of all was acting convincingly like a young woman on the make. She had her coaches teach her what to do so as to seem more outgoing and adventurous. The detective wanted to show the criminal that she was someone who was willing to pursue risks and was not afraid to take chances.

Even though the new Rita was very different from the old, Morretti warmed very slowly toward her, but after a few weeks he began to take more and more notice. He approached her with increasing frequency, asking questions about her life, her likes and interests. He gradually began to display a personal interest in her.

Eventually, the criminal kingpin began to open up to Rita. The big moment was when he invited her to a garden party where, she knew, many of his cronies would be gathered.

Unfortunately, the event proved uneventful. Morretti remained superficial in his attentions. He clearly was not trusting her to any great degree. Still finding herself blocked, Rita decided to take a drastic step. If she encouraged the gangster to make sexual advances, that could lead to intimacy -- which might provide new ways to manipulate him. She mainly wanted to make him comfortable enough to start unloading his worries and troubles upon her.

So Rita put her plan into action, she crafted a third metamorphosis. She asked her advisors to provide her with more dresses that fairly screemed "sex." Rita surprised herself with what she ended up agreeing to be seen in. She was acting on a hunch. Having been a man herself, she had a good idea what a tuxedoed thug like Morretti might enjoy seeing a woman wearing. He pumped her acting coach for ideas how to show off a wilder side and worked with an acting coach to learn the methodology of flirtation while using subtle body language which was calculated to rivet the attention of a randy male.

The next time she got close to Morretti's orbit, Rita was sporting the most provocative sort of clothing. It pleased her that Morretti responded very positively. She talked to him in a coquettish manner and her eyes didn't chasten him when he he very obviously admired her cleavage. She was embarrassed, of coure, but somehow managed not to allow it to show.

Her tone and her movements encouraged him to boldness and eventually the gang boss made his move. He touched Rita's arm in a way he had never done before and asked her out for dinner.

Rita realize that such was a big step forward. Though the intensity of his new interest incited her anxiety, she had been working toward this and had no option other than to agree to go out with him.

The next day, Rita and the criminal went to the Blue Lagoon Dinner Club. Rita was provocatively dressed to the max and still nervous, but she managed to keep her cool. She talked to him in a friendly manner and convincingly laughed at his jokes. In fact, the change she had brought about in Morretti was such a significant one that she started to wonder whether she didn't have the potential to become a good actress.

At the end of the night, the criminal was talking in a general way about how his illicit operations and how high his very lucrative federal connections ran. Rita was relieved at having won a degree of the man's trust and now she could finally start digging the ground close-in to him to find the evidence she needed.

Eventually, Morretti starting asking Rita to travel with him. She accepted every invitation, although she absolutely didn't like his company. She had no doubt that if he ever guessed what she was actually up to, she would disappear without a trace.

Rita was now actually arriving at social gatherings escorted by Morretti. As time went on, she was invited to more and more private events. Most of the guests at these affairs were criminals whose mug shots she had seen before. Others were politicians whose criminal activities, many people knew, were being continually covered up by the FBI and Justice Department.

Finally, after months of hard work and preparation, Rita was able to congratulate herself on infiltrating the criminal’s inner circle. Yet she was still somewhat on the outside looking in. She was always kept away and watched when Morretti met with his major lieutenants. She needed more access than this. She had to go in all the way into his confidence or else she would ultimately fail. Now it was time to step up the heat of their supposed affair.

It almost surprised her that he had not already been asking for sex from her. She began to wonder if Morretti wasn't one of those types who went everywhere with beautiful women as a ruse to cover up the fact that they were impotent. Part of her hoped that Morretti was one of the weak tribe, considering her situation, but if he were, she might never get past his final guard.

While she was still wondering about how things really really stood, there came an evening when Morretti called up to invite her to his penthouse, which he had never done before. When he picked her up in is limousine, the look in his eyes made Rita very worried about what was going to happen next.

By the time they arrived at the criminal's lavish digs, Rita's stomach had tied itself up into tight knots. She had been subtly offering her body to this man for weeks. Was he finally going to accept the offer? Did she really want this? Rita nearly leapt from her skin when the man reached out and touched her breasts. Whatever had restrained him before, that restraint was gone now. The fact was, there was the very real possibility that she was going to be asked for sex. The whole idea was repulsive but, also, oddly exciting. Up to now Rita had thought of herself as a male who only looked like a woman. Something was warning her that she shouldn't be here, but because of the importance of her job she couldn't run away.

Suddenly he scooped her up and carried her to his bedroom. The sensation of being treated like a cave woman ran through her bloodstream and almost made her cry out. To do or say the wrong thing could destroy everything that she had been working to achieve. Rita steeled herself for surrender. She knew that whatever Morretti wanted to do, she had to encourage him in it and then let it happen.

Morretti laid her on her back and, a single piece at a time, he took off her particles of clotheing, touching and stroking her far more than was necessary. Rita, though shivering, let him be the boss, be the primitive man, and do what he wanted her to. Rita had been rendered entirely nude before the gangster started taking off his own expensive duds. She waited with her fists knotted, absolutely determined to accept any kind of indignity in order to make her mission succeed.

Suddenly he entered her with the help of his fingers. Desperately, she fought to remember what she had been taught about faking an orgasm.

That night, Rita found out more about being a woman than she had so far learned from reading or from her advisors' briefings. Rick had been with women intimately, mostly short-term girlfriends and call girls. For all his sophistication, he had never suspected the gulf of difference that existed between entering and being entered.

When morning came and Rita was driven home, she realized that the night's adventure had come and gone without her having gathered any new evidence. But yet she hoped that what had happened might yet lead to new opportunities. As her trembling hand unlocked the hotel room door, she was determined to cultivate this relationship for all it was worth. Although the department hadn't actually told her to do it this way, she thought they would approve of it without actually saying so. Politicians were always looking over their shoulders and they wouldn't have dared to authorized a female agent to have sex with a gangster. Rita couldn't disguise from herself the fact that her experience, if it would be for good or ill, was all of her own making.

She was encouraged that she had, after all, done the right thing when a call from Morretti had come in with an invitation to go with him to a nightclub that same evening. She answered with all the enthusiasm that she could counterfeit. She didn't like Morretti. Most of the illegalities he was involved in were disgusting. Despite that, she wasn't in a panic about possibly having more sex with him.

After dinner that evening, they went back to his place where he poured out two glasses of wine. Rita was nervous but concealed it well; she was mentally prepared to give the man anything he wanted. She was the trap and he was the rat.

Astonishingly, when she was spread-legged and being treated like a piece of asphalt being pile-driven, something happened. It was like she was a pistol and he had cocked her and pulled the trigger. She was unable to hold back and she came! It was not a fake, but a real come. The more he did, the more she came, repeatedly. She suddenly felt like she had become a different person.

Despite the confusion of the moment, Rita disguised her distaste for the man by pretending that he was someone else. To get away from the reality, she forced herself into a fantasy -- a fantasy that he was only a man she didn't know, one whom she had picked up in a bar. It helped. Now she could better appreciate the mighty tool that had made her into an ex-virgin just the night before. Concentrating on the simple physical pleasure of all, she made no fuss and she made no mistakes.

In the morning Morretti's houseboy served them breakfast. Rita again wondered again if she were not an excellent actress, seeing as how she could look at the man's face across the small table without cringing in shame. "You're one hard bitch, baby," she told herself.

Morretti's chauffeur dropped her off at her hotel and she hurried inside, no long able to hold back her shaking. It bothered Rita on some level that she hadn't been more greatly disgusted with either of her sexual encounters. What kind of person was she on the inside? It frightened her to think about it.

Detective Holmes typed her report to headquarters into the high security address she used and then did nothing special for the rest of the day. Before this, Rita had gone to bed when she was alone wearing a set of pj's fit for a middle aged housewife. But tonight, on impulse, she put on a little nightie that the department had provided. She stood gazing into a mirror, wondering at the girl that the glass reflected, pondering who and what that person was and where her life was going.

Rick had always thought that he looked pretty damned good as a man. Yet, more and more, the idea of ruining this of hers body with an operation was grotesque. The "sex-change" offered her was only cosmetic. Hormones might make her face hairy and let her put on a little more muscle, but it wouldn't restore the virile man she had been. Of what good was a lifeless dick made of rubber? On the other hand, she still knew so little about being a woman.

While following the case she was on, she had not been living as most women lived. She wondered if she would be less reluctant about having a rubber dick if it turned out that she hated being a female. Regardless, she would have to stay a woman for a while. She had already been told that she would be a valuable courtroom witness against Morretti. To avoid the press going crazy, she had to stick to the story that she was a police officer who was a natural woman. A case that was as large as Morretti's might take more than a year to bring to trial. That period of time would at least give her a some latitude to find out what womanhood really meant.

Rita spent a good deal of time in Morretti's company over the next several weeks. He learned about some of his kinks. He never asked her for oral sex for some reason and in place of that he often wheedled her into dressing up in various costumes, some of them being actual Halloween costumes from Leg Avenue. The ones he liked best very short and very tight. There had been a bimbo Cinderella, a bimbo saloon girl, a bimbo Steampunk bitch, a bimbo super heroine, and many another. In the end, whatever she was wearing, it usually came off as soon as he dragged her to bed in the heat of excitement.

But while Morretti was having fun with his fantasies, Rita was gathering in evidence, mostly from filling his penthouse with surveillance devices. Finally, the day came when the department decided they had the criminal kingpin dead to rights and arrested him at his downtown office.

Rita felt depressed and ambivalent. Though Morretti was bad, he hadn't treated her badly. Nonetheless, he was an evil man working with bad people and he certainly deserved whatever he got.

Just as anticipated, Morretti's actual trial would be held off until the next year. Rita's captain got around to asking her whether she could use a rest following her long and unnerving experience. She said that she would be glad to take a leave of absence from the police force.

"I suppose your nerves are worn to a frazzle," the captain said. She agreed without going into detail. "You already had a psychoanalyst," the officer said. "Maybe you should spend your time getting your head back on straight." Rita hadn't really replied to that suggestion.

She left New York soon after and took an apartment in Richmond. Rick had liked Richmond and had gone to college there. Rita had made no real plans so far and simply wanted to rest and think. She hadn't had sex since before Morretti had been taken into custody. It was strange thinking back to when she had been his pretend girl friend. It hadn't been traumatizing to have been treated like a woman being frequently banged by a man. It was only the fact that her lover had been detestable that made those memories unpleasant.

With nothing special in mind, Rita had brought to Richmond the whole set wild outfits that she had worn for Morretti's enjoyment. This faithful night in Richmond, she found herself putting on a very short, very tight red dress that was set off by very high heels and lots of makeup. She was all dressed up before she realized that she actually felt like going out. But where would a woman alone go? Well, a singles' bar was the obvious answer. She wasn't sure if she was going to be looking to meet up with a man or a woman. She hadn't tried being a lesbian yet. That kind of switch might be interesting, she thought.

So it was a hot chick dressed to the nines who stepped into the bar. Its interior was a little tacky and shadowy, except where there were plenty of colored lights to set the mood. As soon as Rita stepped over the threshold, she felt her bare skin tingle -- and she was showing plenty of bare skin. It was something like what Rick used to feel when stepping into a dangerous place. She looked about and saw that every man in the room was staring at her, while pretending not to.

Wimps! Rita was glad that Rick had never been a wimp. Morretti, also, hadn't been a wimp.

And maybe that was the only quality he had that she could honestly say that she liked.

Rita went to the bar and ordered a sangria. She ignored the men who were blatantly staring at her legs. If they were so interested, why didn't they just step up and say hello? she wondered. Hell, did they suppose that a woman who walked into a bar wearing a dress as short as hers didn't want her legs to be looked at? But yet she couldn't forget that Rick had been told by several women that it was sexist for a man to stare at a woman, no matter how she chose to dress.

"Women are crazy," Rita muttered to herself. She hoped that nuttiness wasn't hard-wired into a woman's genes. For as long as she had to be one of the opposite sex, whether that should be a year or for the rest of her life, Rita Holmes now vowed to fight hard against the possibility that she might become as crazy as the run-of-the-mill, bar-crawling femme seemed to be.

Suddenly, a man took the stool beside her and asked if he could buy her a drink. He introduced himself as Bob. Rita looked him up and down. This guy Bob filled a clean suit very well and came off as sexy in a mannish sort of way. After several drinks, the stranger suggested that they go to come to his motel room and she said yes.

Only then did she realize that this particular bar trip wasn't going to end with her spending a night with a girl.

When the two of them arrived at his motel room, Rita's heart was racing. This was the first time she had ever gone with a man as a woman just because she wanted to have some company. She was suddenly worried that because she didn't have a role to play, she wouldn't know what to say or do as part of a normal man-woman couple and would make a fool of herself. One good thing about it, though, was that a mistake probably wouldn't end up with her being killed, as always had been possible with Morretti.

Bob's kisses came on hard and fast. They were electric and Rita felt herself melting into him. Strong, masterful hands began undressing her. He he got her nude very quickly, leaving her with just a thong panty. Already Rita had come to realized she very much liked wearing thongs under very short dresses. It made her feel naughty, and she very much enjoyed the naughty feeling.

Her body came alive as Bob's fingers explored her curves. He led her to the bed and began a process of touching every part of her body with every part of his own. After he drew off her thong, they made love with slow deliberation. Rita was enjoying touching the man as much as she had ever enjoyed touching a girl as Rick. When Bob took full command and delivered the real McCoy, she was surprised by the power and depth of his penetration. She was suddenly jealous of the woman who would finally marry this guy.

Or maybe he was married already.

If so, that didn't matter to her. After tonight they would never meet again.

When they lay back on their respective pillows, Rita made a mistake in her dazed state of mind. Bob had taken her by surprise by asking for oral sex and she responded "No," without thinking. Worse, she followed the negation with an eye expression that delivered the message that she meant it.

All this had been done reflexively and without a pre-planned thought. But she quickly remembered how Rick had felt as a man whenever a woman had had the audacity to turn him down over such a little thing -- not that Rick had been small, or course. Rick had been irritated; would Bob be angry with her now? She might have saved things by changing her mind and apologizing, but the manhood still inside her kept her from saying a word. It became so very clear that her refusal had taken the air out of the evening. After some awkward chitchat, Bob asked if he should call her a cab. Rita, realizing that their tryst had gone up in smoke, said yes. Before they parted, she was hoping that he would speak up and suggest they have another meeting.

He didn't.

Then Rita went home. Except for the less-than-sweet ending to the night, she could not help feeling a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. She had gone out, moved by the impulse to find a new lover, and had found one.

Nonetheless, the incident had left her staring up at the ceiling long and hard, thinking about oral sex.

Given Bob’s reaction, would she ever again dare refuse the next bed partner she found? If he was a bum, it didn't matter. The unfortnate risk was that she might encounter a guy as attractive as Bob had been. Rita suggested to herself that being a little more cooperative with a bed partner's needs might make a enjoyable tryst last a little longer. Longer was better, but she remained very conflicted about where to draw the line wit a man on the make.

A part of her was tempted to not be such a prude and do the deed once as an experiment, just to learn what it felt like a real naughty girl feels. A fair number of women had gone French on Rick and the memory of those experiences was nagging at her, making her curious about what it felt like to be a bad girl with a man.

Even if she did the deed once, she wouldn't have to do it twice, she told herself.

Not unless it turned out that that going down on a man wasn't as bad as she thought it might be.

Rita still had more than a year to wait for Morretti's trial. She hoped that that span of time would be long enough to help her decide if she would want to fit herself out with a rubber dick back in New York or not. She wasn't drawing full pay on while leave and Rick hadn't saved very much. It was starkly clear to Rita that if she didn't get an sustaining income, she'd have to move into some kind of cramped one-room place and she didn't want to do that. She had to get a job.

That forced her to think about what jobs women were filling these days.

Actually, she already knew. The barriers were down. If a female could find a boss willing to hire her, she could do almost anything. But this wasn't just about finding work. It was a chance to find out about herself. She wanted to live this next year exactly like a life like a real woman and maybe it would be best if she explored that lifestyle by taking a woman-type job. Teaching? Nursing? Running a cash register? Not her style! What she needed to do was to think about what she most liked about being a woman, and then see how she could turn her liking. That way she could gain a real understanding about the realities of womanhood.

Then again, modeling was a popular career and few women seemed to be able to enter it. If for some she didn't get to walk the runway, what other woman-type jobs might be tolerable?

Acting? She had already been wondering whether she had acting talent.

But everyone knows that girls hustling for acting jobs usually had to survive for a long while by taking waitress jobs -- and most of them stayed waitresses for the rest of their lives.

Then again, Rita knew that cocktail waitresses got to wear some fantastically sexy outfits right under the eyes of hundreds. And they were the center of attention in any club room.

Honestly, cocktail waitresses was something to think about.

The big question besetting Rita was whether she wanted to stay with the NYPD -- with any PD -- after the big trial was over. The more time she spent away from the department, the more doubts she had about going back. She already knew that she liked sleeping with men, but she was darn sure that she didn't want to sleep with any more gangsters!

She couldn't shrug off the feeling that some instinct was warning her that her old job had become like a pair of pants that had gotten too small, a garment that was never going to fit her properly anymore?

Rita had no objection to tight clothes, but crime detecting was one tight garment that she didn't feel so eager to get back into.

The end

Bobbi McGee by Chris Leeson on Kindle

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Organizational:

DopplerPress

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Rob Wescott was unlucky when it came to love. That harmless statue that his ex sent him and he left by his bed turned out to be not so harmless when he woke the next day.

Rob, now Bobbi had to make a new life for herself. But would she continue to be unlucky in love?

Bobbi McGee

by Christopher Leeson

Life isn't always like a song, is it?

Click the image or here to buy it on Kindle. Doesn't everyone need a little sweet romance?

TG Themes:

Carla's Story: A Tale of Pleasure Island

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Fiction

Genre:

Transgender

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Themes:

Bad Boy to Good Girl

TG Elements:

Girls' School / School Girl

Other Keywords:

Pleasure Island

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

CARLA'S STORY: A Tale of Pleasure Island

By Christopher Leeson

Revision 01-08-15

Not long ago we posted "Revenge: A Tale of Pleasure Island." In it, a tg girl named Carla was introduced. This is the fuller story about Carla, which serves as a prequel to "Revenge." An earlier draft of "Carla's Story" was posted to The Full TG Show with even more illustrations. Check it out at: http://thefulltgshow.blogspot.com/search/label/pleasure%20is...

* * * * *

Carl Boelke was a problem kid who was only getting worse. In junior high, he ran a protection racket and punched out the smaller boys who didn’t pay. In the senior grades, the police put him on a watch list, on suspicion of ripping off car parts. Once, when a girl wouldn’t go out with Carl, he beat on her brother until she said yes. When their parents pressed charges, juvenile court sentenced him to community service, but when not under direct supervision his behavior went unimproved.

His mother, Mrs. Boelke, a hospital employee, met a woman who had started coming in with her pretty brunette daughter. While the girl was in with the obstetrician, Mrs. Boelke and the lady occasionally talked. One day, Mrs. Boelke admitted to having terrible problems with her son. It was then that the visitor dropped a bomb, telling Mrs. Boelke about Pleasure Island, a resort that was more than just a resort. It was, she said, the place that had helped her and her husband keep their boy Dan out of juvenile court. She hinted, in an odd way, that Pleasure Island had changed her boy's anti-social attitudes. The problems they had now, she said, were not nearly as bad as they had been before. He had even been motivated to study hard in school. But when Mrs. Boelke pressed for more information, the lady said that she had said too much already and excused herself.

In the days that followed, Mrs. Boelke subtly persisted in asking her friend how this mysterious resort had accomplished so much, but the lady kept saying that she wasn't the right one to explain it. “Well, who can explain it?” Mrs. Boelke had pressed. Relenting, the visitor gave Mrs. Boelke a phone number, saying, “This man at the Pleasure Island Resort can explain things much better than ever I could.”

The New Reservation office at Pleasure Island told Mrs. Boelke that they could help her if she believed in magic, and that magic could help people. This surprised her, but she said that she had an open mind and would like more information. The reservation agent asked for her name and address and about the general nature of her problem. After that, the man said that if her information checked out, a representative would call and make an appointment. They did get the call a week later, and they met with one Señor Mercado in a sparsely furnished office downtown. He showed Mr. and Mrs. Boelke videos and case studies concerning a remarkable way to solve the sort of problems that they were having with Carl. Remarkable? What he said was close to unbelievable. It was an idea so amazing that they thought they must be on Candid Camera. Rather than be made to look foolish, they considered leaving at once. But Mercado was skilled at convincing people about things that the world at large would find impossible to conceive of and the Boelkes finally signed a contract.

Carl would never have cooperated in any program for his own reform, so his parents agreed that Pleasure Island should sent Carl a registered letter saying that he had won a free two-week luxury vacation at the island resort. If the Boelkes had simply told their son that they wanted him to go on a Mediterranean vacation, he might have grown suspicious, a trait he had developed from consorting with drug dealers and stolen property fences.

A free vacation appealed to Carl and he flew to Naples, where he was met by representatives from Pleasure Island. These persons took him via passenger boat to an island hosting a well laid out resort. But as Mercado had promised, the isle was indeed magical, and its magic started to transform Carl. Before he realized it, Carl had metamorphosed into a pretty blonde lass, exactly as the agent had promised. When he – she – had calmed down enough, the Pleasure Island staff provided Carl with new clothes, and also with forged documents that called her “Carla Boelke. Then she was sent her back to her California home.

After the daze wore off, Carla realized that a secondary spell had been cast on her, one that made everyone she knew, except for her own parents, forget that Carl had ever existed. Everyone else became bewitched the instant they established eye-contact with her and immediately believed that they had always known her as “Carla.” Her folks had already removed every picture of Carl from their home and had given all his clothes to charity, replacing them with a wardrobe that was suitable for a high school girl. The island had even provided them with a packet of false documents and had included skillfully Photoshopped pictures of a girl that looked like Carla growing up in their home. Carl's room had been redecorated with flowery wallpaper and lacy bed clothes. Carla threw a wild tantrum, accusing her parents of having “ruined her life.” Over the next few weeks, she absolutely refused to interact with anyone as a teenaged girl. The Boelke's were worried. School was going to start soon and they needed to have their daughter on good behavior before that happened. Also, they had been expecting improved behavior from Carla, but they were not getting it.

The Pleasure Island customer service representative had given them the number for what was called “after-visit support” and they called it now. They were offered various choices of methods to help improve Carla's attitude and the anxious parents finally decided to engage a special teacher, one who was registered with, and certified by, the resort company.

The Boelkes had Carla picked up by her “Aunt Maud,” who wasn’t really anybody's aunt. She was an independent contractor whose job it was to work with hard-case former boys. Although the Boelke's hadn't been charged a large sum for the hands-on additional service, Maud had rented a house in Oakdale and a bedroom had been prepared for Carla. Although it look innocent, it was wired for eavesdropping and for playing messages that would provide subliminal lessons while she slept, intended to adjust her bad attitudes. Maud tried to be non-threatening as a teacher, but was authoritative with Carla when she had to be. She had rules that she insisted upon, such as those about curfews.

Carla balked at everything, refusing to wear anything but sneakers, tee-shirts or sweatshirts, and dungarees. She also refused to go outside in daylight when people could see the charming curves she tried to hide, though she sometimes skulked around the dark streets at night. Hers was a difficult case, Maud realized, but the teacher had tried and true options. The best way to get Carla acclimated to a totally new social life would be to get her out among people. The first subliminal lesson that she received instilled a willingness to attend school every day. Miss Boelke was soon attending the district school without a lot of fuss.

To get Maud off her back, Carla tried all the tricks of defiance and backtalk that she'd been using for years at home. This was a type of behavior that Maud had often encountered with other pupils, but because the CDs had instilled a “safe word” in Carla's subconscious, Maud was able to get around each girl's stubbornness. Whenever Maud said, “Now hold your horses, young lady,” Carla would instantly go silent and become receptive to suggestions. These suggestions were for things that had been already been backed up by previous subliminal lessons and their net effect was to help Carla to turn over a new leaf.

After two weeks of sleep-instruction, Maud began to see in her pretty blonde charge certain tell-tale signs that she had the potential to readdress life in an entirely new way.

Spy cameras in Carla's room allowed Maud to see what was happening when the girl supposed that no one was looking. This was the best time to see how well the sleep-disc lessons were taking hold. In the second week, Maud observed that Carla had started to lock her door so she could secretly try on bras, panties, and lingerie. In the third week, she began to apply lipstick and practice walking in high-heeled pumps. Maud let this “secret” experimentation go on for a few days more, until she thought the moment had come to debut Carla to the world as the vivacious girl that she was rapidly becoming.

One day, when the monitor revealed that Carla was dressed up behind her supposedly locked door, Maud barged on a pretext and then acted surprised to have caught her pupil dressed in makeup, heels, and a bikini. Maud crossed her arms and looked stern.

“If you wanted to wear girls' clothing, it's perfectly all right with me,” she told her young charge. “You should have confided in me, however. I could have given you very good advice about how to dress properly.”

“No!” moaned Carla, her face flushed. “I don't want to dress as a girl. I was just...”

“Just what?”

Carla had no reply.

“Perk up. Don't be embarrassed. There's nothing wrong about a pretty girl wanting to dress like a pretty girl.”

Miss Boelke didn't like being told that she was a girl. With a curse, she started to tear off her garments. “Hold your horses, young lady!” Maud exclaimed, and Carla froze, slack-featured.

Maud picked a few garments out of the dresser and closet. “Carla,” Maud said, “put these on. I want you to walk to the pharmacy and bring me back a few things. If you see any friends from school along the way, be sure to say hello to them. If they complement the way you look, you will will feel happy and thank them for saying such kind things.”

Like a sleepwalker, Carla let herself be led out the door into a Saturday twilight. The girl didn't realize that she was outside until she heard the deadbolt click behind her. Panicking, she rushed back to the door and pounded on it.

“Maud! Let me in,” she shouted. “I can't go out like this.”

“Don't be silly, darling,” she heard her false aunt call back. “You look absolutely lovely. We need those things from the store right away, so run along.”

Still under the spell of the “safe words,” Carla slowly turned and, stiffly putting one foot in front of the other, she was soon walking at a slow, even pace down the sidewalk. Then, halfway to the store, she realized where she was and, wanting to get this ordeal done with, hurried along to the store as quickly as possible.

For the remainder of her errand, Carla felt like a sissy, like a cross-dresser, not a real girl. But she noticed that when people smiled, they weren't laughing. They were looking at her like they would have looked at any attractive teenager in a tight sweater and trim cut offs. She was being accepted and that didn't feel like a bad thing. That she could be thinking in such a way surprised her, but and also it made her very confused.

Carla still remained under the charm of the safe word when she returned to her teacher's house. Maud met her at the door and said, “From now on, whatever you feel is all right to wear in a locked room is perfectly fine to wear around the house. As soon as you're dressed, I want you to come out and feel completely self-confident. It's also all right to go outside wearing nice clothes to let other people appreciate how attractive you are.”

That evening, Carla lay on her bed mulling over a mass of perplexing thoughts. She got up for dinner distractedly when called, and afterwards listlessly watched a DVD movie about a grungy urban hero karate-kicking around a gang of drug dealers. Progress had been made, Maud thought, but what an awful taste in entertainment! Worse, at bedtime, she saw in the monitor that Carla was, night after night, sleeping in old tee-shirts and light jogging pants, despite all the teddies and baby dolls that were waiting for her, neatly folded in dresser drawers. The teacher guessed that the two of them were at a window of opportunity to move Carla along and put together a new subliminal lesson that would began with the disc “I Feel Pretty, Look at Me.” This instruction was intended to pump up a girl's vanity enough to overcome the sense of embarrassment that was common in most newly-transformed boys. The experienced teacher believed that getting a pupil to sleep in baby dolls and teddies would strengthen her feminine underpinning, so she also included a lesson called “Be Beautiful in Bed.”

The following night, Carla reached for her makeshift sleeping togs, but this time she noticed how heavy and grubby they were. With a frown, she tossed them into the hamper and decided to find something lighter and fresher. But everything in the drawers looked so infuriatingly sexy, like the girls in Playboy Magazine wore, when they were wearing anything at all. The least bad garment was a silky top pinned to a pair of trim shorts. Carla liked the laundered freshness of their scent and tried them on. She faced the mirror and she thought, "Lord Almighty!. I look like the kind of girl that anyone would love to get into the sack." Despite her dismay, she felt a pleasing surge of vanity. It tickled Carla to think that any girl who saw her would get steamed with jealousy, and all the boys would get boners. Part of her liked the idea of making as many people as possible feel miserable. But there was another thought deep down, something about looking so damned good; it warmed her like a shot of brandy.

Dressed for school, Carla came to breakfast the next morning wearing tight denim jeans and a sleeveless, V-necked top. Maud complemented her outfit, but tried not to show how pleased she actually was. A milestone had been reached and Carla Boelke's life, Maud expected, would never be quite the same again.

Carla herself got an inkling that this was true that very day. At school, the boys were caught by surprise. Even when wearing grunge Carla had always looked good, but now, seeing the new girl dressing like an out-and-out tease caught people's rapt attention. All the boys, even the timid ones, started thinking about speaking to Carla Boelke, a person that no one had so far made friends with. Unfortunately, only the ego-driven creeps had the nerve to swagger up to a girl so provocative and openly come on to her. She had always been an angry type when people had tried to talk to he before, but now not even the worst manners could keep the bad crowd away. Carla couldn't help but get angry all over again at the things the jerks had the nerve to say to her. She did her best to brush them off, but she didn't seem to realized that her problems had been started by her decision to dress super-hot. Either that, or she secretly liked the attention. In fact, after a couple days she started to wear sparingly-cut shorts and miniskirts to class.

This fashion kept the shy boys scared off while it overheated the ones that she preferred to avoid. Carla didn't want to go out with anyone; she just wanted everyone to look at her and admit to themselves that she was gorgeous. She refused to be scared off from doing what she liked. On Friday, when yet another swaggering tough got too grabby, a boy named Tom shoved him aside and stood in front of Carla to defend her. After the gang guy had backed off, Carla asked Tom why he had stepped in. He shrugged and said that guys shouldn't get away with treating women that way. Carla was grateful, but became flustered when Tom asked her out. She just couldn't see herself going out with boys, and so begged off, saying that her aunt was against her getting too close to anyone at school, because she’d soon have to to back to Brentwood, where her family home was. Tom looked crestfallen, but said he understood.

Carla was never able too keep many secrets from Maud, especially not about her social life. She was laboring under a post-hypnotic suggestion to speak freely about all her relationships at school. When the teen let slip what had happened with Tom, Maud told her, “Hold your horses, young lady! You acted like an ungrateful minx. Call that nice boy back and say that you’d love to go out with him. You don't seem to have any real friends. It's all right for a girl to date a boy, as long as she likes him and trusts him. ” That night Maud gave Carla a strong while-you-sleep lesson called “Boys are Groovy.”

So that's how Carla Boelke found herself getting ready for a date on Saturday night. Part of her wanted to have a real date, but all the same she expected to have a miserable time of it. Tom picked her up in his folk's car and they went to an action movie that wasn't half bad. That improved Carla's mood. Afterwards, they pulled into a malt shop. By then, Carla totally had forgotten that she wasn't supposed to be enjoying herself. In fact, Tom and she were both hockey fans and they talked sports for so long that Carla barely beat the curfew hour back to Maud's house. The following day, Miss Boelke started to notice how many more good-looking boys there were around the school. Gradually she discovered that when she smiled and looked someone in the eye, the braver guys would gather up the courage to speak with her. When she stepped up to a shy boy with a smile and a "hello," he would start acting friendlier, too. Day by day, with the help of the sleep-discs, she was unconsciously remaking her instinctive body language, altering the tone of her voice, and in multiply ways sending out positive signals that making her seem more approachable. The result was that a lot of boys were asking her out. Some of the girls whispered that she was a slut, but Carla didn't care what jealous girls thought of her.

With her young charge's social life developing so well, Maud decided that Carla needed to learn a few basic things that would prepare her for living life as a young woman, such as domestic skills. The “I Love Housework” disc worked wonders on Carla over the next few days. Also, Maud used a disc calculated to sweeten Carla's disposition, instilling a liking for fluffy stuffed animals, flowers, and fairyland figurines. By October, with Carla’s grades improving and her complaints about performing household chores falling off, Maud called the Boelkes to let them know that their daughter was ready to come home. When Carla was dropped off at the family home a couple days later, she was wearing trim shorts and a tight tank top, with no frown on her face. Mr. and Mrs. Boelke could hardly recognize her.

Over the next year, whenever their little girl did any backsliding, her parents used their own copies of the Pleasure Island discs to load her attitude with generous helpings of sugar and spice. Pretty soon, the only problems they had were the familiar ones that parents of teenaged girls have to get used to, the kind that no disc can fix. For the most part, the Boelke family was living in a house filled with peace, kind feelings, and cooperation.

But the Bolkes had been noticing the problems that their neighbors, the Fontains, were having. Their son Dean had been friends with Carl, and the latter had gotten him started on a lot of wrongheaded ideas. Because of this, they felt some responsibility to help set things right. If Mrs. Boelke's friend at the hospital had helped them, wasn't it only right that they should help the Fontains, too? It made them feel guilty to have such a happy home while others were still plagued by stress. So, finally, they decided to tell the their neighbors about Pleasure Island.

But there would be no need to share their decision with their daughter. Carla was avoiding Dean because he had always been brash and suggestive with girls. And, anyway, her mind was occupied by other, more important matters....

End

Daydreamers of Gor

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Caution:

CAUTION: Sex / Sexual Scenes

Audience Rating:

Mature Subjects (pg15)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Science Fiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Elements:

Dominance & Submission / Bondage

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

DAYDREAMERS OF GOR

By Christopher Leeson

Revised Dec. 15, 2016

Sitting under the glittering chandelier, Kalwa's red cocktail dress was drawing the attention of everyone in the room. In fact, she wanted to be seen, wanted to attract men. However, the people around her, the men, the women, the dominants and subs, aroused in her no interest. Still, she still had some time.

Many bondage clubs were thematic. Elsewhere, classical Greece and Rome were special favorites. But this one had attracted Kalwa's attention because it catered to Goreans. Fan art displayed on the walls were suggestive of the book series, some of it very well done. Also, there were notices announcing that costumes and specialty gear, such as barbarian-type slave collars, were available for rent.

Millions of Earth people knew about the planet Gor, but only from books purporting to be fiction. Gor was a fantasy universe featuring action-adventure stories, but it was the Gorean tradition of “pleasure slavery” that had enchanted millions. That element had made it stand out among many other imaginary worlds. If one of Gor's heroes rescued, say, a princess, he would probably lock a collar around her throat, burn a slave brand upon her left hip, and take her home with him to a life of erotic bondage. Because Gorean science had created the stabilization serum, human life and youth had been extended to centuries, she would experience a life in slavery for a very long time. Since the first volume of the book series had appeared in print, Gor enthusiasts had established fan organizations in diverse nations. Some of these, though certainly not all, were actual domination and bondage groups.

Kalwa, while waiting for something to happen, casually regarded the club visitors. Those with nervous, forced smiles she sized up as first-time visitors, with little or no club experience. Kalwa herself was no first-timer, far from it. She at ease, radiating a relaxed and confident air. Her pose appeared casual but was calculated to lure in sexually aggressive men. Thus far, she had spotted no likely-looking male. Bondage clubs attracted too many subs. She didn't want to be bothered by that sort, so she deliberately avoided making any moves or glances that might spell out “dominatrix.” When a submissive came up to her, despite her off-putting body signals, Kalwa knew how to send him packing with two or three well-chosen words.

If, as occasionally happened, the hunting proved disappointing, she might eventually have to settle for one of that type. Her employers wouldn't mind one bit; quite the contrary. It was Kalwa herself who would feel frustrated should circumstances impel her to take a mere consolation prize.

But the young woman had been on a winning streak this trip and had hopes of ringing up a perfect score. Kalwa checked the clock above the shelves of liquor. It would still be a full two hours before she felt pressured to settle for the best of a bad lot.

The subtly-lit lounge smelled of cigarette smoke, beer, wine, and also of tasty appetizers. Hot wings, spinach dip, cheese, and crackers. She was actually beginning to feel hungry when a man paused near her. Kalwa looked him over at a glance. Tall and athletically built, his suit was smart and expensively cut. Appearance wasn't too important in her eyes, actually, but she preferred men who were hygienic and presentable, especially about clothes. It was also encouraging that he appeared to be robust and healthy.

“I've watched you send several men away,” he remarked. “Waiting for someone in particular?”

She smiled. “Yes, I am. My type.”

He smiled back at her. “Would you know your type if you saw him?”

“I have a talent for finding exactly what I want.”

The stranger appropriated the bar-stool beside her. “I know what you mean,” he said. “Secretaries, lawyers, shop owners, accountants. Tourists! Most of these people don't belong here. They're out for cheap thrills.” He touched his heart. “They don't really understand the game, deep down.”

“They at least help the club survive; the cover charge isn't exactly cheap,” Kalwa observed.

Her companion nodded. “It kills me how so many of them sit alone drinking too much, before they finally give up and go home to read pornography. That kind of customer rarely comes back.”

“Let me guess, you're a dom.”

“Bing!” he replied cheerily. “And you?”

“What do you think?”

“I'd say you could be a lady who does it both ways.”

“Bing!” she conceded.

Kalwa started to squint, trying hard to bring his aura into view. Suddenly, she succeeded.

“That's an odd look,” the stranger observed.

“Oh, I was just wondering if you like it both ways, too.”

He shook his head. “No, I like to smack, not be smacked.”

“Thin skin?”

“No. It's just not my thing. It's women the who enjoy pain that warm my heart.”

“So, are you exclusively a dom?”

“If I say yes, would that disappoint you?”

“Not at all.” That was true; his aura had intrigued her.

Kalwa, not wishing to waste time, beamed him a look of acute interest. He noted it and smoothly took her left wrist. His grip was solid; to make sure he was serious, she applied a slight tug of resistance. He did not release his hold and, for a moment, stood waiting for her to give some affirming word or sign. Kalwa decided to make her agreement explicit, saying, “Do you intend to fish or cut bait?”

His kiss came swiftly and hard, almost too hard. The man was proving that he was not shy about public kissing. In fact, he exuded a distinct dominant nature. Many men could fake this, but this stranger seemed genuine.

Kalwa joined in the kiss, letting her tongue dart between his teeth to seek its opposite number. He took a fistful of her dark hair. When she pressed against his broad chest, Kalwa could feel the flex of hard muscles. Body heat was radiating through the man's jacket; she started imagining the two of them alone together, hot and sweaty, with slick flesh against slick flesh.

As the fierceness of their embrace gradually lessened, the stranger began playfully biting her lower lip, wanting to hear her cry out. For Kalwa, the slight pain registered as sweet pleasure. By accepting pain, she was declaring her acquiescence to the game. His breath tasted of mint and, more particularly, of the pheromones of primal maleness. As she let herself go passive, he kept his grip on her hair and let his tug sharpen.

When her companion fully drew back, Kalwa's lips felt swollen and moist; her breath was coming in small gasps. “Your lipstick tastes like candy,” he told her.

The young woman straightened to a more dignified position upon the stool. “Like it? Want to taste some more?”

“Most assuredly!” With his second kiss, the dom deliberately licked the flavored pigment off her lips. When eased back, he said, “You're mine for the weekend.... What should I call you?”

“Try Kalwa.”

“Hawaiian? You don't look Polynesian.”

“I'm not; guess again.”

“You have an accent, but I can't place it.”

“I'm Gorean.”

His brows arched. “Ah, does that mean you're into...pleasure slavery?”

She touched a slender finger to her lower lip. “I am very much into pleasure slavery. And I do kajira dances, too.”

“Delightful.”

“I always bring my own slave collar and pleasure silk. They're in my handbag.”

“Double delightful.”

“And you, are you full Gorean?”

He pursed his lips. “Since recently, but the more I've experienced it, the more I've liked it.”

“In that case, I only wish that I'd met you hours ago.”

“It's not all that late. Hopefully, you aren't an early-to-bed person.”

“I could be,” she replied slyly. “It all depends upon who I'm going to bed with.”

This bold retort lit up his face. “Turn over control to me, baby,” he said, “right now.” The words had come out as a quiet but firm order and her expression conveyed her agreement. He released Kalwa's hair, but only to run his digits through her shimmering tresses. The dom's cunning fingers sent tingles down her spine. “What would you say about pleasing me in the furs, my lovely captive," he finally asked.

Kalwa looked askance. "What moves do you like?”

He shrugged. “Are you into paddling?”

“Who paddles who?”

“Who do you think?”

“Just a paddle? Not the whip?”

He frowned, both with appreciation and admonition. “I would need to know my kajira much better before we start talking about whipping.” He then smiled. “Whips are for committed lovers. Do you have any favorite fantasies that might help us get acquainted?”

“Of course. Do you?”

“Always. We'll go on a voyage of discovery.”

“You haven't told me your name yet...master. I'd like to put it into my diary.”

“It's Ned.”

“Noted. Do you have a room here, Ned?”

Kalwa's burgundy-colored pleasure silks resembled baby-doll pajamas. Ned took in her bravely-displayed beauty with interest. “You look like a goddess,” he said. “And you do nice slave face,too. You're the image of a harem dream, not a slut.”

She bowed her head. “It pleases Kalwa that her master flatters her with a compliment so dear to a slave's heart.”

An hour had passed, an hour of leisurely pleasure. Kalwa had retouched her lipstick several already, to keep up with Ned's sweet tooth. They so far had played a number of scenarios, including her performance of a slave dance. At the moment, Kalwa was going down on him with abandon. His fingers were clutching her scalp, steadying her as she gave him pleasure. “That's it, baby,” he said as she worked his erection with one hand while her tongue thrilled his formidable length. “Don't stop,” he commanded breathily.

The girl's technique was unusually good and Ned couldn't keep control. He suddenly lurched and his seed jetted. His “pleasure slave” was ready, sucking and lapping rapidly, trying to consume every drop of his tribute.

At last spent, the young man's softening cock slid from between her lips. Kalwa rested back on her haunches and wiped her mouth with a bare arm.

Ned got up also, dried himself with a washcloth, and then donned a pair of leather pants. “Very good, Kalwa. You have a talented mouth.”

“A slave is pleased to be told such a thing.”

“Now, my little kajira shall serve me in another way. Place your forearms upon the carpet.”

The slave-clad girl did so.

“Rest your face and forearms against the floor and keep your bottom high, Ned instructed her. Rather than obey, Kalwa shook her head. This act of disobedience surprised Ned.

“Don't be angry, Maser Ned,” she said.

“Then what else do you prefer to do?”

“Let's just cuddle on bed together and talk, my warrior. I know so little of the fierce captain who has captured me. Oh, come, dearest master. Your kajira adores you so.”

Ned let himself smile and, taking her hand, raised her. A moment later she was lying prone upon the bed's satiny comforter. He got in beside her and they lay with their bodies touching, their noses only inches apart.

“Am I a passable Gorean pleasure slave, master?”

“Hmmmm. More than passable.”

She laughed softly. “Earth women who are natural slaves are indeed very common, master. Most of us, living in ways that do not suit our natures, do not know what we are, not until a strong and virile male subjects us to his power.” She paused. “May a kajira speak?” He gave consent. “Did my master tell the truth when he said that in his games he has always been the master and never the slave?”

Ned frowned. “It 's true.” He put his hand on her shoulder and brought her in close for a kiss. She squirmed away. Exasperated, he said, “Bad slave, I would taste those sweet lips again.”

Kalwa shook her head. “Master's own lips have become very red, and so has his tongue. He has had enough. Your slave would gladly kiss you later.”

Again her words were not in keeping with her role and they irked him “You must...” His statement was interrupted by a yawn. “Must obey your master...”

“I shall, my lord, but did not master consent that we should talk first?”

Ned yawned again. “Talk about what, lovely kajira?”

“Your slave becomes very curious. Has my master ever enjoyed fantasies about Gor in his private mind, fantasies that he has never dared to act out?”

He looked askance. “Everybody has...fantasies like that.”

“It's true. Sometimes the slave Kalwa has desired to play dominant with a girl. She even has imagined being a male who dominates a low captive wench utterly. If she does not obey immediately, I think it would please Kalwa to make her feel the kiss of the slave whip.”

“Ahhh...nice thought,” Ned said dreamily. “But why would a woman ever think about being a man?”

Her hand made a tossing gesture. "Can you not imagine, master? The physical power of the man is something that a woman both fears and admires. It is something to be very much envied. What one envies, one wants to possess. Is that not true.”

Ned shook his head. “Yes, but Gor already grants the female slave so much, what is left to envy?"

“Would a life on Gor would appeal to my master also?”

He yawned. “In the books...one can envy those Goreans who are rich and glorious in war.”

“Yes, such males live wonderful lives. But the males of Earth are not like the males of Gor.”

“How so?”

“While the males of Gor are confident and proud, I have heard it said that some Earthmen envy the women of Gor."

"Envy them for what?" Ned asked with interest.

"They envy them for their softness and beauty. They wonder what such beautiful creatures feel, wonder if the experiences of Gorean slave girls are as erotically satisfying as they seem to be in the books.”

He frowned. “Such unworthy thoughts would not occur to a true male, either of Gor or of Earth.”

“Kalwa supposes so. But has her own master never wondered what pleasures might accrue to him had he had been lucky enough to be born a girl?”

“No, never,” he said, slightly nonplussed.

“Not even if he were a girl who, because of her beauty, was abducted to Gor?”

He yawned, almost ready to nod off. “Well, sometimes....Uh, no, I don't mean that!”

The eyes of the slave-clad wench grew brighter. “Don't be embarrassed, master. Many men, I think, have that same thought. Now, pray, does my master think about these things sometimes or never?”

The true answer came hard to him, but at last he said, “Sometimes.”

Kalwa sat up, gleefully. “I knew it!”

“Noooo...” said Ned. “I shouldn't have said anything.”

She decided not to press the issue. As if satisfied, she fell quiet, cuddled up to him, and waited patiently in his strong arms until he dozed off.

Kalwa sat up. Ned had ingested more than enough of the drugged lipstick to lower his inhibitions. He had already answered her most important question while remaining too strong-minded to tell her very much.

But she had told him even less. Kalwa was not of Earth. Her masters were the Kurii race, migrants from a lost planet far away. She had come to Earth to serve her masters' interests and now, with time pressing, she had to work swiftly. She wanted to leave Ned's company before the interrogation drug wore off.

“Ned, do you hear me?”

“Yesss,” he said, sighing.

“You must answer all my questions truthfully. Tell me, when you imagine yourself a girl, are you ever a Gorean pleasure slave?”

“Yes. Not always.”

“Do you have many fantasies about being a girl?”

“A few.”

“Are these fantasies sweet, exciting? Do they give you pleasure?”

“V-Very much.”

“When you are a girl, do you like being with girls, or with males?”

He seemed to struggle against answering.

“You must tell me. Does the pretty little slave within you, the one who so yearns to wear the collar, desire the love of soft girls or of strong, virile men?

After a pause, he said, “Men.”

“How interesting; tell me your favorite fantasy. You will speak confidently; you will feel no embarrassment.”

It took additional coaxing, but at last Ned began speaking. “I saw...the movie Total Recall. It was...about a machine that gave the user a powerful dream, just like a real adventure. I could see, feel, taste, smell. In my fantasy...I go to the Recall clinic and ask for a fantasy.

“What type of fantasy?”

“Alpha male...Lots of women to bang. I want to take beautiful, powerful women into my palace and reduce them to needful little love slaves...”

“Please, go on.”

Ned haltingly explained how the machine's buffer doesn't clear. It still holds the adventure experience of the last customer. That customer was a woman with a kinky sense of fun.

Ned's character abruptly finds himself in a garish apartment. The furniture is upholstered with plastic and strikingly tasteless. He senses that something is wrong. Looking down, his hands are small, and slender. His suit is too big for his size. His hair hangs over his cheeks. Reaching back, he gets a fistful of it.

The character goes to the mirror and is astonished to see the reflection of a woman, a young and pretty woman. In the dream, he clearly remembers going into the Total Recall clinic, but what he had asked for had nothing to do with the fantasy that he is suddenly experiencing. Then someone starts speaking...behind him.

Ned's character turns and confronts a tall, powerful black pimp wearing a broad, tropical hat. The pimp grabs the character by the arm. He tells – the girl – that he wants her for his “stable.” She understands and refuses, but he only laughs. Next, he tells her to strip, but she still defies him. He man calls out and his several “street wives” come in. They mob the girl and take off her male clothes. Afterward, the troop of hookers give their "guest" a bath. Once dried, they put plentiful makeup on her face and sprinkle her with a florid scent – one that fairly screams “cheap and trashy.” As a final touch, they compel her to wear a silky nighty that barely reaches to her thighs.

The pimp takes charge of his newest acquisition and tries to kiss her, but she fights back. He throws her over his knee and a wife provides him with a flat-backed hairbrush. As he spanks her with zeal, it's like fire is licking at her buttocks. She yells and kicks. When she is exhausted, he throws her cross-ways upon the bed. Holding her down, he kisses her like a famished hound kisses a steak. She feels his hands savoring the feel of her body. His strength intimidates her, but there is something else that keeps her in his power -- his overwhelming charisma, the way her could dominate a person without either striking them or raising his voice.

Over what seems to be a span of days, the pimp names Ned's character Dolly and keeps her confined. These are days of strict bondage, days in which she is taught everything that a streetwalker needs to know. Despite her wish to resist his plans for her, Dolly's body, overtly, has other ideas. The black Hercules seems to have an uncanny skill at making her physically excited. Inch by inch, she starts giving in. The first time Dolly has an orgasm, it takes away most of her stubborn resistance. He makes her come very many times after that. It is like her body refused to hold back; it wants to obey this man, to do what he tells her, not w hat her own mind tells her. She fears she is losing her sense of identity. Even when she shuts her eyes she can still see the dark man. Every atom of her body seems to be attracted to him, like steel dust is attracted to a magnet.

One night, the pimp tells Dolly that it's high time that she hits the street. He tells her to demonstrate to him everything she's learned so far. Placed on her knees, she has no choice but to demonstrate the oral techniques that he has taught her. She knows she must swallow his every drop or else be punished. Then Dolly's demanding lover places her in a position to accept anal sex. She had hated sodomy the first few times the pimp had subjected her to it, but the pleasure it gives her has taken her hate away. She yearns to experience that pleasure again and again.

Suddenly, Dolly is rolled over onto her back and he's on top of her, entering her, penetrating to his hilt, his hard-pumping her. Something clicks inside her like her spirit is a candle wick and it's been ignited! Before this instant, Dolly had been his prisoner; now she imagines that this is what an exultant bride feels on her honeymoon. Her passions sore the stratosphere. The explosive orgasm that comes upon her is like a storm way that washes over her and puts out the embers of her already dying rebellion. She is no longer even reluctant. What he is giving her is what she wants. She thought she would lose her mind if she could not have this experience every day of her life. Then Dolly screams, not in pain but in gratitude,as his hot, jetting semen pours into her tight love cup.

When her lord rises and fetched a terry-towel to dry her, Dolly is in a daze of euphoria.

But this night has only just begun. This is the night when she will be "turned out," when she earns the promotion from nobody to "whore." She chokes and her tears run as she savors the beauty of that term. The pimp gets dressed and turns Dolly over to his “wives.” They chatter cheerfully as they put her into a short, striped dress and put high-heeled pumps on her feet. For days the wives had been training her to walk in high-heeled shoes and by now she could do it passably well. The wives then lead the newly turned-out streetwalker to a lamppost that stands outside a bar. “Look sexy,” one tells her. They stand around her until when a randy-looking man steps into view, giving an eye to other women along the walkway. They point him out and tell her, “Pick him up.” Dolly is nervous and embarrassed when she mumbles her come-on to him. But, to her surprise, the girl's amateurish fumbling is good enough. The John escorts her into a cheap hotel where, in a shabby room, he takes her, hard and fast, and then leaves. The wives are waiting for Dolly down in the lobby and for the rest of the night they find more likely customers for her and they follow her around to make sure she does her job right. When the mob of women take her back "home" in the small hours, her sweet man gets out of bed and tells Dolly to "pay up." She has to turn over every cent she's earned, and she obeys with a shiver and a smile.

"For the first time Dolly goes to bed as a whore. As she drops off, I think she's smiling."

'But the whole adventure is supposed to be a telepathically induced dream. What happens when your character comes out of the dream?” asked Kilwa, intrigued.

"I don't know. But I think that the only thing that frightens Dolly is that, deep down, she knows that the dream will have to end, and she doesn't want it to."

“Wow!” Kalwa exclaimed. “That's really a daydream! Do you like boys in real life?”

His body gave a jerk. “No. Not at all! But if a person is a girl...its perfectly normal for her to enjoy being with guys.”

The Gorean girl regarded him wonderingly. “Do you have other girly fantasies?” she asked.

He was slow in answering, even though his inhibitions were almost nil. “I don't know...I just do.”

Kalwa had heard vague answers such as this many times before. “Do you have actual Gorean daydreams, too?” she inquired. "I mean, do you ever imagine yourself as a woman taken to Gor. Imagine yourself collared and branded? And slave raped?

“Sometimes I've thought about that.”

“Tell me about what you would like to happen to you if you were a Gorean slave girl.”

Ned now described an accident in space. He is a woman in an escape pod in space with three other girls. They set down on a planet with no people in sight. The capsule sinks into the mud and the four are a slimy mess by the time they get to solid ground. They find a clean pool, undress, and go swimming. But when they're out in the water, they see that some primitives have taken away their clothes and their energy blasters. They splash their way to land, but, barefoot, can't catch up to the savages.

For a few hours, the girls creep through the woods, not knowing what to do. They fear the tribesmen who must live nearby. The idea of becoming slaves to shaggy primitives is not an appealing one. They start looking for a sheltered place to pass the night and are startled by shadows against the sinking sun. Men on giant eagles are sweeping down from the sky. The girls bolt in all directions, but the eagles come lower and they can hear their wings flapping over their heads. One rider snares the first of the four with a lasso, and then, one by one, the others are captured also. They have become prizes of the day's hunt and each is bound across an eagle saddle and carried as baggage into a city. There the warriors sell them to slavers, who are frightening, hard-looking men who put the quartet together into a caged pen.

The Earth girls are soon dragged from the cage, but only to be collared and branded. A salve heals their burns quickly, and the next day they are put among several other naked women and their training begins. Gradually, the Earth girls learn to speak simple words and learn they are on the planet Gor. The training they receive is almost all sexual, involving sessions with one lusty slaver after another. Resistance earns them lashes with a whip made of many leather straps. It does not cut the skin, but its touch burns like licks of fire. Weeks of discipline would take away all the inhibitions they used to have about performing sex acts with others looking on. Slave discipline turns them all into obedient cowards. At last, the girls are deemed well enough trained to be sold into the teeming fleshpot industry of Gor. Ned's character is acquired by a “pleasure house,” a Gorean brothel. Every day she entertains many customers but never sees any of her three companions...again.

At that point, Ned dropped into a deep, true, sleep. Kalwa's questioning had confirmed the impressions that she had gotten from his aura. The nature of his fantasies told Kalwa that her instincts were correct. Ned was the exact sort of man whom she always tried to seek out on Earth. He was a treasure; he was like a bottle of rare vintage wine. So far on this trip, Kalwa had found five suitable men. She was under orders to find a sixth who had the proper persona and she would be returned to the base in Europe until it was time to start a new hunt.

In the quiet of the night, Kalwa grew thoughtful. When she had been much younger, before she had been enslaved on Gor, she never expected to be living a life like this. She had been captured by agents of the Kurii and trained as a pleasure slave.The Kurii had been kidnapping humans for a very long time, both on Gor and on Earth.

But the Kurii were not primarily slavers. They were conquerors, and they wished to conquer Gor. Only both Gor and Earth were protected by the mighty advanced race called the Priest-Kings. The duel between the Kurii and the Priest-Kings had been going on for centuries, but in the recent past the character of the struggle had changed. The Priest-Kings had started inflicting heavy blows against the Kurii bases and safe houses, using human agents to identify targets. Usually, these agents were transformed into new shapes and were very hard to identify. They did this by means of what was called the “metamorphosis serum.” It was a genetic cocktail able to change humans from one shape to another.

Kurii spies eventually stole samples of the formula and their masters reverse-engineered it. The Priest King also had a special variation of the serum that could not only change one man to look like another, or one woman to look like another, but it could also change a man into a physiologically perfect woman. It could not, however, change a woman into a man because every man has all the genetic material he needs to become a woman, but women's genetics would not support a transformation into a man. That meant a man who became a woman could never be restored to his former condition. Very few Priest King agents were willing to accept such a change, but some did. And the success of these transformees had been some of the most devastating blows ever struck against the Kurii race.

The scientists acquired the sexual transformation serum and saw in it another means to the balance of the spy war.

Because Gor was a highly masculinized culture, it was easier to infiltrate a female into a foreign society than it was to introduce a male. Traditionally, Goreans held women to be naive, unadaptable, and unable to fend for themselves. For that reason, females tended to be underestimated and overlooked. Goreans kept a close watch on any strange males intruding actively in their proximity, but they regarded foreign women with much less suspicion. The idea of using women as spies was therefore logical and appealing. Unfortunately, Gorean culture provided women with few skills useful in espionage. Training could be carried out, but it is hard to change an elegant lady or a tame slave into a cunning and daring agent. Throughout history, men have made the best intelligent agents. Also, espionage was dangerous work and it ran counter to Gorean mores to engage free women in such hazardous work. As for slave girls, the process of slave-taming took the grit out of them and as a group, they were useless in espionage work. Far more valuable was an agent who looked like a woman but had the mind and spirit of a man inside.

Sometimes the Kurii had used earth women as spies. They had even seized men of action from earth and transformed them into women, but forced men with no stake in Gor or the Kurii cause did not make very effective spies. The policy continued, but it was not a high priority.

The basic concept of exotic slaves went far back into history. Their characteristics were usually bred in or induced by science. With the transformation serum, it was now easy to create an exotic slave. They were prized by dissolute masters who considered them a novelty and a status symbol. They sold for considerable gold and the most valuable of all exotics were transformed Gorean males, usually citizens of enemy cities. But Kalwa supposed that these specimens were very rare.

The great majority of natural slaves were women, but some men were also. A natural slave male often thrived as a female exotic. Because such men lacked the male fiber that made men behave as men, natural slave males customarily performed well as female slaves. Like women, they responded slave discipline and slave training. A former male could even experience "ignition," which was a psychological and emotional change that commonly came over natural slaves. Ignition made him -- her -- lust for those of his former sex, and also made a life of bondage into a lifelong thrill. The few exotic former males that Kalwa had come into contact with so far had seemed as content in their slavery as slaves who were born as females.

Kalwa had been born with an instinct for recognizing a natural slave, a talent that had gotten her involved with slave-hunting on Earth. The colors and intensity of a person's aura revealed much to one who was sensitive. They indicated a subject's general state of health, illnesses, and useful qualities, such as mental alertness and courage, but they also indicated natural slavery.

To feed the exotic slave market, Kalwa had been used as a sleen, a hunting animal. She had accepted her fate since she preferred what she was doing to a life of pleasure slavery on Gor. Only months earlier, she had singled out a daring and savvy ex-military intelligence officer of Earth who was not a natural slave. Her masters thought he would make a valuable agent if taken to Gor and induced to swear loyalty to the Kurii. Kalwa assumed that he had been made over into a beautiful exotic female slave and placed as a spy in the house of a powerful enemy. Such an exotic would not have been broken by slave discipline but would have been trained to impersonate a pleasure slave in every way. Regardless, she had never heard a word about his fate. Had he become an effective Kurii agent or had he proved to be too defiant to train? In the latter case, his masters would probably not kill him. Exotic slaves bring high sale prices. They would drop him from the intelligence program and make him a true slave. Gorean slavers have many ways of breaking resisting slaves. If it were possible to slave-break such a man, the ex-agent might eventually become a satisfactory exotic pleasure slave. Kalwa didn't like to imagine what reprisals would fall on the ex-agent's head if his masters eventually lost patience with him.

A man like Ned, she knew, would probably train well and break well on Gor. Undoubtedly, he could probably be ignited easily. That was the nature of natural slaves. But it was time for Kalwa to finish her work and leave. She had to prepare Ned for his kidnapping to the planet Gor.

She now took a Kurii-created injection device from her large purse. She dabbed a spot of pasty anesthetic on the sleeping man's thigh and injected him there. It did not contain a drug, but a tiny bead that would go undetected under his skin. It was a tracer and Kurii sensing devices could locate it from far off. Ned could be tracked down wherever he might go for the next few months and when a safe and unobserved capture could be made, it would be made. Once captured, he would be placed into a small transport ship and taken to Gor. He would ride in a prisoner capsule and the capsule would feed a controlled drip of the sexual transformation serum into his body. He would be kept anesthetized until he -- she -- became female not only in appearance but in every cell of her body.

Soon, Ned would be living the sort of life that he had daydreamed about. But unlike his imaginary surrogate, Dolly, he would not have to dream the possibility that he would wake up. That was the difference between reality and a dream. If an accident or violence didn't slay her, hundreds of years in the future she would still be young, beautiful, desirable. And it was very, very unlikely that she would not have been a pleasure slave over all of that time.

It was hard to understand the human creature. Despite his submissive fantasies, Ned had been a dom. But he had treated domination as a game; it hadn't been a sickness with him, as it is with so many others. Once he was experiencing life as a girl on Gor, his daydreams could all come true. He -- she -- might even thrill to her new life, as Dolly had done. Kalwa hoped good would come to Ned on Gor, because he wasn't a hateful man. Because he had been good company, Kalwa's work that night would give her no satisfaction.

It was possible that Ned would come to thrill to the collar at his throat, the brand on his thigh, the scanty scented garment that she would wear to enflame men's lusts. She hoped he would be happy, that his dream truly would be coming true, because whenever she made other people feel pain and anguish, she felt like a monster. Kalwa didn't do evil things because she was by nature a monster. What she was, was a slave girl who did terrible things to others, so terrible things would not be done to her.

Kalwa stepped to the window and gazed outside. Beyond the club lights, there was only darkness and it went on forever. Evil creatures lived in that darkness, she knew. Was she one of thoe evil creatures? She felt more like a trapped animal than a creature of darkness. Her idea of a perfect life was one where she would not have to hurt anyone. It would also be a place where there would be no one to control her, no one to harm her if she refused to do those things that made her sad.

Would she ever attain the harbor of her dreams? Possibly. Life was a strange thing.

Strange and terrible.

End

Josette's Story: The Prequel to "The Dark of the Moon"

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Serial Chapter

Genre:

Transformations

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Themes:

School or College Life

TG Elements:

Girls' School / School Girl

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

"Josette's Story" is a prequel to my story "The Dark of the Moon," here at Big Closet. That story introduced Josette Melford as a boy temporarily turned into a girl by magic. This novelette looks back in time and to tell the story of how Josette's strange adventure began months earlier. Read and enjoy.

[Author's Note: As announced last month, I have had to suspend the editing and posting of "Twilight of the Gods" featuring Mantra. My busy work load has prevented me from continuing my polishing of the rough draft. I hope I can go back to Twilight after I catch up on things. In the meanwhile, I have this alternate tale, "Josette's Story," ready to go. It will take little additional polishing to instead bring you a chapter of Josette each month for the immediate future.

By the way, with Twilight of the Gods I started putting up the best AI image illustrations that I could. I plan to present a monthly illustration for this story also. They are not always easy to get exactly right, but they are always fun to create using the amazing current technology.]

JOSETTE'S STORY

The Prequel to “The Dark of the Moon.”

By Christopher Leeson

The fluorescent lights of Westbrook Mall cast harsh shadows as Loren Melford wandered its corridors, killing time. At seventeen, he'd skillfully used the art of the casual glance when passing the display window of Amanda's Secret.

Though silk and lace beckoned, alluringly draped upon female manikins in the display window, Loren gave the sumptuous view only a passing glance. He wanted to stand and stare. He wanted to go into Amanda’s and feast his eyes on the lingerie, but society had its unwritten rules. And those rules dictated how young men had to behave around lingerie shops.

The injustice of the situation gnawed at him. In theory, this was a free country, but in reality a guy couldn't browse boudoir fashion without being labeled a deviant. Only when accompanied by a female could a man legitimately enter a lingerie store, an option not available to Loren. Not that he didn’t want a girlfriend. He wanted a top-draw girlfriend like the heroes of adventure movies always won just before the closing credits.

As far as girlfriends went, nothing else would have satisfied him. He felt embarrassed by decent-looking guys going around with un-hot girls. Where was the prestige in that? Inevitably, guys with no taste ended up married to ugly women. At least a male loner could swagger about pretending to be cool, but keeping company with a Plain Jane girlfriend would let out the truth that he couldn’t measure up, that he was a loser. Why was the world so irrational? The lingerie on display had been designed to capture men's attention and no one else’s. Yet men weren't supposed to go with the flow and luxuriate in the beauty of it.

He'd often wondered who made these rules. The preachers hadn’t. Preachers never talked about the important things. They had their minds fixed on behaving nicely so they could keep their tax exemptions.

Men could never make the rules for the women, not even to keep them from making a mistake. So how was it that women got off making rules for men? Where had this illogical consensus come from? Why did males, who had armies at their command, put up with unfair treatment? Persecution, really. Did this spineless acquiescence come from decades of media brainwashing?

Suddenly, as Loren stood there musing, he realized that someone was standing close behind him.

"You look like the sort of young man who needs what I can give him," declared a woman’s voice.

Loren looked back and found exactly what he expected: a woman pushing sixty-five. She was overweight, probably from eating too much chocolate. Whatever the lady was selling, she was talking to the wrong customer.

"Were you speaking to me, ma'am?" he asked.

"Yes, I was. I sense that you’re a boy who wants better than he’s getting," she said, her eyes agleam. "Let me explain. I’m a person with psychic abilities, and I can see you have a blue aura."

"Are you talking about my Lee jeans?"

"No, not that! Do you even know what an aura is?"

"Sure. Auras are colored lights."

"They are, yes. And your aura is blue. Blue-aura boys have special qualities. Whenever I see a blue aura, I try to do its owner a favor."

“Look, you're sort of creeping me out,” said Loren. “If you don’t mind, I have to be on my way."

"I want to give you something.”

“It’s not a kiss, is it?”

It’s something better," she persisted. "I have something for you to read. If you follow its instructions, all your dreams might come true."

“What dreams?”

“How would I know? Only the one who dreams can know what his dreams are.”

She held out to him a tiny box. Loren guessed he was being offered drugs.

"What's in there?"

"A small bottle with a sheet of instructions. It’s medicine and it will do you good, but mind the directions carefully. There can be... adverse effects...if you decide to take it in the wrong way."

"I don't take gifts from strangers. And I don't have money enough to buy anything."

The woman chuckled. "It's not for sale. I give it away free to help people. This magic oil meets the needs of blue-aura boys. But you absolutely must not take it until after you read the directions. After that, whatever mistakes you make are your own responsibility."

She set the box beside him on the mall bench next to them and shuffled away. Loren stood there alone, staring at what she’d left behind. Common sense warned him to walk away, but he didn’t want to leave something potentially dangerous out in the open for someone, maybe a child, to find. He thought he should take it to Mall Security.

He went down the corridor to the business offices and a cramped security office with a desk and a paunchy man who wasn’t even wearing a uniform.

“What brings you here, lad?” he asked.

Loren put the box on his desk and explained his encounter with the old lady. The security man picked up the box and shook it. Not hearing anything, he undid its latch it and saw inside a miniature bottle with a folded paper. He skimmed the latter with mounting skepticism.

"Just New Age nonsense," the guard said. "The lady must be some mystical kook, pushing crazy beliefs."

"Shouldn't you send it to a lab or something?"

"We just throw suspicious stuff into the toxic waste box."

"What does the letter say?"

"Something about the oil in the bottle being magic. I’ve read enough to know it’s drivel."

"What if the sheet isn’t telling the truth? What if the oil is a drug or a poison?"

"That's for the hazmat people to worry about. I’ll see that the packet is gotten rid of safely."

“My mom's a pharmaceutical scientist,” Loren said. “She could probably analyze it. If it’s not safe, I could write an essay about it for English class when school starts."

"Sure, kid. Finders keepers. It's yours." He returned the box. "Just don’t do anything risky with it unless your mom says it's safe."

Loren departed, bearing with him a low opinion of corporate security men. But this little mystery had at least enlivened a dull day. Despite his better judgment, he wanted to read that letter before deciding the bottle's fate.

When Loren got home, he took the box to the living room table, turned on the chandelier light overhead, and sat down to read. The security man hadn’t been kidding; the printed sheet read like a fantasy story. What it said was much weirder than he had expected! The text claimed the vial contained a sex-change potion! It said, “This distillation will allow a young male to take on the attributes of the favorite female image he holds most dearly in his mind. But BEWARE. Follow all instructions carefully. Misuse of the product may lead to undesirable side effects.”

No wonder the guard hadn’t read very far! Magical sex change was a fantasy idea. Loren was used to such ideas from his fantasy reading. Jack L. Chalker, had written a lot of sex-change novels. His favorite had been The Identity Matrix. The youth continued reading. “To initiate a sex change, place a small drop of the oil extract upon the bare flesh of the subject to be transformed. The magical effect will remain dormant until the start of the next dark moon. When the shape-change is accomplished, it shall be stable until the next dark of the moon. The subject will then revert to his natural form without ill effects.”

What was the dark of the moon? Loren wondered. A cloudy night? An eclipse? The new moon? The youth checked his smartphone. A net search told him that “the dark of the moon” was the period of the moon’s cycle when its light was not visible from Earth, ergo, the new moon.

He read on. “The transformed boy may develop emotional or psychological traits mimicking the appearance and the expected behavior of the strongest female image held in his mind. That image becomes the new reality for the user. Persons he knows will not remember him in a previous male form. All physical records will attest that the subject was born female. A boy who becomes a girl will see that many things in his life has changed. He may find that his closet is filled with female clothing.”

Wow! This could be a wild plot for a fiction book! It wasn’t talking about a mere sex change, but a full-blown reality-warping spell, an impossible concept! Fortunately, there was no magic, and even if magic existed, how could it be so powerful as to create an alternate parallel existence? If such a thing was loose in the world, dictators would use it for world-conquest schemes! Loren was disappointed to find not a bone fide mystery but a hack idea from fan fiction!

He scanned for some information about the meaning of “blue auras,” but couldn’t find the term. Instead, in a paragraph under the heading of Taboos, it said, “The spirits that enable the change of the boy’s reality will not tolerate the exposure of their existence to the material world. If the subject breaks the taboo of silence while in female form, his female existence will become his permanent reality.

“Also, if he recounts his magical experience to others while in male form, the magic oil will become inert for him, and he will lose his ability to return to a female reality. In either case, the subject’s allegations about the reality of magic will be left without proof.”

A second warning followed: “A boy in female form must not reapply the oil to his body until after he has reverted to his natural form, which will occur at the beginning of the next dark moon. Taking a second dosage while still female shall make his female reality permanent.”

Wow! That would be a disaster. It was a good thing that none of this was real! And then he came upon an even nastier taboo. “If a subject in female form becomes pregnant, his female reality will remain permanent.”

As he read along, Loren began to wonder if this spiel wasn’t meant to program a person for a hallucinatory experience, like LSD. Once he had finished reading, Loren put the bottle and the paper into a trunk inside his room and went back downstairs to make a lonely dinner.

His mom’s work in pharmaceuticals took her out of town a lot. As for his dad, he lived a thousand miles away and had a new wife and child. Loren was lucky to see his dad and his half-sister as much as once a year. To get his mind off his broken family, Loren preferred to think about the mystery of the bottle.

It called for experimenting, and he realized he could do a simple experiment on his own. Mrs. Janice Melford had a small lab in the house and kept a few white mice for experimenting. It was Loren’s duty to feed the stock during her absences. He wondered what would happen if he dabbed a little of the oil on a white mouse. If the mouse died, well, he wasn’t so badly off that he couldn’t pay his mom for a replacement mouse.

After a quick meal, Loren entered the laboratory and put on a pair of quality rubber gloves. Then he donned a high-grade breathing mask. Finally, he opened the vial, which had a taped turn cap. He used tweezers to remove the inner seal and then carefully washed the tweezers and the screw-on cap, concerned about any toxic effects.

Then, he replaced the cap. Still wearing the safety mask, Loren placed the vial on a lab dish to capture spillage should the bottle be tipped over.

He again unstopped the vial and wet a Q-tip with the oil, which he put into a small cardboard box from the trash, which he had stuffed with absorbent cotton wadding. Setting the Q-tip on an old newspaper, the teen went to the mouse cage and randomly drew out a white mouse. But when he saw it was female, he returned it and searched to find a male one instead.

Since he was doing a sex-change experiment, he wanted to perform every detail perfectly. The little beast didn’t struggle, being used to being handled by Loren and his mom. Loren carefully rubbed the wet Q-tip on the rat’s belly, making sure the oil reached the creature’s skin.

Subsequently, he washed the Q-tip inside a tuna can full of soapy water. This presumably contaminated water he poured into the toilet bowl and flushed it into the sewage system.

Finally, Loren put the washed Q-tip into his mom’s wall-mounted toxic waste receptacle. Still wearing the rubber gloves, Loren used a spray-on cleaner and Bounty towels to clean the exterior of the bottle and every part of his work area thoroughly.

He took the soiled wipes to the backyard barbecue to burn them, protected against the smoke by his breathing mask. Though he was taking every precaution, Loren still didn’t believe in magic. His concern was that even if the oil was not magical, it could still be toxic.

Finally, Loren examined the mouse, now in a cage of its own. It was behaving normally, though of course, the paper had said that the magical effect would manifest only at the “dark of the moon.” But Loren did not know when that event would occur.

Returning to his computer, the teen checked for the date of the next new moon and found that it would happen in thirteen days at 11:51pm. The upcoming new moon was till on his mind as he drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, Loren looked in again on the caged mouse and affirmed that it was spry and active. Re-donning the gloves and checked, he took it in hand to recheck its sex. Nothing about it had changed. Would it magically transform on the night of the dark moon?

After taking breakfast, he went to his desktop to search for “blue aura.” There was a fair amount of New Age “teaching” about auras, even blue ones. A passage read, “The presence of blue energy in a person’s aura is linked to an openness to receiving or perceiving spiritual energy. People with a blue aura may have a strong sense of intuition. Blue auras are often associated with calm, collected people who live a balanced life. In short, the meaning of a blue aura often reflects a relaxed, receptive energy that is aware of the bigger picture.”

This was all very well, but none of the information said anything about sex changes or femininity. Maybe the old lady’s ideas about blue auras were crank, or they represented the obscure thinking of a tiny cult whose ideas hadn’t spread far.

Loren’s mom returned that morning, and the rest of the week was humdrum. During that time, his sole social interaction involved a one-hour phone call to his best friend, Darrell. Days later, after the new moon had arrived, he checked on the rodent for the hundredth time. It still looked just fine, chipper and eager for his grain—and it remained male. He gave the beast a little more time to change and, at midnight, checked it again. The creature’s sex was undeniably male.

Now there was only a month before school recommenced. Loren hung around home, reading a lot. But passing time didn’t make the bottle of oil fade from his mind. He couldn’t shake his disappointment at his experiment’s failure. That failure dejected him because it proved that there was no magic in the world. On the evening of the next new moon, he took revenge on the world for being so despicably predictable and dull.

Just like Dr. Jekyll, the Invisible Man, and Dr. Franz Edelmann, Lore had nerve enough to experiment on himself. He could be bold because the chance of there being bad results had sunk to zero! He wet another Q-tip with the mysterious oil and put a tiny dab on his forearm. This action was his way of saying “F* you!” to a world that held no surprises.

Immediately afterward, his flamboyant challenge yielded no results. When his mom came home, they had supper together, but her current work assignment require a very early rising, so she went to bed early. The new moon was still hours away, and Loren didn’t feel like staying up late. He therefore went to bed right after his mother did and fell asleep quickly.

At Loren’s next waking, it was still dark. He lay there, hoping to fall back to sleep, but something kept tickling his cheek. When he swept his face with his hand, the tickling kept coming back. He reached into the dark to turn on the lamp, but his hand couldn’t find it. Getting up, he flipped the wall switch, and what the light showed made his brows go up in surprise.

This wasn’t his room; he didn’t recognize his surroundings. It was a stranger’s bedroom, and—from the clothes, novelties, and pictures around him—it was a teen girl’s room. The dresser top was loaded with unrecognizable girly nonsense. Bemusedly, he glanced at the dark window and jumped in surprise. A girl was standing outside it and looking in at him!

After the momentary jolt, he took a second look at her.

If he had to have a prowler, this was the best sort of a prowler to have.

What a girl! Her blonde hair was pale; she wore a short nightie, white topped with a light blue skirt. He couldn’t see much of her legs, but he absolutely wanted to see more!

Suddenly, it dawned on Loren that he was experiencing a “false awakening,” a lucid dream. He took a second look around the room. It overflowed with feminine belongings. The walls were covered with posters, some with fluffy animal pictures, but others pictured male teenage rock stars.

Loren had loved to dream lucidly since childhood. For a few months, he had taken health supplements that were supposed to stimulate lucid dreaming, but they never worked. The dream world was a place where he would have liked to live. A dreamer was a superhero. With unlimited strength and the ability to fly and wall through walls. Every lucid dream he experienced was an opportunity to have some fun!

In a dream, there were no rules, no social controls. Now, he realized that the ghostly girl outside the window was just a figment of his dream state. He wanted to get closer to the dream girl, close enough to put his arms around the comely maid and smack her with a hundred sizzling kisses!

He shuffled through the floor clutter and touched his nose against cold glass. The glass foiled his groping reach, too. Unlike his other lucid dreams of the past, he couldn’t walk through solid objects.

So he stood there looking at the girl, especially at her killer legs. These were shown off by the shortness of her babydoll pajamas, and such legs belonged on a dance stage! Yet he tried to keep his excitement down. From experience, he knew that a surge of emotion would make him wake, so he struggled for calm, babbling, “You’re a knockout! Why don’t you come inside? I’ll get you a Coke, and we can get to know each other.”

Some books said that a lucid dreamer could control what happened in a dream. Loren had a good idea where he wanted this contact to go. Concentrating hard, he said to the girl, “Repeat after me, miss, you think I’m the coolest guy you ever met….”

But the voice coming from Loren’s throat sounded all wrong. He reflexively touched his throat, only to find how smooth and warm it was...

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2

The Dark of the Moon: A Sock in the Mouth - Chapter 1

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Fiction

Genre:

Magic

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Themes:

School or College Life

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

The Dark of the Moon: A Sock in the Mouth
By Christopher Leeson

Version 07/31/2014

Darrell Rivers used to be a sour boy; none of the good things in life seemed to come his way. All that changed the day that he met Josette Melford. She enchanted him utterly. Unfortunately, it turns out to be more enchantment than Darrell wants to deal with.

****

Josette had a face and even a body like the old time troubadours used to sing about. Wow! That golden cascade, those swinging hips. I kept asking myself, "How can a nobody like me be so lucky?" and "How long can it last?"

I was absolutely crazy about her, and who could blame me? She dressed the way I would have wanted any girlfriend of mine to dress – in mini-dresses and stiletto heels. The one worry I had that kept me from springing into the air and cheering was the fact that I knew that no girl like her could possibly stay interested in somebody like me. Every day was a struggle to keep from awakening from what was a beautiful dream.

I never understood exactly how I had gotten sucked up into paradise. The dream had started in early summer, when I saw her downtown looking gorgeous. With my heart beating like a hammer, I went up and said, "Hi, Josette."

Instead of looking pained and turning away, like every other girl I liked would do, she said, "Darrell. Hi. I was going over to McDonalds. Want to come?"

That really threw me. I hadn't realized that she knew my name. What was going on? Gorgeous girls only acted friendly on the Disney Channel. Though knocked back on my heels, I managed to say "Yeah, sure," or something that meant the same thing. Hell, if she had been a wanted serial killer, I probably would still have said 'yeah.' That's how much I needed -- deep down -- to be seen around town with a girl like her.

We got in line and ordered our meals. I was worried that Josette was playing some sort of practical joke and that I'd be going home heartbroken. Instead, a miracle happened under those Golden Arches. While I sat across from Josette, pretty much speechless, she said, "I've heard that you know everything about Harry Potter -- the books _and_ the movies. That's really cool."

I'm just not used to being talked to that way. Before I knew what I was doing, I'd asked her to go with me to _X-Men, Days of Future Past_. Usually, the females of the species hate the movies I brought up, but instead making an excuse and heading for the exit, Josette said, "Great. I'll pick you up tomorrow, about six-thirty." I guess she'd known that I didn't have a car.

When we finished our chips and burgers, Josette said she had to get back to her shopping. I suspected it was really a brush-off, but from the door she looked back and winked.

I half expected that she wouldn't show up to take me to the theater, but she did. After that first movie, I saw a lot of Josette. Sometimes she made suggestions about where we should go. And they were good places -- like that comic book convention out at the Holiday Inn. She seemed serious about comics and bought an armful of comics that day. Her tastes were super. Instead of rolling her eyes and glancing at her watch every time I brought up a topic of conversation, she'd tune in and ask smart questions, like, "Wasn't it dumb to kill Katherine Pierce? And don't you think it sucked that she seemed to go to hell when she wasn't as bad as most of the heroes?" Whenever I'd asked her out, she'd always say, "Yes."

By that time in my life, I had ceased to hope that any pretty girl even knew the meaning of the word "yes"! We'd only been dating for a week before I was showing her my pulp magazine reprint collection -- at home and in my room. My folks couldn't believe their eyes when I introduced Josette as a friend and then guided her upstairs. After doing so much that for my status with the folks, I would have done anything for her.

Our relationship got better and better. We had so many things to talk about. The rest of the summer was great. Better than great. Then school began, but that was a good thing, too. It gave me the chance to show Josette off around Daniel Kassler High as my girlfriend. People started looking at me as if I were a human being, a winner, instead of the Loser from the Black Lagoon.

Before Josette, I always had to go it alone socially, unless I was with the guys, mostly wargamer buddies and sci-fi fans who couldn't find dates either. In those days, I tried to keep clear of the favorite spots where the couples hooked up, especially the beach.

But now, with my arm around Josette's waist, her in that Rio-style bikini, I had self-respect -- and also the respect of the people who counted most: the jocks and the band guys. When other guys tried to move in on Josette, she always cut them off short. They simply couldn't understand what they were doing wrong. I couldn't either, frankly. Why did a svelte beauty with everything going for her want to hang with me?

If this situation seemed too good to be true, it was.

I've been talking about Josette as if she had appeared like a mirage out of nowhere, but that wasn't exactly true. I remembered seeing her around the school for the last couple years. She hadn't looked at me once in all that time, and I had tried my best not to let her catch me looking at her. What had changed in the universe that day when I'd said hello to her downtown? It was a total mystery, but I wasn't complaining.

After school began, I suggested that we study together sometimes. Josette was always appearing on the honor roll and she didn't need help from a struggling C-student like me, but studying would give us another excuse to be together. Even though she must have guessed my ulterior motives, she went along with the scam. Life was so incredibly good that I could almost forget that there actually _was_ something wrong with our relationship.

And that one thing was humongous.

For whatever reason, sex was out of the equation.

****

Trying to get Josette into bed was like trying to coax a cat into a traveling cage. The only difference was that sometimes you _can_ actually cage a cat without violence. But I could never get Josette to make naughty with me. She was never mean when she said "Uh-uh, no way!" but she absolutely wouldn't put out. Not at all. Zilch.

That hurt. It left me wondering. What was my appeal to a girl like that anyway? If she wasn't hot for my bod, what else did I have going for me? My brain? Not likely. Whatever it was, I wanted in on the secret, so that I could give her enough of it to drive her crazy with passion.

There's an old saying, "Leave well enough alone." But that line was probably coined by some paunchy old nerd who had never gotten close to a babe during his whole life. Even though every ounce of good sense told me to back off, I had it so bad for Josette that I just couldn't act smart. Before I realized it, I was nagging her about getting naked just about every chance I got.

Josette had a will like iron. She somehow got it into her head that the clothes we wore were provoking me, and so started to dress less like a Hollywood goddess. She was showing up in things like plaid shirts, dungarees, and sneakers whenever she knew that we would be getting together. I hated the fashion change, but a body like hers looked good in anything. And I told her exactly that -- every time I got her backed into a corner. Though I never stole a kiss, I never got a knee in the groin either. I did get a kick in the shin every once in a while.

It seemed like the more effort I put into being romantic, the more Josette was driven to distraction. I was beginning to worry that if I kept going for the prize I'd be left back where I started -- alone.

Fortunately, things didn't go that far.

Or should I say, _unfortunately_ things didn't go that far.

* * * *

It was the second week of school, the day before the dark of the moon -- and that detail is important. Josette came over to study, but it looked like she was having trouble concentrating. Deciding to shut the books, I brought out _Third Reich_, the-out-of print Avalon Hill game, to do a few turns. But her mind still seemed to be off in the clouds. After a little while, she took out this small vial, the kind that lets a person jiggle out one drop at a time, like an expensive herbal oil. She handled it very carefully, as if it held hydrochloric acid, and put a couple dabs on a Q-tip.

She held it up to my nose. "I'm thinking of wearing this fragrance to school, Darrell. Take a whiff. What do you think?"

I shrugged. It had a tangy scent, like lavender. "It'll make you smell like a New Age shop," I said. "What you're already wearing is better."

"Are you sure? It's supposed to boost a person's output of serotonin, the happiness hormone. Please, give it a real chance." She started tickling my stubbly upper lip with the damp cotton, right under my nostrils. I liked the sensation and saw no reason to protest.

"I wasn't sure about the bouquet myself at first," she said, "but the more I breathe it in, the better I like it. Is it the same for you?"

Familiarity didn't make the smell any sweeter to me, but I _was_ getting some sort of tingle. I didn't know if the reaction was coming from the scent or from its contact with my skin.

"You'd smell like a cherry orchard wearing anything," I finally told her.

"Like skunk?"

"No, not that extreme. Not even Selena Gomez could pass muster in skunk."

"Well, all right then," she sighed, taking the Q-tip away. She dropped the cotton swab into a sandwich bag, which she then put into a small pocket of her purse. The motion was so careful that it was almost as if she was afraid of touching the oil herself.

"Why don't you just toss it into the wastebasket?" I asked. "Or won't it stand up to a forensic examination?"

"Silly," she replied without explanation.

"You wouldn't poison me," I said. "So, what is it?"

"An aphrodisiac -- a bogus one, I guess," Josette answered, her tone a little forced.

"What do you need that for? I'm about as hot around you as I can stand to be. If you doubt it --"

"You're right, I shouldn't have picked on you for a subject." Then she smiled. "It's just that you're the only person I'd risk experimenting on. Wouldn't it be gross if I'd tried it on any of those grabby guys at school and it worked?"

"That sure would be gross," I agreed. The idea of Josette alone with some turned-on rival was nightmarish. "But, hey, I could be a grabby guy too if you gave me half a chance." She only smiled.

We tried a couple more game turns, but the Mistress of War just didn't seem to be there with me anymore.

"Don't you like _Third Reich_?" I asked. "I know there's a lot of carnage and that turns most girls off."

She grinned. "I'm not like most girls, Darrell. Didn't I eat you alive in _Elric_?"

I grinned. "Yes, you did. Most girls are boring. You're -- unbelievable. Do you know what I like most about you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah. As if you ever stopped staring at them!"

I chuckled. "No, they're Number Two. I like your lousy taste in men."

Josette glanced at me for a second. "Are you taking about yourself? You shouldn't. Darrell, without a friend like you, my life wouldn't amount to much. As an animal species, human beings aren't hard wired to go it solo."

"I can buy that."

"Good. Can I come by again after supper, tomorrow?"

"Sure, but you sound like you're getting ready to leave."

"I guess I am. I'm just not into studying or gaming tonight. Tomorrow's a big day and I've got a lot on my mind."

"What's happening?"

"I'll tell you all about it after school. And, please, whatever you do, be here to meet me and, absolutely, don't go out before I show up. I have to tell you something ultra-important."

"You're making it sound ominous."

"I don't mean to. Let's just say that I'm planning a fantastic weekend for the two of us."

"I can't wait. But can't you give me a hint?"

"Sorry, a hint might spoil everything."

She packed up her things very quickly and then I walked her to the door downstairs. Left alone, I finished my homework solo. At ten, I turned in, hoping for a long dream about Josette Melford, one in which she wasn't vulgarly overdressed.

The only dream I remembered, though, concerned some guy trying to sell me a canoe paddle for the car that my dad had just given me.

* * * *

The next day was school as usual. I got near to Josette only a couple of times, but, to my chagrin, she seemed high-strung and standoffish. The one solid thing she said to me was "Hey! Darrell! Remember, I'm seeing you tonight. Wait for me at home."

I wanted to do that. Tonight, if she was in a good mood, I'd tell her what I'd been thinking about. In a nutshell, if the two of us went to the same university, we could take a kitchenette apartment together near the campus. I could sell it to her at first as a platonic relationship that would help us save money, but once we were living in the same room, I hoped that nature would take its course. The rest of my day was filled with fantasies about the two of us creating a bull market for condom manufacturers.

The entree at dinner that night was good, but by the time I'd emptied my plate, I was feeling sort of "off," and excused myself. Mom noticed my unsteadiness and asked about it. Except for being a little tired and unfocused, there wasn't too much to tell her. "I'll check you out about bedtime," she said.

"I'm not a kid anymore," I reminded her.

"Grown men still get sick. But I promise not to tuck my baby boy in."

"Thanks."

Upstairs, I shed my jeans and hit the mattress like a rock. I didn't register anything more until I felt Loren Melford poking my ribs and saying, "Hey, come out of it, Darrell. We've got some important stuff to talk through."

Loren Melford? That name? Why had that name popped into my mind? I suddenly remembered. He had been my best friend for two years. But where had the guy been lately?

Before I could sort it out, I felt a sock being stuffed into my mouth.

At least it was a clean sock.

"Don't scream, bro," Loren whispered, holding my arms flush to the mattress. "You're going to want to yell your tonsils out, but everything's cool. You'll understand it all in a minute."

I wanted to get rid of the stocking, but my wacko bud was still holding me down and I couldn't reach it. I was normally stronger than he was, but I still felt weak.

"Okay, listen, Darrell. I want you to sit up and take a look at the mirror. Don't be scared, no matter what you see. It's not forever, but if you freak out and start howling, your folks will come up. That'ld be bad. If you told them anything, you'd regret it for the rest of your life."

Mirror? What was I supposed to see? What could be so horrible that I could go nuts at the sight of it? Had I broken out in a pox? Why should I get the pox if I never got the sex?

"If it makes things any easier, just tell yourself that this is a dream. Nothing in a dream can hurt you." He eased his hold. "Okay, sit up, nice and easy."

Bewildered, I pushed myself up. Blinking away the blur, I saw Loren's back reflected in the door mirror, but I also saw someone beyond him -- someone I didn't know from Adam. Or should I say Eve?

She had long, dark, unkempt hair. Her eyes frowned with bewilderment, and she had a sock in her mouth, just like I did. Except for the misplaced stocking, she looked pretty good.

I yanked the sock from between my teeth, and the girl in the mirror did the same.

Loren squeezed my arm. "Remember, no shouting. Trust me."

I still couldn't see myself in the glass, only that girl. She had on some kind of off the shoulder top and a simple pendant necklace. Whoever she was, she looked like the sort of Barbie doll that I'd like to get to know.

But there wasn't supposed to be any girl in my room. Had Loren brought her? And why was she only wearing panties and a top so loose that wouldn't stay up? I didn't object to casual dress, but….

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Loren take a letter from my nightstand. "It looks like your name is 'Charlayne Rivers' now. Hmmm. I like the sound of it."

"Charlayne? What do you mean my…." Then I realized that my voice sounded 'way wrong. "Charlayne," I repeated. "Charlayne!" It still seemed off. "Fee-fi-fo-fum."

What came out of my pipes had a soft sound, not at all my usual timbre. I reached back and stroked my hair in bemusement, but found more of the stuff than I'd bargained for.

"Easy now, bro; sure, you've got longer hair, but it's no big deal," Loren said. "For your own good, don't say anything above a whisper. If you get excited, I may have to put that sock back into your pie hole."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

He grinned. "Come on, Darrell, you never liked dirty-mouthed girls. Don't be one yourself."

Girl?

I glanced back at the mirror. That was it! I was dreaming that I was a girl. What I saw was supposed to be my own reflection. Was Loren just a part of the dream, or was this a hallucination? I touched my face. My stubble was gone. Out of the corner of my eye, the girl was touching her face in the same way.

"A dream," I mumbled.

"Sure, it's a dream," said Loren. "No sweat. Listen, I don't have a lot of time. If I don't do my own thing right away, I'll be stuck looking like this till the next dark of the moon. That would be bad; I'll be able to help you a lot more if I'm a girl, too."

Had I heard him right? "Wha...?"

He took a handful of leather bootlaces out of a bag. "When you see what happens to me, you'll probably start yelling bloody murder. So I'm going to have to hogtie and gag you again, just till it's over."

I think I would have fought being tied up a lot harder if I weren't so absolutely sure that I was in Dreamland. To my annoyance, he shoved that damned athletic sock back into my mouth and fixed it in place with a nylon he found somewhere.

Then he stood off.

"All right, good," he said. "Now watch this, but for Christ's sake, don't flip out." He took a little vial from his bag; it looked like the same bottle that Josette had shown me the night before. Taking a Q-tip, he moistened it with oil from the bottle. "The magic oil can be put on a person anytime, but it only comes into effect during the dark of the moon, after sunset," he explained.

"I put the magic oil on your upper lip yesterday. Tonight, the magic changed you, but what I dabbed on myself last month wore off at the same time. I want to be Josette for another month, though. The last time I tried this the new spell took off like a rocket."

With these pretty much meaningless words, Loren intently rubbed the oily Q-tip into the back of his left hand.

Almost at once, Loren seemed to get a little unsteady on his feet. "I'd b-better lay down before I fall down," he stammered. And so he did, onto a pile of laundry. But it didn't look like the same laundry that I usually left in a heap in front of the hamper. It looked like the laundry of some teenaged girl who was about as bad at housekeeping as I was.

For the first time, I eyeballed the room around me. It wasn't my room. The colors, the decorations, the posters, and the clothing, were all wrong. But, when I looked more carefully, I could see that it was structurally unchanged. Someone had redecorated my room into some a teen-girl chaotic mode.

'A dream,' I told myself.

Loren lay moaning, but it was the sound of someone in blissful sleep, not pain. What I saw happen to him over the next minute convinced me, more than ever, that I was hallucinating. It was like watching one of FX morphs that turns one person into another, like they do in TV shows, only this one was drawn out longer. Loren's clothes were changing, too, getting smaller to fit his shrinking build. When he looked up groggily, I saw not Loren, but Josette Melford, now dressed in a shirt and jeans, which wasn't unusual for her.

Josette Melford? She'd entirely slipped out of my mind. Now she was back, and my memories of Loren and Josette were, all of a sudden, jumbled up weirdly.

Then it hit me. Loren and Josette didn't exist separately. By a flash of inspiration, I was now absolutely certain that they were the same person!

"Oh, Jeez," Loren -- or rather -- Josette said. "It really floors a guy, but it gets easier to handle each time."

She got up then, all wobbly, and came over to sit on the edge of the bed. "Darrell, you probably still think that you're not with it. We'd better keep you tied up and gagged until you understand what's what."

Not liking that idea, I grunted a protest.

"This is magic," Josette said. "When it makes people change, other people don't realize it. Like, you couldn't remember Loren Melford before, right? No matter how much the world changes, people will think that it's always been that way. Downstairs, your folks and your brother and sister wouldn't notice anything strange if you came down as Charlayne. You can probably remember me both as Loren and Josette now. That's because you've become a user -- of the oil. It creates some kind of alternate reality, but I don't really understand how it works.

"You're probably wondering why I hexed you. A lot of reasons. Like, I want to hang with you, but all you want to do is to get into my pants. I really like you, Darrell -- Charlayne -- whatever -- and I've been wanting to tell you the truth, but there are rules. You wouldn't like the penalty that comes with breaking the rules of magic."

I shook my head, wanting the gag out of my mouth, but she kept talking.

"Now that you're enchanted, I have to warn you about the taboos. The bottle label says that if you violate a rule, the change becomes permanent. Or, if you're in your boy shape when you do it, you won't be able to change into a girl again, not ever.

"The most important thing is that you can't tell anyone about changing your shape, not unless he's an oil-user himself. The first time I read the directions, I thought the whole business was nuts. But the basic idea seemed awfully sexy. Dab on a little oil and you turn into your favorite sort of girl. I decided to test it first on one of my mom's lab rats. When it didn't seem to hurt it at all, I decided it was a fake. But if it was a fake, I thought it should be safe to experiment on myself, like Dr. Jekyll did.

"The first time I rubbed it on, I didn't really expect anything to happen. Nothing did happen, in fact -- not until the dark of the moon. That's when I suddenly turned into the girl you've been going gaga about. It was scary, but after I calmed down, I realized that I'd be stuck that way for a month and had no choice but to deal with it. I managed not to freak out and avoided violating the 'no-tell' rule,' even with Mom.

"It was really strange to have her talking to me as 'her little girl' as if nothing had happened. Fortunately, school was out; that made social adjustment easier. Even so, I didn't go outside for two days. Then I put on some of the girl clothes in 'Josette's' closet and took a walk to the strip mall. It went okay, so I rode the bus downtown the next day. For the first time, I was able to go into a Victoria's Secret Store and _really_ look around, without having people think I was a pervert."

I grunted again, to let her know I wasn't buying it.

"After I figured out that no one remembered Loren, I started to have even more fun, but it was riskier being a girl than I expected. Boys turn on so easily. Just saying 'hello' is enough to start some of them groping. I had to be very standoffish, until I saw you downtown. If you hadn't talked to me first, I was ready to say hello to you. Things started out all right with us, but pretty soon you started nagging me for sex. I wasn't sure whether I should tough it out or break up with you. I definitely couldn't tell you straight-out who I was, because that would violate the taboo. I'm not planning to stay this way for the rest of my life, naturally. Who wants to slowly change into an old lady?

"But if I called things quit with you, I'd be alone again; what's the fun in that? Then I got to thinking that if I gave you some of the oil, I'd get around the taboo, and be free to explain everything. Okay, that sounds selfish, but don't sweat it. You'll only be a girl for a month. I don't like sharing my oil anyway; I only have enough to last a few years, depending on how often I feel like being a girl.

"You're probably going to be sore at me for roping you into this, but it's going to be a real blast for you. You don't just become a girl, you become the best girl possible! And think about how it's going to be once your month is over! We can go back the way we were, doing fun things together. People will go on thinking that we're sleeping together and they'll turn green with envy!"

I was stunned. It had all been a lie, our whole relationship. Josette had only been role-playing. I'd never actually had the kind of girlfriend that I'd really wanted. I hoped and prayed that what I was hearing and seeing was only a dream. My nutty buddy must have seen the misery in my eyes. Frowning, he stood up. "Come over to the mirror and have a look at yourself."

She half-carried me and, a moment later, had me up against the glass. My sweater was an oversized football jersey made for teen-girls, and, as I've said, I had on a pair of panties. I had gone to bed wearing a different sort of sweater and my skivvies.

"Ouch!" I yelled into the gag. Josette had tweaked my backside.

"You deserve it, you bun duster. You had no business putting me through the groping mill like you did. The pinch should at least tell you that you're wide awake. If you go on thinking that this is a dream, and that you can get away with saying or doing any dumb thing, you might say the wrong words to the wrong person.

"We'll have to get you through school tomorrow without any big slip-ups. You're living in an alternate reality now, so you might find out that you have a different class schedule. We have to hunt up your student info and get things right, so that people won't think you've come down with amnesia. But first, you have to listen to all the saved messages on your cell phone, and read all the personal letters you can find. If Charla has a diary, super-great. That kind of documentation will tell you something about your alter ego's life and what's she's into. Once you squeak through school on Friday, we'll work on making you a more natural-acting girl over the weekend. By the time Monday comes around, you'll be better able to pass for normal."

Pinch or no pinch, I was still in denial.

"I'm going to untie you now, but, remember, you're Charlayne Rivers and nobody else. Look at those snapshots on the wall. They should tell you that you've already lived eighteen years as a girl. People are going to remember you in that life, even if you can't remember anything about it yourself. Before I leave, we'll pick out some clothes for school, something as boy-like as possible, to make the transition less traumatic."

She tugged the gag out of my mouth, but I didn't say anything. Even if there was one chance in a million that this madness was real, being stuck as a girl forever was too much of a risk.

Josette seemed to notice something that surprised her and brushed away the hair on my left temple. "Darrell!" she exclaimed. "You've gotten your pierced ears already! That's precious! Charla must be a real hottie. I can't wait to see what you own for clothes."

"I am not a hottie!" I yelled.
"So what's wrong with being a hottie? If you're going to be a girl, that's the best kind to be." She undid my wrist ties, saying, "Get dressed; we're going downstairs."

I shook my head, not wanting to hear the sound of my own voice. I absolutely did not want to let anyone see me the way I was.

"You can't stay in your room for a month. You'll feel a lot more confident once you realize that your family already knows about Charlayne. After that, we'll talk strategy."

"I can't do it!"

"Believe me, all they'll see is the same daughter and sister that they've been seeing every day for years. That's how it was with me. It's magic, after all." She paused. "You know, Darrell, I've been thinking that there may actually be a lot more of this supernatural stuff going on than anyone knows about."

"More?"

"Yeah. If magic makes people's memories change, how can we really know what the world used to be like, even yesterday?"

"I don't want to think about it," I said. I snatched up a pair of jeans from where my -- Darrell's -- pants should have been. As I wrestled my legs into them, it seemed like they couldn't possibly belong to this new body, so tight were they.

"Your hair's a mess," Josette remarked, now brandishing a rat-tailed comb. I backed away. "Ease up. If you think a comb's bad, wait until you get your first beauty parlor appointment."

"Beauty parlor?"

She put the comb into my hair. "Until you learn to do your own makeup, you'll need professional work or you'll feel ugly when we go into any of the good places. I've been wanted to have a dependable girlfriend to go place with. As Darrell you didn't have enough money to for any super night out. This way, we can be picked up by guys and get lots of freebies."

"I don't think -- ow!"

As she drew it through my snarled hair, I fought with myself not to get violent. I had been in love with this girl, and now all those hopes and dreams were dust. I felt horribly alone again, and I realized that there would be no cure for it. Sure, I now remembered my friendship with Loren, but that was nothing like having a girlfriend like Josette. What fun could it be being Josette's _girlfriend-? I just couldn't accept that everything that I thought we'd was lost forever.

The scary thing was that all this _might_ actually be real. Christ! If it were actually reality, I'd have to live for a month as a girl! _A girl_.

I've already let on how much I liked girls, but it was just _because_ I liked girls that I didn't want to be one myself.

By now, Josette had terminated the comb-torture. Since I was barefoot, I looked around for footwear. There was a pair of female-type sandals at the side of the bed. I fitted them on. My treacherous friend was already holding the door open. "You've got to bite the bullet," she said. "The longer you sit up here scaring yourself with fantasies, the freakier you're going to get. Say as little as possible if someone talks to you. Tell anyone the wrong thing, and you'll have to get used to being female for the rest of your life." She went to my closet and took out a frilly red violet blouse. “Put this on; you don't know how to wear that pajama top right and it'll show too much cleavage to your family.” She went to the door.

She waited for me there and I told her not to turn around while I changed. When I was ready and she opened the door. I felt like a cat whose master was inviting it into a cold and rainy night.

"Look, if this is a only dream, you can get a real a charge out it. The real fun will come at school. With your looks, people will treat you like something more than human."

That didn't encourage me very much, but, after a moment's hesitation, I stepped through into the hall, and Josette slipped in behind me, to keep me on course. My legs felt little rubbery as I descended the stair, so I used the railing for support.

On the wall below, I saw Mom's pictures of all three of us kids. Charlayne's picture was there, not Darrell's. The girl must have visited a beauty salon for that portrait, so much did she look like a starlet. But I was in no mood to stand in place and admire "myself."

The TV was on in the family room. Keegan and Haley were watching _Continuum_. I decided to walk in, make it look like I was checking the listings on top of the set, and then leave. If the kids didn't ask "Who the hell are you?" it would tell me something, though I wasn't sure what my next move should be after that.

I went in and pretended to look at the schedule. "Get out of the way, Charli!" Keegan yelled.

My little brother knew me! He actually knew Charlayne. Her nickname was "Charli." It was like he already had some sort of alternate-world history of me in his head. But I didn't like being yelled at. "The more things change, the more you stay a brat," I replied crabbily.

"Nyaaah!" he said, sticking out his tongue.

"Shhh, you two. I'm trying to hear," hissed our sister Haley.

"Hey, Charla," Josette suggested, "let's say hello to your mom."

Mom and Dad were both in the kitchen, going over the week's receipts, discussing the ledger with glum faces, as they often did. Dad had said that healthcare, taxes, and regulations were killing his business. They gave Josette and me quick, sidelong glances, but registered no surprise. "Having fun, girls?" Mom asked.

"Oh, yeah," I said. "Lot's of fun. How's things?"

Mother looked back down at the papers. "Don't ever grow up, Charli. You won't like it one bit."

"You should think of becoming a tax accountant," Dad added with a painful grin. "This government red tape is getting to be too much for your mom and me to figure out by ourselves."

"Ah, yeah, I guess," I muttered. About then I realized how thirsty I was and went to the refrigerator. The glasses were right where they were supposed to be, even in this new reality. I filled one with orange juice. "Want some, OJ?" I asked.

"I'd appreciate that."

We carried our juices back up to my room. Josette had been right; the trip downstairs had bolstered my confidence. By now I had the presence of mind to take another good look at the place. It was packed with things I'd never seen before. The girl who lived there was into stuffed animal toys. The clothes I found hanging about were nothing like my own ones. Some were sexy, some not so much. And the shoes! There were so many. I was pretty sure I still only had two feet, so what was the deal? They ranged from sensible to the truly demonic. Stiletto heels might catch the eye if a girl was pretty enough, but they looked like they could destroy my feet's entire bone structure.

I held up one of the high-rise monstrosities. "Do these hurt as much as I think they do?"

Josette shrugged. "Not so much; our feet are already used to them. Alternate reality, remember?" She started rooting through a lingerie drawer. "Hey, the really groovy stuff is in here." I stepped in next to her and looked inside; all my tee-shirts, bandanas, and skivvies were gone. What I saw now was a tangle of panties, bras, and filmy garments that looked like girls' pajamas at first, but looking closer, I saw that some of them turned out to be teddies and chemises. I unfolded what looked like the halter-top of a zebra-stripped bikini. The fabric had eye-appeal, but was of a stiff weave, not so soft to the touch. There were matching bottoms. 'Charla wore things like this?' I asked myself. Its scanty cut made the beachwear that grandpa had thought looked so racy on Annette Funicello seem positively dowdy.

"This is slutty stuff," I said.

"You hypocrite!" laughed Josette. "Were you thinking slut I when I wore my bikini to the beach a couple weeks ago?"

"I loved the look on you." I scowled; it seemed perverse to be thinking that way about the girl whom I now knew to be Loren. "Anyway, I didn't notice that you seemed so uncomfortable wearing it."

"How could you notice anything, considering where your eyes were glued? I tell you, if Charla wears a wardrobe like this, I can't wait to meet her!"

"So, now you're turning lesbian on me?" I asked irritably.

"Lesbian? Knowing what I am, can you blame me for liking girls?"

"I still haven't figured out _exactly_ what you are! Where did you get that crazy potion?"

Losing her smirk, Josette went to sit on the edge of the bed. "I'm not sure how it happened. Almost three months ago, this middle-aged woman came up to me at the mall. She said something about me being special, that I had a blue aura, whatever that meant. She said she had something absolutely perfect for blue-aura boys.

"She showed me that bottle. I asked her if she was pushing drugs. What she said was, 'No charge. Boys with blue auras have special dreams. This magic oil will make those dreams come true. But be sure to read the label carefully. If something happens that you don't like, it will be no one's fault but your own.'

"I began to skim the label to find out what she was talking about, but when I looked up just a second later, she was nowhere in sight. It seemed impossible."

"You should have thrown the stuff away. It could have been a deadly poison."

Josette shrugged. "So sue me. I'm a risk-taker. Anyway, I wasn't thinking about sex changes. I thought she might have been talking about lucid dreaming. I was getting interested in that. There are herbs that are supposed to make vivid dreaming easier. Anyway, she didn't look like a random poisoner of teenaged boys."

"What can anyone tell from the way some person looks?"

"Well, you already know it wasn't poison. It's something incredible and it must be worth a fortune. The larger print said that one or two drops should be rubbed into the skin. The rest of the type was too small to make out under the overheads at the mall. I didn't trust the oil, but I was damned curious. Before I was going to let that stuff touch me, I experimented, like I've told you.

"Once at home, I put the label under Mom's stereoscopic viewer and read it. Basically, it said that the treatment would change a boy's reality so that he will awaken into the life of his most desired female counterpart. The effect would begin at the dark of the moon, and then last until the next dark of the moon -- which is a fancy way to refer to the new moon.

"What the label promised was too crazy to be taken seriously. But the test rat still seemed to be thriving a couple days after I'd dosed it and it hadn't changed sex, so I thought I'd try some on my own skin just before bedtime. I wasn't going to use any more than I'd given to the rat.

"But like I said, there were taboos listed. Not to tell anyone is the one hardest one to follow. If I hadn't read the label, I certainly would have blabbed about it to somebody, to you or Mom, most likely. That would have been a bummer."

"But why did the woman let the label warn you? Weird strangers want to do all the dirt they can to people, don't they? If it was just a practical joke using magic, why tip you off?"

"I don't know. Maybe she has another angle. Or maybe she's like that old-time TV series, _The Millionaire_. Only, this old witch goes about looking for boys who want to be girls."

"Loren! You're gay!"

"No, stupid! It's more complex than that."

"Who but a fruitcake would want to do something like this to himself?"

She shrugged. "I've wondered about that. I was more than half convinced that it was a fake, because of the rat test. Maybe I wanted to try it out because I thought it wasn't going to be a physical change, but that it might make you dream about being a beautiful girl. Like, if you admired professional football players, wouldn't you like to sample life on an All-Star team, even if it is only in your head?"

"Trying out a new job isn't like changing sex! Did you always think this way, even when you were acting like a regular guy?"

"I am a reg…" Josette shrugged. "Shut up and listen. There are two more taboos you have to know about. The second is that you don't dare take another treatment before the first one has completely worn off. I had to be painfully careful to wait until I was myself again, even though I was already planning to spend another month as Josette."

"Jeez! A double treatment could happen by accident! What if the stopper got loose and leaked into your pocket? From now on, keep that bottle away from me. What's the last taboo?"

"I can't see either you or me breaking this one."

"What?"

"If you have sex, don't get pregnant."

I let that sink in. "Is that why you were so against sleeping with me?"

"Mainly. Also, it would have felt creepy. You were like a brother. Sex would have felt like incest."

"So, except for incest, you don't think it's so bad having sex with guys?"

"Think about it? How bad can sex be if so many girls are hot to trot? But I kept clear of that; it would have been too big a leap. Even though every new dose I take makes guys look better me, I don't want to give in. And it would be dangerous if I did; I haven't had the nerve to go out and get the pill yet."

"I don't like any of this, Loren. There seems to be a lot of traps set for people using that glop. That strange woman could be a witch spreading this stuff around maliciously. Who knows whether anything on that label is true? Maybe it's meant to trick you into doing exactly the wrong things. And what did she mean about the blue aura?"

Josette frowned prettily. "I don't know. There are lots of books about auras, and they even mention blue ones, but they don't say how they apply to sex."

"Anyone who deals in big secrets has to be up to no good. Otherwise, they'd put in on the market and make a mint. I think you should pour that crap out, and make sure you don't splash a drop on yourself while you're doing it."

"Easy for you to say," she shot back. "Since I've had this bottle I've been living in Never Never Land. I never had so much fun. All the best things in life is out there to enjoy. Even just looking into the mirror is a blast. Do you know why I was experimenting with lucid dreaming? It was so that I could do in my dreams what I'm doing now in the flesh."

"How can you say something like that and still say you're not gay?"

"I didn't want to be just a girl. I want to have incredible adventures. I'd like to be the new James Bond, too. Most people are more complex than they pretend, Darrell. I never told anyone that I wondered about how it would feel to be the hottest girl in school because almost everyone would jump to the wrong conclusion, just like you're doing now. I'm normal; I just got an open mind. I actually never owned any women's clothes before. I never hung out with pretend chicks and I certainly never was one."

I threw up my hands. "How can we keep being friends when you're so weird?"

"It's called honesty, bro. Can't you handle it? I'm still the same person. I've always had these interests. What's your beef? It's not like I ever wanted to go to bed with you. Hell, I'd rather sleep with you the way you are now than the way you were before."

"Is that supposed to reassure me?"

She stood up, folded her arms and turned away. "I wasn't lying about anything. I just didn't want to tell you more than you wanted to know. Don't you have plenty of secret interests that you don't tell even to members of your own family?"

"Sure, but they're guy things, like being on a desert isle with ten beautiful girls, all wanting me to hunt for them. They don't have any choice but to give me some quid pro quo..." I paused with a sigh. "Forget that. We need to figure out why that woman is victimizing you, or maybe a lot of people like you." Then I added, "If she could read your mind, or tell something about you because of your aura, she must know you better than I do. If we're going to figure this out, you'd better own up about what's making you a target."

She turned back to face me. "I _have_ been owning up and you haven't liked it."

"When did you start thinking that you'd like to be a girl, for instance?"

"I wouldn't put it that way, but when I was about six I saw that _Switch_ on HBO. Amanda seemed to be suffering for no reason. All she had to do do was to loosened up a little to have a lot of fun.” Josette paused. “It's no big deal!"

"It's a big deal now. Look at you! And you've gotten me mixed up in all this nuttiness, too."

"Darrell, I either had to get you mixed up in it or dump you. I thought this would hurt you the least."

"You made the wrong choice. I might have jumped off a bridge if Josette dumped me, but people survive emergency care every day. This is just too much!"

"I'm sorry, but you're looking at this all wrong. The more you know about how other people think and feel, the wiser you are. From ancient times, people have been telling stories about people changing sex."

"Mother Goose didn't tell any!"

"No, but Hindu legends are full of it. Greek mythology has some, too. So did Frank Baum, in the _Wizard of Oz_ books."

"I didn't read anything like that."

"It's in _The Land of Oz_."

"I still think it sounds gay."

Her eyes flashed. "It's not gay! It's not even transgenderism. It was just an interesting fantasy. There's some of it in science fiction novels, especially the ones by Chalker. Didn't you ever wonder what the best type of girls were all about, down deep, on the inside?"

I shook my head emphatically.

"I've been checking out YouTube. Japan has lots of films about boys and girls switching bodies."

"Who'd watch that crap"

"Hundreds of millions of people, even in Latin America and Russia. Some of these shows have run over two hundred episodes."

"Christ, I feel like I've lost my best guy friend and best girlfriend on the same day."

Josette sighed. "You haven't lost anything yet. Just open your mind and let a little honesty blow through. See why I never told you who Josette was the first time you saw her? You're freaking out."

"It's like I never really knew you at all."

"Nobody knows anybody, Darrell. Husbands and wives don't understand each other. Parents and children don't either. How much is there about you that don't I know?"

I sat down. "I want to go on hanging with you, Loren, but there can't be any more of this…weird talk. If you can't wean yourself off it, it's going to kill our friendship!"

"You're still stuck on this gay obsession. 'There's more things on heaven and earth, Horatio….' What am I doing that's so awful?"

"Where does the word awful begin with you? You're using sorcery, man. You're creating alternate universes just for kicks. Tell me. Are you one of those people who want … the operation?"

She clutched a handful of her own blond hair. "No, you dolt! I like being a guy. If given the chance, I'd have loved to be an uber-male, one with all the money and all the toys. But no witch ever came up to me with that kind of offer. Things worked out, though; as Josette I'm being treated like somebody who matters. That never happened to me before."

"Guy fun and girl fun. Those are total opposites!"

"No, they're not! Look at it this way, Darrell. Human beings come in two sexes. They're important to each other. It's perfectly natural to wonder about how the other half lives. The Hindus actually believe that no soul can reach Nirvana unless it lives many lives in both sexes."

"What's exactly is this all about, Loren -- Josette? What in hell are you asking me to do for you?"

"I thought I told you. What I want you to do is what you were doing before. I want you to keep me company. There are lots of things I'd like to try as a girl, but I'm too chicken to do them without a buddy to back me up.

"Also, there's something else I' wanted to talk about. I've getting more and more worried."

"About what?"

About what all this is all about?"

"Is that one of those Big Questions? Like, why are we here?"

"No, I mean, did I do the wrong thing? Was that old woman like a fairy godmother, or is this some kind of deal with the Devil? I'm having fun, but is that just the bait for some sort of a trap?"

I sighed. "I'm sure I don't know. There aren't any altruists on the mean streets, Loren. She's after something. And does she only change boys into girls, or is she into even worse things? If some nutcase wanted to be a horse, could she grant that wish, too?"

"You're really setting my mind at ease!"

"I can't sugarcoat your bottle of nitro."

"I suppose, but it's too late to swear off the oil this month. I don't have any choice but to wait it out."

"Me, too, and whose fault is that?"

"Mine! Is that what you want to hear?"

"I want you to grasp the fact that you double-crossed me to the nth degree. Now, what are we going to do about this ridiculous situation?"

Her answer was incredibly anti-climactic.

"I think the most important thing is to get you ready for school. Let's find that class list."

****

We luckily found what we were looking for, in one of Charla's -- my -- school folders. But we also turned up something else while rummaging. A cheerleader's uniform. It belonged to the Daniel Kassler High School team.

"Shit, Charla. You're a D.K. Cheerlion!"

"That's screwy! I'm no athlete!"

She started searching through the stacks of books and leaflets in the drawer of my end table and pulled out a large format hardcover. "Look at this, The Cheerleader's Guide." She paged through it, frowning. "The pictures aren't very hot."

"It doesn't belong to me, then."

"It belongs to the new you. I see a pattern here. The bottle says, '…his most desired female counterpart." Do you get it? It's about a guy's most perfect "better half." Me, I was always a huge fan of _Unhappily Ever After_. I couldn't get enough of Nikki Cox -- the brainy girl who always wore those incredibly short dresses. But you were always obsessing about cheerleaders. I bet that you'd marry a cheerleader if you could. I've read that when we go looking for a mate, we're really trying to fill in a missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of our own psyche."

"Whatever. But I'm quitting that damned team!"

"Why?"

"I can't do those jumps and kicks. I can't dance. I can't balance myself on top of a pyramid. And me in a Cheerlions outfit?"

"You said you loved that uniform."

"Not to wear it, idiot!"

Josette was smirking again. "Oh, yeah? Look at those pictures. Sexy leotards. Hot shorts!" I scowled; the pictures belonged to the girl who had owned this room, but she had never actually existed.

"Charlayne Rivers must be an athletic type. That makes her totally different from the old you. She's probably had all she needed to be a topnotch cheerleader."

"Why are you so eager to get me into that ridiculous miniskirt?"

"Come off it, Darrell. Male beach trunks show off more skin than that uniform does. Look at the big picture. We've been slouching around the fringes of society all our lives. Now I'm a fox. I'm not exactly turned on by boys, but I _do_ like being treated special. And here you are, one of the elites yourself. Think of it. In high school, being a cheerleader is almost as good as being a Playboy Bunny."

"So, you've got Playboy Bunny fantasies, too?"

I didn't expect that kind of smile. "The real Josette did. You wouldn't believe some of the things I found in her closet at home."

"I've seen your closet. What are you talking about?"

"I hid the good stuff. I didn't know if Mom would approve, and I couldn't afford to give you any worse erotic dreams than those you already had."

"Loren, I want to hang with girls. My head is on straight, so I don't want to be a girl. Never! Ever!"

"Take your smart pills, will you, guy? As a cheerleader you'll be rubbing tushies with the best of the best. You can't get regular sex with them as Charlayne, but you weren't getting any before, so what's the problem? In a month, you're going to know a lot about those chicks, both inside and out, dressed and undressed. Maybe you'll figure out what makes a couple of them tick and be able to finagle them into the sack."

"By wearing an outfit like theirs and jumping around in front of crowds? No, way! I just want to keep out of sight until this month is over."

"Don't throw away the best opportunity you've ever had. You can finally find out what it is that the girls you want themselves want, and next month you can pretend to be that sort of man. Then it will be Score City."

I took another look at myself in the mirror. "I think I'm going too be too sick for school tomorrow. It'll probably last about a month."

But my plan wasn't practical. Malingering would bring the school administration down on me for truancy, and it might even put me into a psychologist's office. If I didn't want any worse hassles to plague my miserable life, I had to go to school and make it appear like nothing was bothering me.

****

Josette didn't normally pick me up mornings, but because I was facing my first day as a girl she thought that I needed some moral support.

"Got your class schedule?" she asked.

"Check! I'm not an moron."

"Just be sure that you don't make the old boy's room-girl's room mistake, like on _Lalola_.

I scowled. _Lalola_ was one of those foreign sex-change comedies that Loren was so well versed in. "Yeah, you warned me about that already."

"And be sure to sit down on the seat. You can't aim and point anymore."

"I had some practice last night," I replied acerbically.

"What are you so grumpy about?"

"You'd be grumpy, too, if you lost your own popular culture collections worth thousands of dollars!"

"Wha --? Oh, yeah. My own stack of _Playboys_ turned into _Cosmopolitan Girl_ crap. Chicks don't have the same tastes as guys. But don't worry. They stuff'll come back after you revert. By the way, does Charlayne have any collections of her own?"

"Sure, miniature dolls, porcelain unicorns, and boy-band CDs."

"Gruesome. I never figured that down deep you were that kind of girl. I had you pegged for…something weirder. The Cheerlion image is so clean-cut."

I realized that she was giving me the up and down.

"Hey, keep your eyes on your driving."

"You look okay," she said. "That loose hair should be easy enough to handle. Just run a comb through it each break. On the weekend, I'll show you some fancier styles."

"I've seen you fussing with your hair a lot. Why bother?"

"Tiffany Malloy didn't just wear short dresses; she was classy in every way. I've found out that nobody can be a babe of any kind unless she works at it."

I couldn't help but smile. "Tiffany was a redhead. You look more like her arch enemy, Sable O'Brian."

Josette tossed off a shrug. "Well, I wouldn't have kicked Kristanna Loken out of bed either. It was nice to see her land starring roles later on."

"Nikki Cox got a couple shows, too."

My companion wrinkled her nose, as if she didn't think much of either one of Miss Cox's later efforts.

"You still like girls then?"

"Yes, I like girls! Maybe not _you_ so much."

I grunted. "Who and what are you anyway? It's like I fell in love with a Halloween costume, not the person inside it."

Josette frowned. "I'm a full person. But you only saw what you wanted to see, even if it wasn't really there. You were bound to figure that out and be disappointed eventually. I think that's why so many marriages hit the rocks."

"With so much going on in your life, how did you finally knuckle down and become a good student?"

"I guess the magic gave me the whole Tiffany Malloy package. She was an A-lister, remember? My mind feels clearer, and my memory is better than it used to be. What I read or hear, I remember. And the secret of good grades is not really about knowing a lot of stuff. You just have latch on to what the book says or what the teachers are feeding you and then throw the same garbage back at them; that makes them think you're a genius."

Just then, Josette turned into a free parking spot, three blocks from the school. We got out and walked swiftly to the entry. I was edgy, even though I was wearing sneakers, a conservative tee shirt, and jeans. Inside, we made for our lockers. The magic hadn't changed my locker assignment; go figure. My nerves were getting the better of me. I clung to the door, my head swimming. In mere minutes it was going to be my doom to attend class as a schoolgirl.

Somehow fought back a faint and reached social studies without falling unconscious onto the terrazzo floor. I took my usual chair.

"Miss Rivers, please let Miss Kassock into her desk, please."

I looked up at Mrs. Krentz blankly. "Where should I be?"

"Over there, in front of Hiu. Are you feeling all right, Charlayne?"

"Sorry."

I kept my head down and just listened to the babble concerning city planning for the next hour. Fortunately, that desk foul-up was the worst thing that happened before the ending bell.

On the way to World History, a girl I barely knew, Beth Muzzleman, came up and said, "That's a new look for you, Charli. Did you lose what little fashion sense you were born with?"

That snarky tone told me that this was no gal pal of mine. I wanted to toss back a double-barreled zinger of some kind, but I couldn't think of anything that would be wounding enough before she turned away down the hall.

After World History came English. I had begun to notice that boys were giving me the eye; they'd probably been doing so all day. At first, I worried that I had made a poor choice in clothing, like Beth had implied, but I soon figured out that they liked what they were seeing. I'd always wanted to be admired, but under these circumstances it was embarrassing.

I met Josette for lunch. The menu was the usual Education Department scandal, so I mostly dined on chocolate milk and peanut butter sandwiches.

"Easy on those gut bombs," my bud warned. "The magic gave you a body worth dying for; don't wreck it by becoming the new Kirstie Alley."

I winced. It was painful to remember how beautiful she had been as Saavik, in _Star Trek II_.

"I know one of the cheerleaders in my Social Studies class," Josette was saying. "She says that practice is being held in the gym, for two hours, three times a week. The first session will be after school next Monday. That will give you some time to psyche yourself up for it."

"I'm not going to wear that uniform!"

"You won't need to bring your outfit to practice, just wear exercise clothes, like they in the movies. That damned smirk of hers came back. "I know you have more than one set of those; I saw them on your wall. Sexy."

"Quick looking at me that way!" I snarled. "I almost wish that you'd start liking guys."

"So, you don't see yourself as a guy? And it's only your first day. Interesting."

"You know what I mean. Now, tell me something useful. What were you saying about practice?"

"You made the tryouts this Wednesday -- in the Twilight Zone, I mean. It's funny to think that Charla was getting her pom-poms certified at the same time that I was putting oil on your upper lip."

"I'll get even with you for that, somehow," I warned. "And forget about practice! I'm not going to cheer-lead!"

"Well, if I were you, I'd definitely go."

"If you were me, you wouldn't be so dumb!"

"Me dumb? You can say that with report cards like yours?"

"Those were Darrell's report cards. Maybe I'm smarter than you are now!"

"Cheerleaders are all jocks. They make it through school on beauty and pep. Then they become waitresses. Josette seems to have been too serious-minded to waste her time doing cartwheels."

There was no civil reply I could make, so I finished my bland lunch in grudging silence.

Homeroom came next, and then Charlayne's elective. As Darrell, I had been taking shop; I've always liked making things. But Charlayne was enrolled in Design I, a fancy name for making clothes. I couldn't think of a more boring pastime. The up-side was that Lyda Imray was in the same class. She was one of the D.K.H. cheerleaders, the one whom I'd most often fantasized about dating. To have a locker next to hers at the gym would be a wish come true. Before Josette, my best daydreams had centered on Lyda.

Following Design, was Trig. After that ordeal, I found Josette waiting by our lockers. She had planned the weekend around teaching me how to get pass for a girl. I hadn't liked the idea, but after living in Charlayne's skin all day I knew that I could use some pointers. Only, I wasn't so sure that Josette knew much of anything useful. I had never supposed that Josette was dumb, but I was open to another opinion about Loren.

I'd been eighteen for three weeks, an adult in our state, and so I didn't need to get Mother's permission to stay out late. But I also wanted to play it cool. Acting too headstrong would make it look like Josette and I were up to something. I thought it smart to phone Mom and tell her that that my gal pal and I were having were having dinner at the Melford's and that Josette would bring me home about 10:00 p.m. Once back at the house, I'd spring the news that I was going to be sleeping over at her place on Saturday night.

Mrs. Milford, by the way, wasn't going to be there. She had an out of town medical conference and wasn't going to be back until after dark on Sunday night, but Mom didn't have to know that.

****

After a snack, Josette was eager to get started with lessons. "First, we need to get you walking right. You're shuffling around like a boy on sore legs. You've got a different hip structure now, supporting a different weight distribution. Girls have developed their own way of walking. I'll show you, but first you'd better put on one of my minidresses."

"The hell I will!"

"I have to see your leg movements, and, anyway, this weekend will be a good chance to get used to female fashion. Would you like to slip into a short skirt for the first time and then go directly to school?"

"What's wrong with what I wore today?"

"Nothing, but we don't know what's going to be coming at you over the next month. Won't it be easier to practice sitting down in a mini here, instead of in front of strangers?"

"What strangers?"

"Think. You'll be changing clothes twice a week in gym class, and three times a week at cheer practice -- unless you cop out."

"Aren't you ever embarrassed, dressing like a bimbo all the time?"

"It was embarrassing at first," she admitted, "but I thought it would be neat to be another Tiffany Malloy, so I got over it."

"I always thought it would be more fun to be Tiffany Malloy's boyfriend."

"You practically were," she reminded me.

"Love without sex isn't really love."

"Genius! Tiffany never put out either, so you weren't missing anything." Jo changed the subject. "There's something you ought to know. We're not exactly as we were. It's like we're thinking with girl versions of our own minds."

"Now you tell me!"

"It's not so bad. A lot of thing that I didn't know I knew came easily after a little practice, as if I'm remembering habits that I'd forgotten."

"Like sitting in a mini? Isn't that super?"

I'd thought that my worst character flaw -- being unable to deny Josette anything -- had ended when she'd outed herself as Loren. But before I knew it, here I was, scowling at myself in the mirror wearing a short blue dress and feeling an unaccustomed coolness above my knees. For some reason, a skirt made me feel more exposed than if I'd just been wearing shorts. It was like standing there in my skivvies. It might have been the sheerness of girls' underpants, which afforded no insulation. Also, I was realizing that if I wasn't careful, randy boys would be checking out anything I let them see.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Watch me," said Josette. "Your body will naturally make you walk like a girl if you don't fight it. But it takes time to get into the flow of things.”

Josette put on a pair of stilettos and demonstrated a sexy stroll. “Who taught you to walk that way?" I asked.

"My body did. And your bod already knows how to move like Charlayne Rivers; it's just that your boy-type mind is keeping its foot on the brake." She took off her shoes and handed them to me. "We're about the same size. Now you try it."

I reluctantly put on those crazy pumps, got up, and checked myself in the mirror again. I shuddered at what I saw, and then turned and to take several steps.

Josette shook her head. “You're not being fish or fowl. There's a shortcut. You can get the right walk quickly by using the Marilyn Monroe walk."

“What's that?”

“To some girls a great walk comes naturally. But a lot of them make their hips move in a sexy way by putting one foot ahead of the other as they move. Your hips swing and, with a little practice, no one will notice how you're making it happen.”

“Yeah, they'll be too busy looking at my butt!”

“That's the idea. Girls may be frowning on the outside when they know men are girl-watching, but they're cheering on the inside.”

Josette did a demonstration of the special walk. It looked like taking an highway drunk test, but she did it smoothly. It made me sore to think that Josette had been faking me out even in the way that she crossed a room.

Then Jo had me try it. I had to keep at it for about fifteen minutes.

"You're getting better," she said at last. "Sit down and take a load off your feet."

I plopped onto the sofa and she yelled, "Not that way!"

"What way?"

"You've got no grace, and if were were sitting on the upper bleachers right now, the guys would be looking up your skirt."

I frowned with annoyance. "You said girls want to have guys look at them!"

"You want them thinking angel, not slut." She took a chair of her own. "Here. Watch me. Sit with knees together. It actually makes you look demur, so it's a twofer. You can also cross your legs at the ankles or calves, like this.”

“What about crossing at the thighs, like guys do? I've seen pictures of women doing that.”

“A woman in pants looks masculine that way. In a mini-skirt it's just the opposite; she looks super-hot. But it sends a message that she wants to meet guys, the more the better. I don't think you're ready for that."

She suddenly stood up. "Nikki Cox had a bad habit on the show, always tugging her skirt down, especially when sitting. Like this." Josette demonstrated. While seating herself, she was giving her hem a yank. Seeing a girl do that always put me off somehow.

"Maybe Nikki wasn't comfortable wearing really high hemlines. I don't know why any director let her get away with it in front of the camera. It's a self-conscious tick that tells people that a girl is only 'fake-sexy.' Just take it all in stride, Darrell. Let a miniskirt ride up as far as it wants to. If you absolutely can't look confident, then short skirts are not for you."

She stood up and sat down again. This time when her skirt rode up, she left it alone. But the sight was leaving me unaroused, since I refused to be turned on by someone I knew was Loren. “It's definitely not for me," I said sourly.

"That's up to you. But if you ever want to run with the foxes, you'll have to reorder your thinking."

"Who told _you_ so much?"

"The internet has training videos on everything. Now practice; walk-sit, walk-sit, walk-sit. And remember, girls have to be especially careful when getting in and out of cars. Keep your knees close to each other."

I threw up my hands. "Why do girls want to dress in ways that makes it so easy to embarrass themselves?"

"They want your attention." She corrected herself. "Well, not so much _your_ attention as the attention of guys like Freddie Dumas, the Lions' quarterback."

"Women!"

Once I had performed the sit-down drill enough times to start panting, Josette said, "You're getting it, but you need to relax more. Wait!" She went to the DVD rack. "You should see how an expert walks and sits." She found a disc and put it on. It was Marilyn Monroe in _The Seven Year Itch_.

Josette kept up a running commentary while it played, calling attention to the star's mannerisms. "Actresses keep very straight postures, even when they're sitting. It not only makes them look more attractive, but it allows for an easy airflow. That's what gives their voices such a clear tone."

"Isn't my tone clear enough?" I asked.

"Not when you're curled up like a couch potato. Your lousy posture makes your words waver. And you still talk slowly, like a guy. Girls center their voices up high, not down in their chests. They speak faster than men, using quick bursts and very short pauses."

“Who teaches them to do that?”

“I don't know. It must come naturally.”

After the movie, Josette had me read aloud from a paperback novel, sitting ramrod straight, attempting to make my voice launch from just behind my tonsils. I started to get hoarse after about a half hour.

"Okay," Josette said, "we need to rest your pipes. Let's get some soda."

We took off for the kitchen. I heard Josette behind me saying, "Hmmmm."

"What?" I asked, annoyed.

"Nice hip movement."

"I'm not doing anything special."

"Your body is. Maybe you've got an inner instinct for sexiness."

"This drag is a drag. I'm tempted to beat on you when I get my muscles back."

"If I stay Josette, are you going to beat up a girl?"

"I might make an exception for you."

We popped the tabs on our Pepsis. "This isn't a good idea, what you want me to do," I said. "If I start acting too girly, the boys are going to hit on me."

Josette smiled. "Tell me about it, octopus arms. You're just going to have to learn to say 'no' without being mean about it."

“But all the girls act mean when they say 'no'.”

“They attract a lot of hostility that way. Do it and see where that gets you."

"Where can I get a burka?" I asked sarcastically.

“At an Iran airport, Josette said, shaking her head. "Even if you don't like the attention you attract right away, it's going to feel flattering. It's no fun being ignored, either as a boy or a girl."

"You're talking through your hat! You hung out with me. You didn't go to all kinds of parties and let yourself be pawed by randy guys."

"No, I didn't want that. I needed time to learn how to handle myself in fast-moving social situations. If you notice, hardly any girls go any place solo; they take boyfriends or girl friends to back them up and give them confidence. During the summer, I couldn't make any girlfriends that I could count on. I had a phony life-history as Josette, but it didn't come with any BFF's."

I shook my head and centered my attention on my cola.

"No-no," Josette remarked, "you're holding that pop can like a guy would."

"Now what are you talking about?"

"Turn it in toward your body; show the back of your hand."

"Who decides what are guy moves and what are girl moves?"

“Maybe it was aliens back in the days of the pyrmids.”

****

The next morning, Josette drove over to my house and spent a half hour rummaging through my room for things to take on our overnighter. Mother had already signed off on the visit; she'd always liked Josette, because of her manners and good grades, and wasn't making any waves.

With my pack full of junk, we went back to the Melford place and unpacked for basic training. I learned just how bad this weekend was going to be in the first ten minutes, when she asked me to put on my cheerleading outfit. I balked. "What for?"

"To get used to it. Also, I always wanted to hang out with a cheerleader."

"Well, I'm not one."

"Chicken. Would you mind it less if I dressed up, too? I've got some sexy stuff in an attic trunk."

“A cheerleader outfit?”

“We have a lot of choices.”

I shrugged, mostly curious to see what sort of stuff she was talking about.

Josette went up to the attic and came back down with several costumes. They looked like quality bimbo Halloween outfits from the internet. One still had a Leg Avenue tag on it. I picked out a real honey, a _Star Trek_ crewwoman's uniform. It was blue, representing the Starfleet's science and medical division. It had been most famously worn by Nurse Chapel on the original series, but I liked Josette's figure better. "Did you buy all these?" I asked.

"No. They came with the alternate reality," she said. "They appeared in my closet." I wasn't quite sure that I could believe her.

But a deal was a deal. I stripped into my briefs and over them I slipped Charlayne's spankies -- what non-cheerleaders call "bloomers" or "cheer shorts." The _Bring it On_ movies had informed me that the spankies actually were shorts, not the panties they resembled. I put the athletic bra around my waist and started to hook the hooks.

"No, don't," Josette said. "Girls refuse to do it that way."

"Then how's it done?"

"In the hardest way possible. Reach back and try to get the ends hooked."

I fumbled around for five seconds; the method made no sense. "You're kidding!"

"Come on! Didn't you lean anything from all that soft porn on Home Box Office?"

I gave it another try and succeeded, only to have Josette tell me that I'd gotten the hooks into the wrong eyes. She decided to finish the job herself.

"You're enjoying this too much."

"What's wrong with loving one's work?" She picked up the cheer top and flipped it into my face. "Get it on."

I wriggled into the loathsome thing.

Josette gave me an assessing gaze. "Very pretty. Great midriff."

"You're a knockout, too, Nurse Chapel. Get raped by any ancient androids lately?"

She gave a short laugh. "Get your mind out of the toilet, Charlayne."

Even knowing what I knew about Josette, I just couldn't tear my eyes away from those incredible legs. "On the show, they wore skorts disguised by a flap of tunic,” I reminded her. “That outfit looks like a real minidress."

Josette nodded and lifted a hem. "It's not wholly authentic, but it's sexier."

"Yeah, especially if the wind is blowing. But in the 23rd Century wouldn't women be space-age enough to wear thongs?"

Josette shook her head. "Fashion changes. Clothes in the 60's were a lot sexier than they are now. In fact, what they wore on the original _Star Trek_ was inspired by what was on every street in those days. But time's wasting, chickie. I want to see D.K. High's newest cheer gal doing her stuff."

"I don't know any cheers."

"Christ! You've watched plenty of cheerleader routines, haven't you?"

"Sure, but I don't remember seeing anything except the hemlines."

"You never waste an opportunity to waste an opportunity, Darrell. If you go to practice, how are you going to explain to the coach that you've forgotten everything you knew last week?"

"I haven't the faintest."

"Have you changed you're mind about quitting the team?"

"I wanted to get in at least one good shower with the girls."

"Now that's real team spirit!" Josette exclaimed. "If you stay on the squad, you'll get plenty of showers worth cheering about."

I shook my head. "I'd probably make a better Green Beret than I could a cheerleader."

“Darrell Rivers in Special Forces? I don't think so.”

****

Josette wanted me to learn to put on and take off my clothes in a way that wouldn't attract attention in the locker room. After the indignity of bra practice, there came panty-hose practice. Sharp toenails easily ripped the sheer fabric. "Damn, Charlayne, be careful," Josette complained. "Every pair you ruin is going on your tuition bill at 'Josette's Girl-for-a-Month Training School.' Use the nail clippers before you send yourself to the poorhouse buying hose."

Before we knew it, it was lunch hour. After a meal of hotdogs, it was time for walking practice, but this time Josette insisted that I do it in high-heeled pumps.

"I don't have to wear heels in class or at the gym. What good are they?"

"Haven't you heard the expression, 'Be prepared'?"

I shook my head. "Why did women fight for the vote when they should have been fighting to get free of their shoe styles?"

"High heels makes their legs look super. Death is the price of sin, but pain is the price of vanity."

I knew that Josette navigated her stilettos easily enough, and I didn't want her thinking that she could do anything that I couldn't. It wasn't fair that my buddy had gotten a good scholastic brain, while all that came my way was a spot on the cheer team.

My first session in two-inch heels was uncomfortable enough. Then Josette had me put on three-inchers, shoes taken from my own closet. They had me killed after just five minutes. What is it about girls and their fashions? Was it some kind of sickness in their souls?

"Don't worry," Josette assured me, "pretty soon we'll have you sashaying around on four-inchers. That's the footgear of the goddesses."

"What goddesses?" I grumbled.

"Playboy bunnies -- a once flourishing species now restricted to a tiny protected reserve in Las Vegas."

"Come to think of it, their uniforms must be killers to wear, too. I saw that movie Kirsty Alley made before she took on the proportions of a whale."

"That stuff came from a book by someone who was a feminist big shot back then. Lots of Bunnies have written their memoirs. Most loved their outfits and they loved their jobs.”

Right after the walking lesson, I soaked my feet in a hot Epsom salts. Once the pain had eased up, Josette had me go back to pantyhose practice. I did about a half dozen changes and only ripped the first pair. That was a good score, I supposed.

That ordeal was followed by another session of feminine elocution, which I was sick of that by suppertime. Then we polished off a couple of frozen dinners and watched two movies.

When they were over, Josette went to my overnight bag. "You can't sleep in your uniform." She threw a powder-blue babydoll into my lap. "Slip into your this. It's one of your own."

"You've got to be out of your mind!"

"Come off it. When have you ever been against babydolls? It'll help you feel more like a girl."

"I don't want to feel any more like a girl."

"Try it on anyway! It's like wearing a whisper."

I tossed it to the other end of the couch. "And I thought this cheerleader outfit was bad."

Josette immediately got into her own PJs, a wispy and lilac-colored little thing, as a dare. Sometimes I'm too good a sport, so I relented and put the damned thing on. Surprisingly, once I was curled up under the covers, the pajamas didn't feel bad. They were so smooth and light that it was like sleeping in the nude.

Sunday morning came much too soon. Josette gave me a slap on the bottom. "Up and at 'em. Today the costume of the day is your zebra-striped bikini."

"That's sick. You could get a gold star as a matron in a woman's prison."

“Catch,” she said, throwing me the halter-top.

I caught the thing with a hooking grab. "If you expect me to wear this, what are you going to wear. Let's have a little quid pro quo.”

“What are you talking about?"

"That French maid outfit."

She crinkled her nose. "You're kidding. Shouldn't I be a dominatrix?"

"I'm trying to forget your true nature."

A little while later I was eating breakfast within grabbing distance of the cutest French maid that I'd ever seen. Well, I should say it was the _only_ flesh and blood French maid that I'd ever seen. But knowing that she was really Loren, I just couldn't work up any enthusiasm. Every memory I had of backing her in into corners still made me uncomfortable.

After the eats, Josette shoved a pair of shoes into my face. "Here they are, Playboy-perfect four-inch heels. Give me twenty laps around the living room, soldier, and keep that tush swinging."

To have to go from flats to those monsters in just 24 hours? That seemed inconceivable. My feet were already sore, so these shoes from hell were absolutely fiendish. All my weight pressed down on the balls of my feet and, after a couple minutes, I started to hurt. But Josette wouldn't let me bail out, even though I felt like I was heading for podiatric surgery. While I limped around the room with my expression fixed in a wince, the psycho French maid was humming some dopey song she probably supposed was sexy.

I finally fell down and couldn't get up. If this was what every high school girl had to go through, I thought that I might as well join the marines right after graduation. One month as a girl would probably toughen me up enough to sail through boot camp.

We passed the rest of the morning in a review of the all the mortification that I'd been introduced to the day before. Josette said I was making good progress, but the day was past when her opinions counted for much of anything with me.

Finally, lunchtime arrived. My hostess encouraged me to talk about any subject that I wanted, but to sound like a girl while doing it. Reading out loud was fine, she said, but I needed to ad lib, to think on my feet.

Not really knowing what to say, I asked, "Uhhh. How's my voice?"

"Fair," she said. "Why don't you tell me about your last game of _The Lord of the Rings_?"

This was something I could really sink my teeth into. As Sauron I'd really torn things up near the end. But Josette soon interrupted. "Whenever you stop concentrating, you start chattering like a guy. Don't go on talking if you get short of breath. Girls don't gulp down a slug of air and keep on jabbering. They pause and draw a small breath. But don't think about doing it; that makes you stammer. Internalize. Talk fast, but in short bursts."

She'd been telling me that for two days, but it was much easier said than done. "Why do you suppose women and men are so different?" I finally asked. "It's not like I ever saw Mom telling my sister Haley to start her words up into her throat…or hold her Cool-Aid with the back of her hand showing."

"Nature or nurture?" Josette said. "It's one of those eternal arguments of science."

I shrugged. "Sometimes I've wondered why, if men and women are supposed to complement one another…(I paused)…it's easier for girls to get on with other girls…(I paused again)…and for guys to relate to other guys."

Josette shrugged. "The only place that men and women really complement one another is in bed, if you ask me."

I was tempted to ask her if she had ever slept with a girl. Loren had never boasted about any kind of sex life, so I had assumed that he never had. But if I were wrong, I wouldn't like to leave Josette an opening to ask me the same question. Being a virgin is something too mortifying to talk about.

After lunch, it was time for a new horror: makeup. This was at least something that Josette knew more about than cheerleading.

I'd heard about actors being in the makeup chair for hours. The longer Josette worked on me, explaining everything she did, the worse my mood grew. What was I supposed to be, a plastic doll to be painted? Concealers and foundation. Powders. Blushers and eyebrow fillers. Eyeliners and shadow. Mascara. Phah!

"I'm trying to give you a happy medium," Josette said. Too little makeup and you look like a kid. Too much makes a teen look like a hard old tart. You wouldn't want guys two or three times your age coming on to you."

"No way!"

"Then watch carefully in the mirror."

When she was done, I looked like a totally different person. I also looked damned cute, and that scared me.

But time was flying. Josette had me wash my face and come right back to the vanity -- this time to apply the cosmetics on my own.

It didn't seem like I was learning much, except about hard it is to do a face look right. The French maid at my side kept offering lots of pointers and corrections.

"Before lipstick comes the lip liner, remember?"

"What's lip liner for?" I asked.

"It fixes the shape of your lips, and keeps the stick from running. It helps the color last longer, too. At least that's the theory."

I shook my head. "That song, 'I Enjoy Being a Girl,' had to have been written by a man."

Josette had stopped speaking. Applying the liner required a steady hand. Finally, it was time for the big kahuna. Josette opened a capsule that looked like a golden rifle shell. "This time we'll go all the ultimate. Lipstick."

"No way!"

"It's not as hard to do as the lip liner. But first time through, I'd better do the applying."

That was okay by me. When she was finished, Josette shoved a mirror in front of my face.

"I look like a hooker!"

"No, not that extreme. You look like a party girl. When you finish pretending that you don't like it, go wash your face and then I'll show you how to apply makeup for school."

"Then we'll be done?"

"We'll call quits when you've done the whole routine four or five times. Practice makes perfect."

"Yiiiii!"

****

But all bad things must come to an end. Patience let the world get through the ice ages. While I sat at the kitchen table, munching a sandwich smeared with rosy lipstick, Josette brought up the next bad topic -- a tray of perfumes and scents. "Just a touch here and there, like behind the ear and under the jaw. Too much of this stuff would evacuate a ballroom. Don't slop it on like some guys do with aftershave."

She was wasn't heading for the hills by the time I was finished, so I guessed that I hadn't gone too far wrong.

Then there was hair arrangement. It used up the time we had left before dinner. I learned that some apparently complex hairstyles actually take only a few strategically-placed hairpins. Others that looked reasonably simple turned out to be a bear.

After refreshments, we were both dog-tired, so we watched a movie whose plot gave starlets an excuse to dress in bikinis. I'd seen it before, but this time I was more critical of the actresses' figures. It had dawned on me that I looked as good in my zebra striper as any of those B-movie chicks. I was also catching onto how the girls spoke and moved. Some of them really did use that special step to make their hips swing.

When the credits were rolling, showing the names of lots and lots of Hollywood nobodies there was no time for another DVD and
Josette wasn't sure how soon her mom would be landing. We didn't want her popping in suddenly in and wondering why we were dressed for a Halloween party.

"Before I take you home," Josette said, "I have to get a picture of you in that zebra outfit."

"No!" I almost shouted.

"What's the big deal? You've been wearing it all day."

"If I gave you a picture like that, you'll blackmail for the rest of my life."

"Brainiac! How can I blackmail anybody with a bikini shot? Oh, maybe I'd sell prints to the guys at school, since you look so incredible. But once you change back, every picture of you as a girl will either disappear or become a picture of you as a guy."

"A guy in a bikini?"

"Of course not!"
After some haggling, I finally let Josette take about twenty snapshots. She immediately downloaded them into her laptop and I couldn't have been more impressed. I felt totally detached from the person I was looking at; all I could appreciate was how bodacious she was. Not even Hugh Hefner would have booted someone like that out of the mansion. But, by now, I was almost falling asleep, so Josette and I changed back into regular clothes. I had had one hell of a weekend and wanted to reach home to bed as soon as possible, to get the bad taste of it out of my mouth.

****

I didn't suffer any serious grilling about what Josette and I had been doing all weekend. I guess my mom, in this alternate world, knew that the third degree always mades me cranky. I was a legal adult and pretty much out of the parental control-mode. I just had to be careful not to be so obnoxiously independent that they would be provoked enough to order me to move out. But short of that, a guy has to show the world that he's his own man.

Attending school on Monday was easier than I'd expected, with this caveat: Though I was dressed about the same as on Friday, I was on the receiving end of my first bonafide wolf-whistle. I mean, I think that the whistle was meant for me. I didn't see any other vision of loveliness around. Whoever had let it blow was risking the attention of the PC police, which was about the only thing that kids were still afraid of. These political hall monitors police were a lot meaner than the donut-eaters whose job was to keep a lookout for guns. I glanced over my shoulder but couldn't spot the sneak.

No big deal. I knew how most boys thought. The whistler would have supposed that he was paying me a compliment, and was probably just too shy to say "Hi" to a girl. Should I be flattered or ticked? I just didn't care. All I really wanted was to get my month over with.

Josette caught up with me at the last bell and we walked together to the gym. Maybe she thought that I'd make for the park in panicked flight if left unsupervised. Maybe I would have, except the idea of being up close and personal with so many cheerleaders was a good incentive to buck up and bear it. I had brought along Charla's exercise stuff in a gym bag -- shoes, a sweat tee and light workout pants.

This was my first visit to the girls' locker room; I hadn't had a phys. ed. class yet. A couple mostly-undressed girls were chattering and not paying me any attention. They added a lot to the otherwise no-frills scenery.

My big problem was that I hadn't been Charlayne when the lockers were assigned. I didn't know the number of mine or have a combination. That left me with no choice but to stick my things into an empty, lockless locker. I'd have to tell the coach that I'd had a lapse of memory. Or maybe not, since I expected to wash out during the practice and then be sent home, a disgraced and defrocked cheerleader.

I had tried to crib the squad's guidebook at spare moments over the weekend. There were loads of pictures in it, but not a huge amount of text. I couldn't imagine how the teammates did any of those fancy moves. About all I knew was that there would be an extensive warm-up. I had concentrated on learning those exercises.

Changing my clothes quickly, I went out to the gym floor, feeling out of place. The kids were mostly clustered in small groups. I didn't have any friends around and felt awkward -- but that was par for the course. I heard a whistle a minute later and a homely, middle-aged woman -- Mrs. Cecelia Becker -- strode our way. She was the cheer coach and the best thing I'd heard about her was that she hadn't sent anybody home in a body bag – so far.

Becker ordered us into a line and called for the first warm-up move. Looking around, I saw how it was done, and tried to do the same. I must have looked like a trout flopping on dry land.

"Charli, what's the matter with you?" Mrs. Becker yelled.

"S-Sorry. Something happened this weekend," I yammered.

She came closer. "What happened?"

"My friend Josette and I were practicing -- uh, dance steps -- when I suddenly blacked out. I was really zonked. When I came to, she drove me to the emergency room, but they couldn't tell what had gone wrong. No sign of anything horrible. They suggested stress. I've had partial amnesia since then, but they told me that it's supposed to clear up eventually."

She took me aside and lowered her tone. "What do you mean amnesia?"

"It's awful. Like, when I came in, I -- I couldn't remember my locker number or my combination. I can't seem to remember the routines, either."

Cecelia Becker, by rep, was no motherly type. She eyed me suspiciously. "You'd better remember the routines soon, Rivers. There are twenty other girls who tried out with you, and most of them can at least do the warm-ups."

"I -- I think practice has me stressed out...with the fear of failing. It's like the imp of the perverse -- in that Poe story, you know."

She stood there with arms crossed. "Well, if you're too sick to do the required training, it's fortunately not too late to let someone else bump you."

"Please, Mrs. Becker," I said, "I really want this. I can catch up! I only need a study partner, some experienced cheerleader who knows her stuff. Maybe one of the really good ones. Maybe Lyda Imray. I've always admired her…skill."

The coach's expression stayed hard. "You're expecting a lot. Our people already give a lot of their time to the team. Do you have any friends on the squad?"

"No, I guess not."

She sighed. "I'll ask around. If anyone has time to help you, you'll have until next Friday's session to show me you belong on this squad. If you can't, it's goodbye and good luck."

"Yes, Mrs. Becker. Thank you, Mrs. Becker."

Looking like she'd been sucking a lemon, Mrs. Becker stopped breathing into my face and went out in front of the team. "Charli needed a tutor," she told them, explaining my problem in her own words. The gang eyed me for any outward signs of craziness. My heart sank. Then suddenly a big guy raised his hand. Whoever he was, he was no Lyda Imray.

Becker spoke to the guy quietly for a minute, then brought him over. "This is Niland Hesketh," she said. "He's willing tutor you, providing that you two can work out the scheduling. Unless you can get a spontaneous remission, he's your only hope, Rivers." She went back to her coaching spot and left me alone with my new tutor.
Niland had a lithe but solid build, like a tennis player, and stood a head taller than me at my present stature. His hair was dark blond and the summer had tanned him a solid gold. His evenly chiseled features wouldn't have looked out of place in some classy beer ad. "I'll join you after practice," he said. "Well talk."

The coach let me limp through the warm-ups and then sent me to the bleachers. I sat watching what the others were doing, feeling more and more pessimistic. They trained for almost two hours, and then Niland joined me, his hair wet, beads of sweat on his lips and brow.

For my own part, I must have appeared as out of sorts as I felt, because he asked, "Hey, Charli, are you in pain?"

"Ah, no -- Niland -- it comes and goes. Thanks for the offer. I'll be absolutely dead if I can't get back what that crazy brain aneurysm took away."

He startled. "Brain aneurysm?"

"More like a faint spell," I corrected myself. "I blacked out, and when I came to, I'd had what the doc said was short-term memory loss. They didn't even keep me for observation. I can't recall the squad's routines, the steps, the rhythm. I can't remember any of the cheers. It's creepy -- like I never trained at all."

"That's pretty awful. We were at the same camps the last two summers, so I know that you've been working hard to get on the team."

Charla had been to cheer camp? That would explain some of those wall photos. I took a deep breath. Suddenly I started wondering about Niland's motives. He had noticed me two years ago? What he was remembering had to be false memories. But why would he remember me at all? Was it because Charla was a babe? Was he hot for me? Was I his Lyda Imray? Gross!

"Ah, I can't thank you enough for this chance," I said. "Why -- what made you decide to do it?"

He gave an "oh, shucks" type of smile. "Making the team was important to me, but it always seems to be a life-or-death thing for the girls. Dedication like that should mean something. You know, from tiny sparks, big forest fires come." His voice dropped off. "Uhhh, I think I could have used a better metaphor."

I laughed nervously; if he wasn't a groper, I thought I could like him. "How much time can you give me, Niland? I'm -- I'm in such a bad way that I'm going to need all the attention I can get."

He frowned thoughtfully. "As I see it, tomorrow after school is good. On Wednesday, we'll both have to be back here practicing. Maybe we can work out in the ball yard afterwards. I'm sure I can give you Thursday evening, too."

He was being generous, but that was a lot of time to be alone with a boy whom I hardly knew. I'd have to make sure that Josette came along, so they're be a witness just in case he tried anything sleazy. Those strong-looking hands might soon be all over my body, since a male base has to lift a girl often. Should I trust him? If he got grabby, should I slug him? I couldn't hurt a boy that solid, not unless I kicked him in the nuts. Should I complain to the coach if he pulled something? I didn't want to be a tattletale kind of girl. Anyway, the less I talked to Cecelia Becker, the better.

Maybe I wouldn't have anything to worry about. Maybe he was gay; I hoped so. I suddenly caught myself. Since when had I wanted to hang around with gays? Everything seemed topsy-turvy all of a sudden. Was this Daniel Kassler High School, or was it Wonderland?

He said, "See you tomorrow” and I was so out of sorts by now that I left the school in a daze. I went to my locker and started dressing, remembering too late that I had forgotten to take a shower with the squad!

That evening, Josette helped me pour through the Cheerleaders' Guide, so I wouldn't act like a hopeless dunce when I met with Niland.

* * * *

The next day, I got to shower with the girls of phys. ed. There was hardly a babe among them. I had no equipment to embarrass myself with, but my nipples did get longer and harder from stealing glances. I put my breasts under the cold rain to calm them down, unsure how the girls would react if they saw their excited state; I didn't want to be pegged as a lesbo. I came away with the deep conviction that there are a lot of girls who should keep their clothes on.

About three-thirty, Josette accompanied me to the baseball field and took an observer's post high up on the bleachers, reading my cheer book to fill her time.

Niland had parked his ten-year-old Mazda in the parking lot, and came my way wearing a tee and gym shorts. He had a gym bag in hand and carried a boom box. He set the former on the grass. "We'll start you out with the warm up moves," he said. When he turned the box on, it played a suitable cheerleader score.

"Yeah, good," I said with a nervous grin.

He showed me each exercise before asking me to do it. There were a lot of them: arm circles, wrist circles, waist stretching, and trunk rotation. While I was doing the latter, I realized that the routine must look awfully sexy and I wondered what effect the sight of them might have on Niland.

By the time we were working through leg stretches, ankle points, flexes, and hamstring stretches, I was getting too breathless to worry about what I looked like. When Niland demonstrated a jump-and-split move, I worried that it would leave me a pathetic invalid for the rest of my life. But, amazingly enough, I found that my body could manage the move with only a wince and a few tears. It was like Josette had said -- my body actually _did_ know how to do things that my brain didn't.

"You look like you need a rest," Niland said at last. I could only nod and pant. Did every squad member have to go through this? If so, how did they manage to look so peppy and cute?

Incredibly thirsty, I went to the drinking fountain and guzzled.

"Careful, Charli. To much cold water can give a side ache."

I straightened. "Are we done yet?"

"Do you want to be done?"

"No. I -- I want to do all I can to keep my spot on the team."

He chuckled. "Well, you really have forgotten a lot. Now that we're past the warm-ups, we'll work on the least demanding things. There are plenty of basic cheer positions that aren't too hard. Try this one."

He demonstrated a sidestepping routine that had a lot of arm pointing, while he simultaneously shouted:

"'We're crazy, that's what I said'
'We're crazy, gonna knock 'em dead'
'We're C-R-A-Z-Y, are we so crazy,'
'That's what I said.'
'We're crazy, gonna knock 'em dead'
'We're C-R-A-Z-Y, we're just so crazy!'"

It was my turn. I gave it my best, not wanting Niland to think I was a dumb dork not worth his time. That was what people had always thought about me, and I was sick of it!

"That's not quite it," Niland said.

"What's wrong?"

"You're dancing like a boy, probably from watching me. Do it this way."

He was he was imitating a girl's moves, and it was something to see! What butt action! He absolutely _had_ to be gay.

Niland wrapped up. "Got that? Now you try it."

I did, and it came out better than the first time. Then he called for more exercises, one right after another and sounded a little like Mrs. Becker -- or was he channeling the ghost of some drill sergeant fragged for brutality?

"Swing! Strut! Left hand point left! Right hand, point up, step-step. One-two-three. Move your bottom, left, right! Swing it! Go wild, girl!"

And so on, and on, for more than a half hour. By the end of it, I had to drop to the grass, my breathing coming in hot gasps.

Niland let me lie there for a few minutes. "That should be it for tonight," he said, helping me back to my feet. "Drill on the moves I've reviewed with you as often as you can before we meet again tomorrow. At practice, you'll just have to do the best you can. I don't think Becker'll be a beast about your progress until Friday. I guarantee that when Friday comes, we'll shock her with how good you can be."

"Me, good? I'll never be good."

"You've got potential, Charli."

I smiled. "Uh, thanks." I don't know why I bothered to say what I said next, but it just tumbled out of my mouth: "I'm giving up that kid nickname, Niland. I'm asking people -- my close friends, I mean -- to call me Charla."

"Charla? Yeah, that's pretty."

My mind was on something else. I spoke honestly: "If I have one shot in a million, it'll because you helped me."

He gave that "oh, shucks" face again. "I don't think the odds are nearly that awful, but thanks. What counts high with Mrs. Becker is the Cheerleader Smile. She says that if cheerleader looses her smile, she's no cheerleader -- she's just a 'clown with a frown'. That goes for the guys, too, by the way."

I forced a smile and offered him my hand -- to shake, I mean. "I'll bear that in mind." He gave me a firm squeeze -- on the hand, naturally -- and said, "See you tomorrow." Then Niland walked back to his car and I crossed to the bleachers to rejoin Josette.

"You didn't suck as badly as I thought you would," she said.

I threw up my hands. "So kill me with faint praise, would you?"

"You started looking really hot -- even in a in a girl-type way. Those hip bumps! I can't wait until I see you performing in a miniskirt!

"You've got a septic tank installed where a brain should be! I've got good reasons for doing this."

"Yeah? What?"

"Like, I've been a loser all my life, but I don't think that Charlayne ever behaved like a loser. She had to sweat blood to get on the team; she prepared for years. I don't want to make her a loser before she comes back to her own alternate reality."

"I'm not sure that it works that way. Maybe Charla exists only because you exist."

"Anyway, working out with Niland has given me a super idea."

"Yeah?"

"If I can just learn enough over the next month, I can try out for the team as a cheer guy. I've heard the girls talking. They're short of bases, and that handicaps them when they want to do the super-spectacular lift stuff at competitions. It's hard to recruit boys, so they'd probably take any male who's halfway competent. That way, I can be surrounded by the greatest-looking girls at school for the whole rest of the year. I'll know them all on a first-name basis. And since they'll be depending on me not to drop them on their pretty asses, they'd have to at least try to act nice."

"I don't know if you can count on niceness; they're girls, after all," Josette warned.

"I wonder how many cheer boys score with the cheerleaders after practice. If a lot of them are gay, that would improve the odds for the straight ones."

"Well, watch out. I'm not so sure that Niland's gay. They're something about his movement. It's sort of pantherish. You're new at this girl stuff and kind of vulnerable. A regular girl grows up being taught to watch out for phonies making fancy passes."

"Niland's okay, gay or not. You're messing with my head, just when I was feeling upbeat."

"Upbeat? I almost got worn out just watching you."

"I'm tired but -- he said I had promise!"

"So, you're susceptible to flattery. What about candy and flowers?"

"Can it!"

"Okay, okay. I've got to get you home. You smell like you can use a shower."

* * * *

At Wednesday practice, I was allowed to warm up with the others and do some basics, but Becker didn't push me into the more complex stuff. She knew I'd only embarrass myself and demoralize the rest of the team. That meant that I sometimes had to stand aside while others trained. The high point was the shower afterwards. When I stood there watching the prettiest girls in school splashing each other, I knew I was on to a good thing. I loitered under the spray as long I had attractive company to keep, and then put my sweat-moistened workout clothes back on. I hurried to meet Josette and get to the ball field. We found Niland already there, since he probably hadn't showered as slowly as I had.

This second session was more intense than the first one. I couldn't forget that Friday was a dark cloud hovering very close. We made plans to meet again Thursday.

* * * *

At the workout the next day, I was starting to bring off things that I never would have believed possible. When I managed to get my mind working cooperatively with my already-trained physique, amazing things could happen.

This last session with Niland had reminded me of _Dancing With the Stars_. Celebrities with minimal, or even zero, dance skill were able to learn enough -- and do it quickly enough -- to perform in front of millions. But I'd found out that cheerleader training was hard work. It was the hardest thing that I'd ever tried to do.

So why didn't that put me off more than it did? I had never been a very physical guy. Obviously the real Chala -- if there ever had been such a person -- had a different attitude toward athletics. I wondered if some inner part of her was seeping into my brain, like Josette had warned about. Was that good or bad; should I be scared or relieved? Should I welcome her, or try to push her away? For now though, it seemed positive. Unless I accepted what "the girl inside" had to offer, I could never pull this scam off.

Later, while packing our gear, Niland encouraged me to think that I had come a long way. He suggested that the two of us could keep at our lessons after Friday, until I became the equal of any other first-year teammate.

I agreed immediately. He was giving me so much time and hard work. Was it only team spirit for him, or did he like me personally? I wished that the two of us could have gotten to know one another better over these last few days, but he had been all business. And he had to be, I supposed, because our time was so short and our workload so very heavy.

I suddenly relished the idea of eventually showing up someone like Lyda Imray! She had the bod, but she didn't have the heart. She had been too high and mighty to give Darrell so much as a glance. She didn't care that Charla needed help. I'd have relished letting her know that she wasn't so special after all!

* * * *

The next day, I could hardly pay attention to anything talked about in my classes. After the last bell, I went grimly to the gymnasium and donned my workout clothes. When I emerged onto the gym floor, I felt Mrs. Becker's hot eyes following me. I doubted that she cared whether I could perform or not. What she had on her mind was a winning season and the athletes who could make that season real for her were all interchangeable parts. She wouldn't miss me if I flopped; there were too many others to take my place. That had been the story of my entire life. I wasn't needed, I wasn't special. Whatever I did, there was always someone who could do it better.

Did I have a psychic sign on my back, one that read, "Not worth much"? I didn't think Charla had been like that. What a pity that she wasn't real, someone whom I could have gotten to know.

But whom was I kidding? Charla wouldn't have wanted me any more than Lyda Imray had. Would _I_ have wanted a guy like me, if I were a girl? I didn't think so. What was wrong with me as Darrell?

Becker had us do the warm-up as a team, and then signaled me to come forward. "Okay, Rivers, before the practice begins, you and I have some unfinished business. Niland's told me some good things about your positive attitude in practice. I hope he's right. Show us what you've got."

"I will," I said warily.

She nodded. "Give me three continuous cartwheels, girl."

I launched. Darrell couldn't have done even one cartwheel, but Charla wasn't Darrell. She had been learning cartwheels while Darrell had been eating popcorn in front of the TV. When back on my feet, I saw that Becker was frowning, thoughtful-like. She drew in a slow breath. "Okay, Rivers, new position! Combined move. Forward flip…side roll…back flip…"

Working with Niland, I had discovered that my body could take over if I simply let it, if I got my doubting mind out of the way. While Becker yelled at me, I tried to get more and more into the altered reality, to make myself a part of it. I had to, because Becker had gone totally cheer-Nazi; jumping through the hoops for her wasn't easy and she wasn't making it painless. But I fought to keep on track, to hold on to my momentum and to my timing.

"Next! On you feet! Dance move! Disco! In tune to the music -- give it all you've got!"

And I did. I didn't stop to think, I didn't dare to. My body, my reflexes, had to do all the thinking for me.

"Round off! Forward roll!"

She was demanding this step, then that step. This jump, then that jump, and then I fell into a split that fortunately didn't tear any ligaments. Becker was gunning for me for sure, slamming me with one thing after another. I fought to hold on, like John Wayne in front of a banzai charge; I was fighting not to let Charla down.

Then the Wicked Witch of D.K. High went quiet. From her starting-gate stance, from the intense expression on her face, it didn't seem like she was finished with me yet; she was just planning some new surprise to trip me up.

"Take a breather, Rivers," Becker said. I nodded, then sagged, bracing my hands on my knees and panting. The coach waved to Niland. "Come over here," she called. He came. "Be her base, and we'll see how Charli plays it with a partner…Rivers, ready?"

"Y-Yes, ma'am," I nodded. I didn't know how much energy I had left, but I couldn't let Niland see me fail.

"Position! Cheek to Cheek!" Becker yelled.

Our bodies moved like parts of the same machine. I went up into the air, hoisted into a handstand upon his rock-hard shoulders. We held it for a couple seconds, and then my partner guided me through a smooth dismount.

Gasping, I looked toward the coach. She took in a breath to yell another command. "Next move. Around the World!"

I don't know where my remaining strength was coming from at this point. We did the maneuver demanded, and then the sadist-with-a-whistle called for a Flip Over, followed by a Walk-Up to Shoulder Stand. Adreneline steadied me, and we brought it off.

"All right, all right," Becker shouted from below. "This has been a passable workout, Rivers. Dismount!"

Niland helped me down. I just reeled where I touched the floor; I had nothing left to give. He put his arm around me, to keep me from falling.

The coach came up, as if judging a specimen of livestock at a fair. "Maybe you can be a real cheerleader after all, Rivers. But you still have some catching up to do. To keep your spot, you'll have to get back on par in double-time. No more amnesia. If you've got problems, let medical science deal with them. They're not the business of the athletic department."

"Yes, ma'am," I stammered. I had dodged the bullet, it seemed, and it had been Niland that had made all the difference. I felt as grateful to him as I did to Charla, that determined and dynamic girl who seemed to be alive and thriving at my core.

After my demonstration, I had to follow the cheer team through the regular training period. As tired as I was, I fought through it to the end.

Then there was the shower. I didn't enjoy the view so much as the running water, I was so sore and tired. On the way out of the gym, I caught up to my teammate to thank him.

"Don't mention it," Niland said, in that easy manner of his. "We can train some more next week. You've got amazing potential, Charli -- Charla, I'm sorry. You deserve your day in the sun."

"Thanks. I want to practice with you just as much as we possibly can," I panted. "Say, how…how about if I treat you to something at the soda shop, to celebrate?"

He smiled. "That would be nice, Charla. But my girlfriend gets jealous when I go out with my female teammates."

"Girlfriend?" I echoed. "You never mentioned a girlfriend." I changed my tone quickly. "I guess a guy like you has his pick of all the girls at school."

"No, not exactly my pick, but I was lucky enough to find somebody that I don't want to lose. I've been neglecting her all week, so I have to make up for it and be there for her this weekend. I'll check how my schedule is shaping up and then talk to you outside of social studies class on Monday."

"G-Great!" I said, my voice shaky. "My calendar is pretty much open, I'm sure."

"I'll see you then," he said, and then headed for the locker room.

I kept smiling. But it was that cheerleader smile. That damned _Laugh, Clown, Laugh_ smile.

But I wasn't smiling on the inside. I was leaving the athletic wing deflated. How strange. I'd done something terrific, but had no one to share it with. It felt like I was going away without any prize.

What prize did I want? That was the question. It seemed like I had lived through an entire lifetime in eight days. I felt pride, but part of me still seemed empty. What was missing?

I would have a lot to think about over the weekend.

So far, Josette hadn't said what she wanted us to do together, except to go to lingerie store at the mall. I had to be ready for whatever came at me. It would probably be something crazy.

The End

Josette's Story: The Prequel to "The Dark of the Moon" - Chapter 2

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

17,500 < Novella < 40,000 words

Genre:

Comedy

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Themes:

School or College Life

TG Elements:

Girls' School / School Girl

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

THE DARK OF THE MOON: Josette’s Story, Chapter 2

THE DARK OF THE MOON: Josette's Story Chapter 2

BY CHRISTOPHER LEESON

Posted 03-30-25
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The reflection caught Loren off-guard—those legs in short pajamas, that ethereal face framed by a blonde cascade. He blinked. He was in the wrong place. This had to be a dream. But it was a dream experience he could like, The clothes in the room suggested that its owner was a hot dresser.

Loren tried to stay calm. Lucid dreams never lasted long. They always stopped when a guy started thinking about something sexy. Controlling his excitement, he addressed his dream girl: "Miss, would you like to—" But the words died in his throat. His voice sounded so strange.

Suddenly, Loren grasped what was happening. He wasn't looking at a girl behind the window. The teen was looking at himself. He was dreaming that he was a girl. His reflection would do credit to a swimsuit model.

Then Loren remembered what he had read about the magic oil.

Did the oil induce vivid dreams? When he dreamed lucidly, he always woke up when he got excited. He fought to maintain his composure. It was kinky to look at a mirror and see a girl worth looking at.

On impulse, he touched his dream boobies. They were soft and warm. Touching them sent a thrill through his upper body. He reexamined the room and finally recognized it—it was his own, but altered. It had been feminized to an astonishing degree. The walls were hung with male pop idol posters and fuzzy animals. Sexy clothing lay strewn about, and that included lingerie so sexy it gave him goosebumps.

A full-length mirror adorned this room’s door. He took a good, hard look at his girlish reflection. "This goes beyond kinky," he whispered. But the strange voice still coming from his throat made him start. He touched his windpipe and said, "Me me me me!" That wasn't his voice. It sounded like a girl's.

Then an envelope on the floor caught his eye. Lifting it, he noted its addressee: Josette Melford. He'd heard that name before. Loren’s mom had watched all the reruns of the Dark Shadows show, and her favorite character had been named Josette. If she had had a daughter, she would have named the girl Josette.

Suddenly, Loren wondered whether his mother was home.

A poster caught Loren’s eye just then. It pictured some boy heartthrob playing an electric guitar. Loren could never understand why girls hero-worshipped musician dorks. How manly could a guy be playing chick music? Chick music was for chicks, and guy music was for guys, and never the twain shall meet.

Suddenly, Loren got a naughty idea. He crossed to the closet to see what was hanging in it. When Loren looked inside, he got another surprise. The closet had gotten a sex change. It was full of femme attire of the flashiest kind.

Loren wondered whether the rest of the house had changed, too. With lips set, he exited to the upstairs hall and descended the familiar stairs. Something wasn't right. He realized his hips were swaying. He couldn't ignored his dream breasts because they bounced with his every descending step.

Distracted, the dream girl stepped on a can opener left on one step and one step, and it hurt like hell! “Ouch!” she yelped.

“Josette! Is that you?” called a dream woman using the voice of Loren’s mother. His mom hurried into the foyer as if attending a major emergency. “Darling!” Mrs. Medford exclaimed. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Even if this was only a dream, Loren felt embarrassed standing on the steps in front of his mother wearing a naughty pair of girl's pajamas.

“What's with you? You're still not dressed.”

Suddenly, Loren realized that his mother had called him “Josette.”

“You're disheveled, and you're barely dressed,” said Mris Melford, “but why are you favoring your left leg?”

“I stepped on something,” Loren—Josette—muttered.

“Go upstairs; put on a robe and slippers. Breakfast is almost ready.”

Josette bemusedly re-climbed the stairs. The moment she touched the doorknob of her room’s door, his mind finally became clear. “O.M.G!” she thought. She—he—had swabbed that so-called magical oil on his arm. It was supposed to change a boy into a girl.

What if this wasn't a dream?

“Mom! I —” He stopped himself. The page he'd read warned against telling anyone about a sex change. He had to be very careful until he knew what was real. "Mom, I'll be right back.” He had to think, and what he thought was that he had to wake up from this craziness.

Josette started slapping herself, jumping up and down, and making loud whispers of, “I want to wake up!”

It didn't work. A poke from a nail file didn't end the dream either.

As the girl sat on the messy bed, awful ideas plagued her thoughts. Was she hallucinating? Was her sanity or her life in danger?

Her mother called from the foot of the stairs. “Josie, honey! Where are you? Have you fallen asleep again?”

Josette struggled to steady herself. She remembered one warning from the sheet. Whatever was going on, asleep or awake, she didn't dare explain things to anybody. The instructions said there would be consequences. Angering the spirits could doom her to remain a girl.

Puzzled, she slipped into a robe and a pair of carpet slippers. Then, taking a deep, shaky breath, she went downstairs for breakfast, more carefully this time.

The breakfast her mom served in the kitchen tasted like real food. That worried her.

“You don't look well, darling,” Lynette Melford said. “Are you ill? Is that why you stumbled?”

“Yeah,” Loren answered. “I started feeling woozy when I got out of bed. I’ll finish my cereal and then go nap.”

“I wish I didn’t have to go to work early today with you feeling ill,” Mrs. Melford told her daughter. “But check in with me often. If I don't hear from you, I'll call you. If you don't answer, I'll rush home or call emergency.”

“You can go to work, Mom. I’ll call if I feel worse.”

Her Mom soon had to hurry out to her car. Josette was glad to be alone. She went up to her room, feeling lousy. Josette avoided looking at her reflection and didn’t want to touch her body, either. She got under the covers without removing her robe. She lay there trying to fall back to sleep, which she hoped would help her wake up normal again. But she couldn’t fall asleep and couldn’t stop thinking. Once in a while, she touched the fabric she was wearing under her robe. It still felt like filmy polyester.

The phone rang, and Josette reached for the cell on the nightstand and answered. It was her mom, asking how she was. The teen reported gradual improvement. She didn’t want her mother coming home early. She needed solitary time to think this thing out!

Josette went downstairs for lunch at midday. Then she carried her sandwich to the TV room and tried to watch a Roku movie, but couldn’t pay attention. By middle afternoon, the part of her that was Loren was flipping out. He had given up the fight to deny reality. He was a she; he had become a real live girl!

Josette tried not to panic. Instead, she fought to think clearly. If she were a girl, how long would this continue? The sheet said that anyone transformed by the magic oil would stay transformed until the next new moon. That was a full month! What should she do until then?

But could the sheet be believed? What if the magical transformation was permanent?

Medical attention was a no-go. If she opened her mouth about being a boy transformed by magic, it might trap her in a girl-shape forever!

Josette had to avoid human contact. Fortunately, school was not in session, and almost all her social contacts were made at school. Her only dependable friend was Darrell Rivers? She wished she could call him and talk about this lunacy, but she didn’t dare!

She wracked her brain. What in hell was she supposed to do?

Finally, a useful idea came to mind. She would have to impersonate a person whom she didn't know at all. She knew less than anyone in the city about Josette Melford. Did the real Josette have a Facebook page? What else? Had she kept a diary or journal? Loren had one, so maybe his “sister” would also.

Josette returned to her chaotic room, searching for information. It was discouraging to dig through such disorder. Eventually, she found a shoebox filled with letters. She took these to bed and spent the next hour absorbing their contents. She watched for clues about the girl’s personality and interests. Also, she made a list of the people she knew.

Most of the letters were from adult relatives, since younger people communicated with texts and telephones. Hardly anything she read was informative. It was mostly the “How are you and what are you doing?” stuff.

It was about 4:00 pm before Josette found a well-hidden journal written in longhand. The reading was recent stuff, dated almost up to a couple of days before. It appeared that people usually called her Josie. But though Josie had written it, it held little substance. The girly drivel was solid as cotton candy. Josette, beautiful though she was, only wrote about pedestrian things.

Josette shook her head when she looked at the list of Josie's friends, mostly referred to by first names only. Who were all these people?

Taking a break from the dull reading, Josette explored the house. Loren had vanished, leaving no trace. The girl's car was a different color, model, and make. Fortunately, she found the keys for it.

She took stock of everything she had learned about Josie thus far. Josie’s social circle was enormous. She seemed to be popular, and that made her different from Loren. Loren desired popularity yet had never done much to gain it. He wanted people to accept him on his own terms.

It bothered her that Josie knew many people. Josette didn't want to have strangers coming up suddenly to talk to her about things that she didn't know or care anything about. Josie had male friends, too. However, she wasn’t dating. Was it her decision? Or did boys find her off-putting?

Josette forced herself to go back to reading. Josie mostly wrote about shopping and clothes. The new occupant of her body glanced at the closet again. Its contents gave her a good idea of Josie’s taste in clothing. A lot of it was flashy and wild. Maybe that was why the unimaginative girl was so popular. Boys would willingly hang out with an uninteresting girl as long as she looked hot and her fashion sizzled. Being seen with the right type of girl brought a guy status. For a boy with self-respect, it was better to go around stag than to hang with a Plain Jane who had nothing going for her.

Sighing, Josette refocused on her reading.

A phone started ringing. She answered it, rather than have some friend get worried about her “radio silence” and come over to the house to check on her. The cell’s screen read, “Leah.”

“Leah?” Josette spoke into the device.

“Oh, Josie! I haven't heard from you for a couple of days.”

“Ahh, I haven't been feeling well. I’m staying in. I'm still wearing my pajamas. I’ve tried to read, but it just bores me.”

“That's too bad. Have you been thinking about this weekend?”

What about this weekend? Josette had to bluff. “I doubt I’ll have a fun weekend unless I get better.”

“Oh, it could be so great! We have tons of plans to make. Should I come over?”

“No, don't! Mom says this could be catching. Anyway, whenever I think too hard, my mind swims. I’ve spent half the day asleep. I’ve been using the bathroom repeatedly today; I have to go again. We'd better finish this conversation next week when I'm back up to form.”

“Next week? Was the diagnosis a serious one?”

“I got to rush. Love you, kid.” She clicked off the phone.

Now, Josette heard someone walking around downstairs. She hoped it was her mom and not a serial killer.

Somebody was climbing the stairs. Josette looked around for a weapon.

“Josie!” came her mother's voice.

“Yeah, Mom!” she called back.

The door swung in. “You haven't dressed yet, darling,” said Mrs. Melford. “Have you been that ill?”

“I'm getting better. It’s just that I’m staying home, so why bother dressing up?”

“Are you eating?”

“I haven’t eaten all day, but I’m getting hungry now,” the girl fibbed.

“Do you don’t suppose that you've got mononucleosis?”

“I haven’t heard my friends say that it's going around.”

“Maybe it’s iron deficiency anemia.”

“How's that treated?”

“By taking ferrous iron supplements.”

“That doesn't sound too disgusting.”

“Also, it could also be depression. Do you have any reason to be depressed?”

Oh, brother! Did she have a reason?!

“Well, it’s stressful to be starting my last year of high school. Whenever I look at college catalogs, I see nothing worth studying.”

“You were talking about fashion design before.”

Josette thought fast. “I was kidding myself. I've had no head for design. There’s nothing in the world I can do well. I’m afraid I'm going to be a failure. And the thought of leaving all my friends behind—you know, Leah, Tilda, Margo, and Nina—makes me freak out.”

“Choosing a career path is always daunting; however, studying what you’re interested in is a pleasure.”

“If you say so.”

Mrs. Melford smiled. “You're not sounding too sick. Give me about a half hour, and I'll put something on the table. By the way, you promised you'd get this room cleaned up. How can someone who loves fashion put up with this kind of mess?”

“Do you like the way I dress, Mom? I mean, do you approve of my taste in clothes?” Josette was thinking about all those hot dresses and lingerie.

“I’m too wise to argue with young people about fashion choices. In grandma’s day, the 60s, her folks were dead set against miniskirts, but she wore them just the same. It’s important not to go ballistic over little things. The world can survive the moral menace of high hemlines. Also, it makes me proud to see how much you look like a Hollywood starlet.”

Josette wanted to change the subject. “I’m feeling sicker now, Mom.”

“We'll put some iron into you. If you're still unwell until morning, we'll have you checked out.”

Mrs. Melford paused at the door, saying, “I'm going to do the wash this Sunday. Please put your dirty things in the washing machine as soon as you feel strong enough.”

“Okay, Mom,” said Josette Melford.

TO BE CONINTUED IN CHAPTER 3

Joy Girls of Zhor

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

Mature Subjects (pg15)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Other Worlds

Character Age:

College / Twenties

TG Themes:

Crime / Punishment

TG Elements:

Prostitution

Other Keywords:

World of Zhor

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

A word from Christopher Leeson:

We thank Overlord for his advice and support for all our Zhorian endeavors. In Joy Girls of Zhor we also wish to acknowledge our debt to Ranbarth for our use of the character "Master Hoel" and the idea of "the First Horse Lancer Troop of Prydferth," first introduced by him into his Zhorian novella The Lancer's Tale (FM).

This story naturally takes us to Overlord's adventure world of Zhor. Joy girls are the free prostitutes of that planet. But it is wrong to think of such women as dehumanized and interchangeable instruments for a customer's selfish pleasure. Each is an individual who has her own reasons for being where she is. As with most people, the life of a joy girl is usually complex and individual. The heroine of this tale has one of the most unusual stories. She dares to ask a divinity for something that she doesn't really want. Will she get such a boon? And if this unwanted boon is granted, will she like it?

Oct. 6, 2016
Revised Nov. 19, 2016
Revised May 21, 2017
Revised June 7, 2017
Revised Jan. 20, 2019

Joy Houses, sporting establishments in which free women serve men's pleasure for coins, developed in parallel with the “pleasure houses.” Where joy houses and pleasure houses differ is that the latter have girls that are legal slaves. Buy why have free women been willing to compete in a lowly trade that is usually relegated to the unfree? No doubt some have considered it only a job, but in most cases women have seen it as the lesser evil, especially when the other choice is hunger and homelessness. Also, in times of banditry or war, joy houses offer unprotected women a measure of safety that is not available elsewhere.

But harlots are vulnerable to exploitation. Zhorian society, as a whole, takes care to protect its free women from de facto enslavement and most city-states have regulations protecting the rights of joy house workers. Such laws forbid that women should be placed under duress when they sign a joy house contract, or renew one that has expired. Such contracts may not be created nor renewed except under magisterial monitoring.

The commitments that joy house girls take on are rather like the contracts that gladiators signed in the days of the ancient Roman gladiatorial games. Most gladiators were slaves, but some were free agents. A willing freeman could accept a contract that stipulated that he would perform the services of a gladiator under penalty of punishment. These chastisements normally included flogging and being burned with hot irons for breach of contract. Some contracts allowed that he might even be killed for revolting against the terms of his indenture. The terms of a man's gladiator service would be spelled out in the agreement, usually stipulating a number of gaming seasons. At the end of that time, the surviving gladiator would be released back to civilian life with his earnings.

In most cases, a Zhorian woman's term as a joy girl lasts one year. Failure to live up to the agreement allows for punishment -- usually by the switch, the strap, the feather (if she suffers from Signir's Curse), periods of imprisonment, and solitary confinement, with or without bread and water diets. When the contract term expires, the girls are free to either sign up for another year or to leave the house.

Unfortunately, it is hard to prevent all abuses when a corruptible government is the monitor. Joy houses have been known to bribe officials in order to certify that a fraudulent forced contract was freely entered into. But this is does not seem to be a widely-spread problem and the existence of concerned citizen groups help girls' to exercise their rights.

Joy Houses have existed for as long as civilized history records, but it was only centuries ago that the concept of the joy house began to figure in the Zhorian penal system.

In the old days, women criminals were, as a rule, sentenced to permanent slavery. In effect, their masters were their jailers for what amounted to a life sentence. When civilization become less barbarous, reform led to the modification of some joy houses into “penal brothels” to punish women who broke the law, but less severely than in the past.

In penal brothels, the prisoners do not serve as slaves, but as indentured servants. A woman who is found guilty of a felony can avoid permanent slavery by a "voluntarily" acceptance of service in a penal brothel, which carries the promise of restored freedom when time is served. Their earnings may be withheld, in whole or in part, to pay for restitution for their criminal behavior and to settle statutory fines.

Beginning with the first appearance of Ruk's Serum, Zhorian, civilization suddenly found itself coping with a new problem, an explosion of “natural slavery” among the population. The genetic-alteration serum created by Ruk transforms a person by imposing another subject's genetic makeup upon him. He thereby acquires traits which are deemed desirable in slaves. Only females may be legally enslaved, so the most notorious effect induced by the serum is a sex-change.

A male who receives the serum becomes a “Ruk-girl,” a biologically-perfect woman motivated by an instinctual drive called “natural slavery.” Its definition is complex, but it makes the woman afflicted by it suffer from intense arousal, especially in circumstances involving male domination. Some argue that the serum awakes and reinforces biological drives that were born into the race at the dawn of the species. it was reinforced by the greater likelihood of a woman captured by enemies to be put to death if she did not submit to slavery, or performed badly in slavery. Thus women who did not hold slavery to be unthinkable, and who conducted themselves well in slavery, were the most likely to survive to breed and to pass their instincts on to descendants. This instinct, called natural slavery, can be transferred to a person who does not carry it naturally by means of gene transferal from one subject to another. The process is difficult; only the scientist Ruk, the creator of Ruk's Serum, managed to realize it through reproducible experments. Interestingly, the male transformed by Ruk's Serum retains his original male-intensity sexual drive, but not his male sexual orientation. "Serum girls" therefore tend to seek out sexual encounters with men more intensely than do most natural-born women.

Women may be condemned to receive the serum, also, and these are called “enhanced women.” Their physical sex doesn't change, but they, too, are transformed physically, usually to enhance their attractiveness. Additionally, like the males, they gain the gene for natural slavery. Bear in mind that their sexual desires are not enhanced, and that is because the natural sex drive of women is less intense and promiscuous than the male's. In effect, enslaved serum girls thrive as public pleasure slaves, while enhanced slaves are more frequently used as domestic servants, or placed into harems (which are called pleasure stables).

But enslaved or not, serum girls and enhanced women must deal with demanding needs that have become part of their essence. Sufferers frequently buy relief hiring sex workers, male oenads. But frequent oenad service is expensive and only the well-off can take advantage of it for long. The poor often find sexual relief through the ploy of enrolling into joy houses.

However, the thrills available in an old fashioned joy house were considered too tame by most serum girls, and even enhanced women didn't find them satisfying, suffering as they were, from the insistent craving called "slave need."

To give Ruked persons the enhanced experience that they required, some joy houses allowed women to perform their service under a routine of authentic slave-type discipline. In effect, women who entered such a joy house were agreeing to live like, dress like, behave like, speak like, and be treated as if they were true pleasure slaves. This was a logical desire for persons simultaneously suffering from both man-need and slave-need. Their contracts stipulated that this slave-style discipline mode would continue for the entire span of their voluntary indenture. The early social experiments along these lines proved generally successful and the practice spread widely. To differentiate these women from the joy girls working in the traditional houses, they came to be called “joy slaves.” But they were not, of course, real slaves, but merely employees under contract.

The introduction of Ruk's serum had a civilizing effect on the Zhorian penal system. Early Zhorian judicial sentences made major crimes committed by males punishable by death or bodily mutilation. (Flogging or terms of prison labor were used in cases of minor crimes, as they still are.) When cities began using Ruk's Serum to deal with serious offenses, the results were satisfactory and the plan was adopted by many city-states.

In earlier days, a transformed male could be either sent to the slave market or sent home after transformation. As time went on, Zhorians tended to reject permanent slavery for all but the most serious crimes. Therefore, for lesser law-breaking, the concept of imposing terms of service inside a joy-slave house were introduced for serum girls. Certain joy slave houses were therefore certified to serve as places of legal confinement. When the time came for a prisoner's release from a "penal brothel," the ex-convicts would benefit by having learned a trade that they could practice to support themselves.

One of the most interesting joy-girl stories in the libraries of Zhor comes out of the famous case of the First Horse Lancer Troop of Pyrdferth. About a century ago, some five hundred of the city's knights had become surrounded in a mountain pass and were taken captive by an enemy army. Instead of the customary ransom, the victorious tyrant took vengeance against the city that had opposed him by ordering that all of the prisoners would be injected with Ruk's serum. The mortified sons of Prydferth were then sent home as serum girls. This was a disaster that caused the demoralized city to yield to all the tyrant's demands. Though free, the ex-knights suffered, as most serum girls do, not only from rasterization for their disgrace, but also from the bane of all those who receive the serum, "man-need" and "slave-need."

The stories of many of these transformed warriors of Prydferth have been told by biographers. These tales generally relate how a certain knight is transformed and made a slave, how she fares in training, and what becomes of her thereafter. Mimriem of the house of Kyvell has written the most important of these books. They are respected among their kind for their scrupulous authenticity. (Many so-called biographies of serum girls are actually highly-fictionalized examples of pornography). Interestingly, Mimriem was herself one of the transformed knight of Prydferth, but she appeared to have suffered from traumatic repression in the aftermath of her catastrophic misfortune. Others of the Troop had this repressive condition also, but, by the present time, all of the known sufferers of repression among the Horse Lancers, with the exception of Mimriem have come out of it, either before or after their enslavement. It is, in fact, a rare thing for one afflicted by the combination of man-need and slave-need to remain free -- or even retain the wish to remain free. Repression blocks the cravings that would lead to reckless actions or decisions that have so many times in the past brought women to the brand and the collar. As far as is known, all of these ex-knights of the Lancer troop are still alive, but all, by many different roads, have become pleasure slaves, with the exception of Mimriem. No doubt she has for a century maintained a curiosity about the feelings of her sisters in bondage, and consequentially works obsessively to tell their stories, in an attempt to understand them.

As one of Mimriem's biographies tells us, Ringan ob Brank, a junior officer of the First Horse Lancer Troop of Pyrdferth, who was one of many who became a comely woman while a prisoner of war. But Ringan, perhaps suffering from repression, was one of those who stubbornly maintained her free stratus. As an act of defiance, she persistently wore manlike garments cut to her size and scorned women's pastimes.

As often happens when a family member is transformed, Ringan gradually became estranged from her clan as well as from former friends. She started to see life as a burden and drank and gambled too much. When her parents cut her off for extravagance, she kept gaming regardless -- borrowing money from usurers, many of whom had criminal ties. The result was that she fell into debt to the evil elements of the city. In Prydferth, criminals organizations usually abducted debtors and sold them for gold to slave dealers in distant cities.

Warned that a gang was tired of waiting for payment, Ringan stooped to desperate measures. She needed to flee, but had no travel money. Fortunately, the ex-lancer had heard that a layman patron of the temple of Haliaka was paying serum girls a good bonus to take part in an experiment to prove the existence of the gods.

Legends say that Haliaka was formerly a male god who had rebelled against the king of Heaven in concert with his kin. Cast down by their mighty monarch, the clan was given the choice to continue to in Heaven in the demeaning shape of houris – the voluptuous servant girls of the gods – or be chained amid the dark and freezing stones of Kakako, the realm of the dead. All but Haliaka chose Kakako.

So it came to pass that the king bespelled Haliaka and made him – now her – his houri cup bearer. She suffered bondage at his hands and even beget a son, whose name was Yeadon. But Haliaka proved to be a better houri than she ever had been as a godling. In time, the king grew so fond of his divine wench that he enhanced her status and let her serve as a goddess in Heaven.

It was believed that the Goddess Haliaka became a protector of women, and especially of serum girls. Most serum girls have appreciated having a patroness of their own. They customerally offer her prayers and incense for favors and boons. Commonly, serum girls wish to keep from falling into slavery or, if already a slave, implore the goddess that they should not be used harshly, or that fortune should lead them into the arms of love masters. Even many people of faith did not believe that such requests were very often answered.

Ringan went to this layman. She found him to be an old-looking man, one for whom the rejuvenation serum was apparently no longer working. Such a person's thoughts often turned toward contemplation of the Beyond, she knew. The ex-knight was told by this elder that she would receive a hundred silvers as soon as she made a scripted prayer to Haliaka. A thousand gold pieces would be paid one year later, if she should reappear at the temple at that time, still a free woman. By this device, the wealthy layman wished to learn if the rate of women who were enslaved after requesting slavery from the goddess might exceed the statistical odds for enslavement among the general population.

Ringan was not very pious, but needed money. She doubted very much that a few words spoken to a stone statue would plunge her into a life of bondage, but she was quite certain that her enemies could and would do exactly that should they catch her.

Burning incense before an image of Haliaka, Ringan knelt and recited the prayer that she had been given to learn:

“Goddess, All-Powerful Haliaka, guide my destiny. Oh, Divine One, let my every path lead me into pleasure slavery. If I should live a thousand years more, let all those years be be blessed by the collar and the vaec. For as long as I live, let my face, form, and manner be found pleasing to males. I beg you, Great One, ignite my loins with slave-fire and at the dawn of each day inflame my life-blood with your own zestful spirit for love-making. Adopt me as your true daughter. Buoy my hearrt, Goddess, and never let it sink so low that I should despise my life in protected bondage, nor denigrate the sweet duties of a vaecwei .”

That said, Ringan received the hundred silver pieces and departed on her way.

As soon as Ringan left the temple, an inspiration struck her. Following her impulse, the fugitive journeyed to a nearby city. She paid a doctor to give her a fresh injection of Ruk's serum. Ringan did this as a form of disguise; her face was well known to the gang and she desperately needed a new identity. Ringan chose a dose of serum made from genetic material donated by a bred passion slave. It changed her physically as she lay feverishly in the ward, under going a new transformation. By the time the process was complete, she had come to look like a totally different woman, younger than before and almost goddess-like.

Ringan could scarcely live on her remaining silver for an entire year, and so preferred to gain employment. Her plan, after twelve months' indenture, was to claim the sum of a thousand gold pieces. Resolved, she returned to Prydferth, the city that she still loved, despite it being the scene of her many sorrows and troubles.

Did the ramifications of her plan alarm her? At one time they surely would have, but it was as if something had taken her fears away. She wondered why should that be? Was she already feeling the influence of the goddess? Was Haliaka guiding her steps? Ringan, of poor faith, refused to entertain such an idea.

Once in Prydferth, she contracted with one of the the city's many joy houses. Ringan chose an old-fashioned type; she would be a joy girl, but not a joy slave. The first time that a trainer gave her silks to wear, the sensuality that she saw reflected in the mirror shocked her. She was shocked even more by her first lesson in pleasure-giving with a male. It took time to adjust to, but once she had experienced the female-role in sexual play, her fondness for it surpassed the delight of her old male pastimes, such as drinking, gambling, and dallying with pleasure slaves.

The eagerness with which men took in brolling the new joy girl rarely exceeded her own. She had, in fact, succumbed to an intense man-need before realizing it. Over the months she was in service to a joy house, Ringan, who had taken the professional name of Tayla, changed in ways that dismayed her whenever she chose to think about them. But there was no doubt that her agreeable duties helped her to fit agreeably into her new environment.

The joy house catered to male fantasies. Tayla chose to specialize in a scenario that excited her beyond any other. She would portray an inexperienced serum girl who is abducted. Typically, the customer would seize Tayla, roughly remove her pageboy-style garments, and put a collar about her neck. Then he would subject his "new slave" to a mock drinning, which is a term that describes the initiation of a virgin girl into sex. Tayla would play the game on hundreds of occasions.

By the time that her span of service was completed, Tayla was already growing jaded by joy house duties. She could sate her man-need within its walls, but another, and stronger, craving was rising -- slave need. How could she satisfy it without losing her freedom? A new and daring idea came to her. But before she acted on it, she wanted to collect her fee from the temple.

Ringan did not look at all like the petitioner who had collected her silver a year earlier, but she had brought to the temple proof of identity. The layman greeted her pleasantly, as he had before. Without complaint, he gave her a draft for a thousand gold pieces. Such a form of payment was always safer than taking a treasure chest out into the street, where so many robbers lurked.

“Aren't you sorry that I returned?” Ringan asked. “You could have saved a thousand in gold if I had not.”

“True,” the man said, “but the goddess never promises how long a girl must wait before her prayers are fulfilled. What I need to know is your eventual fate. Return here in another year and receive a hundred more gold pieces.”

“How many girls have come back so far?” the serum girl asked.

The old man gaze up at the illustrated ceiling and smiled beatifically. “Few. Mighty is the goddess. Not half of the women I gave silver too at the outset have come back for their thousand coins of gold. And not half of the women whom I have paid at the end of their first year, as I have paid you, have returned at the end of their second. And never has any woman ever returned for a third payment. Have they merely retired to other cities, not interested in collecting the bounty that they have earned? Have they lost their lives to tragedy? I rather suspect that they are alive and well, glorying in their collars and brands, their requests to Haliaka having been fully granted. In fact, I have seen a few of these girls about the city, beguiling vaecwei in slave-face and pleasure silks. Nonetheless, these limited observations are of no value to statistical science. It may take a long time before my researches shall be conclusive enough to be worthy of publication.”

This information disconcerted Ringan, but served only to redouble her determination to return to the safety of joy-girl service. But she could not do so as yet. Over the months, she had grown more and more curious about what it felt like to live and feel exactly as a pleasure slave lived and felt. This time she would join a joy-slave house and experience a close approximation of true slave discipline, but still be technically free.

As part of her plan, Ringan went to a physician of the soul, a braed, a Zhorian psychiatrist. The brunette girl asked him whether it would be possible for her to attain true ignition without being enslaved.

He frowned. "Many women have asked that question, but I have not heard of one proven case in which a free woman, remaining free, has ever been truly ignited."

"None?" exclaimed Ringan.

"You must understand that ignition is a biochemical change in your body, one that triggers dormant cravings -- genetic drives that entered into your fabric with the serum. Before ignition, a serum girl may feel her man-need and slave-need intensely, but they do not consume her totally. True ignition marks the moment at which a woman's mind and spirit surrender absolutely to her animal nature, a nature instilled into her by the serum. But she becomes a rare animal, because a real animal has only one season for heat; the human's heat is constant throughout the year.

“Let me explain it this way. The bodies of serum girls are configured to produce abnormally high amounts of chemical that trigger the mating instinct. Having one's flesh flooded with hormones that stimulate such happiness too often becomes addicting. When this addiction takes hold, ignition is achieved. That is why pleasure slaves behave the way they do. They crave to experience this chemical rush many times each a day.”

“If this phenomenon is physical and not supernatural, why do you say that free women cannot experience it?”

He frowned again. “There is something in the mindset of a free woman that blocks her responses. I have read of experiments wherein free women and new, raw slaves are both put through the same pleasure-slave conditioning. But despite every variable, the slave girls usually ignite and the free women never do.”

“That seems impossible.”

He shrugged. “There was another experiment. It seems that a number of women were deceived into believing that they were enslaved, when in fact they were not. Their trainers had deliberated violated certain local laws, and this invalidated the enslavements. I mean, though the women thought they were slaves, they were, in fact, still free under the law.”

“What happened?”

“They were given pleasure-slave training. And because they believed that they were true slaves, they easily ignited -- every one.”

Ringan frowned. “What if I were just temporarily enslaved, and then freed as soon as I have felt my slave-fire lit?”

"Why do you so much want to be ignited?" the physician asked.

Ringan threw up her arms. "It is a compulsion. I can't explain it. I think I will die of frustration if I know that out there there are lowly pleasure slaves who are feeling wonderful things that I'm not allowed to feel."

He nodded. "That sentiment is not rare among serum girls, though yours is the most extreme case I have ever encountered. I don't recommend such a plan. Ignition is forever. You could never go back, never be so much in control of yourself as you are now. And whom could you trust to only temporarily enslave you? As a slave you would have no right of protest about any broken contract, no matter how flagrantly you were betrayed.

"And even if all goes well, you can hardly live again as a free woman. An ignited free woman will be beset by continual and gnawing needs. They would be so distracting that you could scarcely think about anything else. Sexual pleasure would mean everything to you. All you could imagine would be your next sensual adventure. You would be unlikely to excel in any intellectual pursuit, such as writing a book or inventing a new device. Ignited slave girls who are freed usually return to slavery voluntarily. Those who don't usually commit suicide or go mad.”

“What if I became a joy slave, and remained one for the rest of my life? Wouldn't my drives be met?”

The physician shrugged once more. “You still would know that you were technically free, so that solution might not forever satisfy you. Or it may. I don't know. I think it depends very greatly on the individual. Most serum girls are probably not in such a sad fix as you are. But, again, I don't advise experimenting on yourself. Your whole life could be ruined.”

Ringan thanked the doctor and left, bemused. His words has stirred up doubts, but as early as the next day she was willing to take the risk. She knew of an old friend from the First Horse Lancer Troop, one who was a serum girl herself, Waylard. She hoped such a one would be the least likely to play unfairly with her. But she cautiously hedged her bet.

Ringan found Waylard living alone on a small property belonging to her family. As with many of the other lancers, her clan was holding her at arm's length, providing her with what she considered a stingy allowance. What should have been her family inheritance was now slated to be bestowed upon her untransformed younger brother.

Ringan and Waylard had cruised the siolate taverns of Prydferth many a time, both before and after their encounter with Ruk's serum. Waylard was the closest thing to a friend that Ringan had left, so many ex-knights having drifted away or fallen into slavery. Lately, Waylard had seemed obsessed with a tavern in the city where the cup girls were all former lancers, their own comrades. The owner seemed to be collecting them, like gems stored in a box. Her friend had taken Ringan there once, an experience so disturbing that Ringan hadn't gone back. The branded and collared girls serving in the siolat tavern, balanced on dagger-point heels, wearing the briefest of pleasure silks, had seemed so utterly typical of cup girls. It had made Ringan realize, beyond any doubt, that if she were to fall slave herself, she, like the other knights of the troop, could be easily tamed and brought to perfect obedience.

Ringan, having greeted Waylard, made her an offer. If she were willing to enslave Ringan legally and then free her immediately when she asked her to, she would be paid paid three times the usual price that a quality pleasure slave could hope to gain at the going rate in the slave market.

Waylard was incredulous at the request at first, but, with haggling, agreed. They went together to the magistrate in charge of slave registry. It was unusual for a serum girl to ask for legal enslavement to another serum girl, but the magistrate had served long enough as to not be surprised at anything that dealt with the eroticism of the human heart.

The procedure was carried out. Then Ringan went home with Wayland, wearing the collar and the pleasure silks that she had picked out for herself. She had not received a true brand, but only a temporary ink tattoo. It would last a long time, but could be easily removed with a sub-dermal enzyme.

Looking at herself in the mirror at Waylar's cottage, Ringan trembled with emotion. In the eyes of the law, she told herself, she was now a true and legal slave girl. An amazing thought! A voluntary slave in her own city, there was now no place in the world where she could return to and be set free. Only Waylard could do that, for Waylard was her legal owner. Down deep inside, that fact made her feel strange . Was this the way that a true slave felt? No! She rejected that idea. These outlandish imaginings were no more than fantasies.

Now it was time for the next step in Ringan's scheme. It was a common practice to take a raw slave girl to a siolat tavern for training. In exchanged for a girl's service, – pouring wine, doing chores, brolling customers -- she would be subjected to instruction as a commonplace domestic pleasure slave. So Ringan, having given herself the slave-name of Jani, was duly taken to a tavern where she was to work as a cup girl.

Weeks passed and she became acquainted with every aspects of tavern service, including the smarting discipline that a slave received for poor performance. Being an experienced joy girl and supernally beautiful, she found herself escorted to the silks by many different carousers. Jani sometimes had more than two dozen men in a single day, even more than had been usual in the joy house.

Jani marveled to think that the orgasms that she was presently experiencing were true slave orgasms, not mere slut orgasms such as any free woman (dallying with a man not her husband) could enjoy. But to the serum girl's chagrin, no matter how she tried, no matter how determinedly Ringan blanked her mind and surrendered herself to mindless pleasure, she could not ignite. She wondered why. It was not that she didn't enjoy the sex. Something else, something she couldn't quite grasp, was blocking her.

At last, the cup slave gave up waiting for the unattainable. The next time Waylard came by, she intended to have her “mistress" take her home and free her. Jani wondered if there were something wrong with her. Was she incomplete, broken? Would she have to accept the fact that she was tragically repressed, or else sexually flawed in some way?

When Waylard finally did return to the tavern, she had a man with her. The three went to a brolling room and Waylard informed her slave, “I have sold you to this man, Master Hoel. He owns a siolat tavern and very much wants you to serve there.”

Ringan was aghast. “But I have already contracted to pay you three times my sale price!”

Waylard shook her head. “Four is better than three.”

“I will pay five times my price!”

Waylard frowned. “The deal is already made. If you wished to offer more, you should have made the offer clearly before this. Do not look at me so. I'm not betraying you. I'm doing you a favor. You have so obviously become a natural slave and a slut, one who is absolutely out of her mind, that if you were freed today, you'd only get yourself enslaved tomorrow. Accept your fate...Jani...you are fit for nothing else except the brand and the collar. That is where your happiness lies; submit to it."

The cup girl stood there speechless.

"I have often visited Master Hoel's tavern often," Waylard went on, "and I can tell that it is a very good place to be a pleasure slave. And, above all, you will have the company of many of our former comrades."

Jani's mouth dropped open. She knew very well which siolat tavern Waylard was talking about. It was the tavern that hasd haunted her nightmares.

The day ended with Jani being conducted naked across town to the establishment called "The First Horse Lancer Troop Tavern."

Because Hoel knew that Jani had already received extensive cup-girl training, he turned her over to the whip-slaves to be put to work immediately. But because he had her wear a Chasity belt, she could not do much more than perform teur and gair with customers. Hoel did not want a girl who was not ignited to do the full range of brolling. Most new slaves are haphazardly ignited in the arms of whatever man happens to be with them at the right moment, but for years Hoel had taken special delight in personally igniting the girls of the First Horse Lancer Troop.

Jani's temporary tattoo was soon removed, and the vaec was pressed into her left hip by means of a hot iron. Zhorian slave girls are not to be crudely branded like cattle. To make theirs a clean brand, like a stamp pressed into smooth clay, the spot to be marked is prepared with an ointment that prevents scarring. When the iron touched Jani, it wrested a shriek of agony from her. Then, with the aim of improving the unblemished quality of the mark, healing salve and a bandage were allied. This regimen would take away the pain, prevent infection, and leave a very handsome vaec impression.

For a time, Hoel visited his newest siolat serving wench almost every day. When he took Jani into his arms for the first time, his vaec-pelda, a term that denotes the taking of a slave without her consent, she was surprised by his casual mastery. In subjecting her to cup girl use, he first conquered her fears and then conquered her spirit. To Jani, Hoel's lovemaking seemed like a magical ritual, one that was transforming her. When alone, she sometimes looked into the mere, to check to see if she had a face still unchanged from what she was used to.

But when Hoel was with her, how easily he could make Jani cry out in the joy of brolling. The cup girl found herself clinging to him, wanted him to never stop. Why did he seem so different from other men? Could it be that her master was more knowledgeable of a woman's pleasure? Or was her heart leaping like a roe simply because, for the first time, she was was being put to service by one who was her full and legal owner? When Hoel was not with her, Jani's thoughts seemed to be falling into a new order. Over the past month she had found herself changing, changing in emotion, changing in thought, changing in a way more profoundly than joy-girl service had changed her. It was like she had found in this tavern solid ground beneath her feet. She wasn't sure why, but slave girl service seems much different from joy-girl service. The more that her master bent her to his will, the more the meaning and importance of her old life seemed to melt away. In the silks, in the heat of passion, she was being reborn, remade.

The day came when her thoughts came back to the Goddess Haliaka, a deity that she had put out of her mind. The tavern had a small shrine to Haliaka, in a quite, shadowy corner where a slave girl could kneel out of sight when she prayed. For the first time, on impulse, Jani prayed before the figurine. "I have nothing to bring to you, Goddess, except my love and devotion. Bless me, Great One, and be merciful. Let my service be my sacrifice to you. Guide my life into a place of joy, My Lady, help me to become what you wish me to become."

Jani then hurried away, perplexed. She had prayed impulsively from her heart, not from any calculation in her mind, and so she was not entirely sure what, exactly, she had asked the Slave Queen of Heaven to do for her.

That very night, Hoel came to Jani, at an hour when she hadn't expect him. Since she had prayed to Haliaka that day, she'd felt that something new and important was going to happen. Now, standing over her, Hoel said, “I must stop dallying. Business calls me away from the city for a while. That is why I must do my best to set alight your slave fire before I depart. I have held back from my purpose too long, adoring you for your innocence. But the time has come for you to stand with your head held high among your lovely comrades in bondage.”

Jani gasped. “Ignition? M-Master, I don't think I can ignite. I have wanted to, but the goddess has not blessed me. Have pity on a frigid slave!”

Hoel laughed softly. “I doubt that you are frigid, apple blossom. Don't you see? You not fully realized the fact of your slavery. Many who are born free have a problem with the conflict. But how can a Ruk girl become fully a woman and fully a slave as long as her heart exists in two different places? You must decide where you wish your heart to dwell -- in the past or the future. Trust me, delightful one; I have opened the eyes and the hearts of so many other horse lancers, most of them not so tender as you. How furious some were when I first brought them in the door, naked and chain-braceleted. How defiantly they fought me in the silks for their pride. But all eventually surrendered to pleasure. Is there one of them in this house now whose eyes do not now flash with vivid slave-fire? Each in my arms at last opened her heart in abject surrender, and allowed joy to step in. Yield utterly and absolutely, sweet Jani, just as, one by one, they all did, and such a liberation shall be yours, also."

Jani did not think that such a thing possible, but she said nothing.

"I vow to protect you, as long as I live," Hoel continued. "The world outside is full of sorrow and emptiness. A serum girl by her very nature seeks sensuous slavery, just as all persons must seek food. This is, and shall be, your home and your port of safety. I have never sold a lancer girl, but should I ever need to, I vow that I will choose a buyer who will never demean her by taking away her collar. Should I die suddenly, my lawyers have already been directed to do the same.”

At that, Hoel began to engage with his newest slave in pleasure, and such a brolling never had Jani known before.

Hoel gave his girl no respite. She had learned much as a joy girl, but he wanted to teach her more. He was pushing her on and on, until she felt herself falling, as if over the edge of an abyss. Suddenly her back arched, her hips rose to press hard against his loins; he was deep inside her, but she wanted him deeper still. It was a moment like no other, it was the moment when everything changed. Over her there washed a inundation of joy and delight. Jani heard screaming sounds echo between the walls. They were her own.

A pleasure slave held on to her true and legal master, as if trying to drag his whole being into herself. It was as if her soul had been cast free amongst the stars, that she was allowed to fly loose from material flesh and to transform into a spirit ethereal. But the flesh called her back all too soon. Her back braced against the slik, she came volcanically. The slave fire scorched her vessels with its naked energy. Her whole past life flashed before her eyes. She remembered every orgasm of harlotry, but his was not an orgasm of harlotry. It was the release of a conquered and devoted slave. Before she swooned, she knew herself to be his possession, and felt herself part of him.

Hoel held her in her exhaustion, let her settle down. But her respite lasted only a moment before he mastered her again. Almost swooning at the end, she could not count the number of times that she had already been triggered to come. The taverner at last rolled away. Braced on his elbow, he gazed mildly into Jani's captivating face, a face that was certainly one of the most beautiful that he had ever beheld. He thought of the other passion slaves he had been with. They were women of perfection; he could never get his fill of them. “Dearest slave," he said finally, "I do believe that the goddess has blessed you with ignition.”

Jani gawked up at him, dazed. “I don't know, M-Master,” the girl stammered. “I don't know what ignition feels like.”

“From the way you look, you must be feeling something wonderful. You are feeling your translation from captive to true slave. The idea would have shocked you months ago, I think, but now it pleases and excites you, does it not?" He chuckled softly and stroked her pelt. She shuddered. So clearly, every particle of her magnificent body was erotically charged.

“Ah, naughty little Jani, your responds are purely instinctive. I think your passions have you completely enthralled.”

She blushed. “If – If this is ignition, my lord, it feels...very enjoyable.”

Her master nodded. “Do you feel your man-need like you never felt it before? Do you feel your slave-need?"

Jani's face changed with alarm. It was all true. She cried out in tears and shame. She had been defeated, so utterly defeated. She was no longer just slave to a man; she was slave to deep passions that her mind could never again control.

“Do not fault any other person for what has happened to you, and neither should you thank them,” said Hoel. “None enslaved you; you enslaved yourself. At your request, Haliaka has made your her true daughter. Never has she worked better magic than upon you girls of the First Horse Lancer Troop. Each of you is a magical gift to the world. You each have so much to offer. Each of you is like a houri sent from heaven, who must be treasured and protected, for diamonds, rubies, and sapphires all of you are.”

"Thank you, Master,” Jani gasped, pushing back the feeling that something had been lost and ended, while trying to grasp at a sensation of safety and contentment.

Hoel rose. "How dearly I would like to stay here with you to morning. But I must leave the city before dawn, if I am to reach my first stopping place by tomorrow's dusk." He picked up the discarded chastity belt as if doing so were some sort of a ritual. "You will not need this device further. You have come into your own."

That night, the night of Jani's ignition, was decades ago, but to this day in one of Hoel's establishments, there is a cup girl with the body of a passion slave and the spirit of a houri. She carries trays of wine between the close-packed tables of a siolat house, her movements so enticing that men sigh to see such a beauty go by. Rejuvenation serum has kept Jani's supernal beauty fresh and youthful. To see her in slave-face, pleasure silks and dagger-point heels is to want to broll her and, each day, many men do.

Since setting Jani's slave fire alight, Hoel has brought many more serum girls to his house, almost all of them veterans from the famous troop of lancers. Those who do not arrive ignited, he delights in igniting himself. The taverner's handling of his girls must be please the Goddess Haliaka very much, for his affairs have prospered consistently throughout the decades. Hoel has needed to buy a new tavern every few years to hold his growing collection of slave beauty, for he is loath to sell off any of his jewels. As a courtesy to his customers, the premier host of teh city instead rotates his vaecweis between different properties, so that many more men can gaze upon them with fresh eyes. Jani has been rotated several times already, so that there are none of her master's establishments that she is not intimately familiar with -- except for the new one. It seems that there is always a new one.

Jani's life story has been written by Mimriem. She has told the free serum girl that her life is one of nearly-continuous euphoria. She has declared herself proud that men cannot get enough of her. She has also wondered allowed how any woman can live a life objectively better.

As for Waylard, her biography, appearing in one of Mimriem's book, tells us that the selfish, bitter woman continued her treacherous ways unabated, until she finally went too far and was convicted of a serious crime. The judge ordered the former lancer to receive the vaec and the collar. Her misdeeds had disgraced her, and were too severe to allow for the leniency of the penal brothel. Waylard, regarded as a hardened criminal, was sent to an iron-slaver for training. All slaves fear the iron-slavers, specialists who break wenches roughly and rapidly. Under their tutoring, the ex-knight ignited within a week.

Sold in a rude market, Waylard was purchased and put to work as a tent-girl. Tent-masters are bawds who travel a circuit, often as part of a carnival, and at each stop their girls must kneel before a long row of men waiting to be served. Did Waylard's sanity survive this humiliating ordeal because she was strong? Or was it that her mind was saved by a miracle? Perhaps Haliaka takes note of a girl with special needs and blesses her accordingly. Waylard's case she seems to have infused her physical loveliness with the resilience and untrammeled lust of a vivacious natural whore.

But the mercy to Waylard did not stop there. Word at last came to Master Hoel that yet another former lancer had been enslaved. He remembered the glum, frowning Waylard as a former customer. That in itself was not remarkable; already many of his cup girls were former customers of his. Ignited, all were serving excellently. But of any beautiful female customer he had ever set eyes upon, it had been Waylard whom Hoel had most fancied adorning with his locking collar. Intrigued by the news that had come to him, Hoel sent an agent to purchase the tent girl and return with her. In one of his taverns, she was given the slave-name of "Veeda." And Veeda, whose slavery was already deep and indelible, did not disappoint him. How perfectly did pleasure silk set off her loveliness.

And it seems that Haliaka never turned her face away from the former tent girl who, from being a local bane, had become a blessing for the city. By Halika's grace, one who had been sour and calculating, had been remade as flirtatious free spirit. Jani, perhaps having been inspired by the Goddess, had never named her false friend Waylard as her betrayer. Because of this, Veeda settled easily into the tavern and became a popular wench there, not only with her master's customers, but among her sister cup girls, well-trained wenches who had been her former comrades in arms.

The End

Noel by Christopher Leeson now on Kindle

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Organizational:

DopplerPress

Audience Rating:

Restricted Audience (r)

If you carry your own punishment around with you, can you carry your own salvation?

NOEL

by Christopher Leeson

A hard man like Lee Scarpetta expected to die hard. But he didn't expect to be around afterwards to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman like Noel. Her assignment, she explained, was to be his friend, his mistress, his genie—and Lee could have everything he could wish for. Up to and including eternity—enough time to figure out what he really wanted in the Afterlife.

Sample

Lee "Dandyman" Scarp studied the fat man across the table like his life depended on it -- and maybe it did. Somebody'd squealed; Guido Gurina, the boss of Kansas City's rackets, had found out that some of Scarp's boys were dealing in joy powder -- and so now here was Gurina's underboss, "Joe Jelly" Madagino, wanting to "talk."

But ever since the obese mobster had opened his mouth, Scarp had mostly just sat and listened. "If you deal, you die," Joe was saying. A simple rule, that; Guido Gurina liked simple rules. Numbers were okay, juice, too. Hijacking, gambling, labor extortion -- that was just business. But drugs made the soldiers too rich too quickly and a man with money in the bank is a man "without respect," as the old guys put it. Worse, too many of the mugs dealing in hocus started using it themselves, which made for even worse problems.

"Your boys who've done this," the fat man said in the patois of the Italian ghetto, "they're as good as dead men, right."

Scarp knew that was a statement, not a question. "Right, Mr. Madagino," the young capo said with a nod, his mien as cold as the ice floating in his water glass. Scarp had an accent, too, but it was the dialect of Kansas City's roughneck neighborhoods, the lingo of the gin joints and pool halls, not Sicily.

"You'll give them up, then? Just like that? No lip, no trouble?" Joe Jelly was asking, his watery eyes slitted and suspicious.

"They knew the rule."

Joe nodded. "You are being reasonable. Good. You will take care of it yourself."

Again, Joe wasn't asking, he was telling. "I always take care of my own business," Scarp promised. "You can count on it."

"Benny, he is your cousin, I know. It is hard to kill family."

Scarp bit his thumb, an Old World gesture that the old Eyties still used. "If he's done wrong, if he's broken the rules, I'll kill him myself."

"You are one mean son of a bitch, Dandyman," Madagino laughed, his soft, repulsive body jiggling as he mimicked the clipped speech of the younger men.

Scarp would have promised the underboss anything just then, but his mind was already racing ahead. These worn-out geezers with their worn out ideas were beginning to crowd his style. The day was fast coming when he would have to take out the fat man, and Guido, too -- just like Luciano had done in New York. Even before this crisis, the don had only been waiting for the right moment to ice them. Earlier on, it might have been tricky finding enough hard men with the motivation to do it, but not now. The old guys had just supplied all the motivation that anyone would need. Cousin Benny and his pals in the dope trade would be glad to handle the job; they'd better be, if they wanted to live.

"Ughh!" grunted the fat man, gripping his spare tire with both hands.

"Indigestion, sir?" Scarp asked politely.

"Si!" laughed Joe Jelly, "I feel like I've been poisoned. Maybe we should hit Strollo!"

Scarp laughed, too. "That would be a shame. The old man makes the best ravioli in Kansas City."

Madagino heaved his gelatinous bulk up from his bench. "I got to take a crap!" he muttered. "I will be right back."

Scarp was left sitting alone at the table; he glanced absently across the room. The Christmas decorations were up -- big phony candy canes and rubber holly. Of more interest to the gangster was the cute number sitting at a corner table holding hands with a pasty faced accountant-type. Normally Scarp would have been over there in a flash, pushing the maggot out the door and muscling in on the frail, but this was no time for fun and games. There were funerals to think about.

He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. Lee Scarp, born Leon Scarpatto, was an up and comer in Midwestern crime; everyone knew it, and all the smart guys were watching him. He'd been giving Guido a case of the creeps -- and that was why the old man was riding him so hard lately. No soldier since Bugsy Siegel had risen to capo as quickly as Scarp. And why not? Scarp was at the top of his game, quick to see the smart dodges -- like the murder for hire he'd gotten into, like the narcotics. It was just too bad if Guido Gurina had rules that got in the way, because Scarp had rules of his own, and Rule Number One was that you don't get into Scarp's way with any of your rules. Not even a Guido Gurina got a pass from the up and coming future boss of Kansas City -- not for long, anyway.

The mobster idly studied the ruby sparkle in his wine glass, under the tacky chandelier reminded him of a cheap stage version of the Star of Bethlehem. He took that for a lucky sign, an omen that he was following his own star. He had ambition, Scarp did, and he'd been cutting deals big, sweet, under-the-table deals with the top bosses in some of the most powerful families as far away as Detroit. If he took out Guido and his lieutenant now, the other gangs would do squat. The Kansas City territory would fall into his lap like a bunch of grapes. It wouldn't be war; this was 1947, not 1929.

TG Themes:

Crime / Punishment

Revenge: A Story of Pleasure Island

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Revised and Reposted Version

REVENGE: A Tale of Pleasure Island

Version date Jan. 03, 2015

Author's Note: This is a new revision, with some small textual changes and illustrations added. I took a bit of experimentation to figure out how to put in images. I still need to learn how to do tables in BC html, and if I do, things should look even better. These illos are not all the same one appearing in the earlier posting of the story, at http://thefulltgshow.blogspot.com/search/label/pleasure%20is.... This story should serve as a general introduction to the universe of Pleasure Island. If anyone is inspired by it, or by the Mana Universe that it is a part of, they are invited to try their hand with stories of their own. (I'm sure I'd enjoy reading about Pleasure Island without having to do the work of writing the story myself first) :-) Pleasure Island was inspired in me partly from the evil island in the Pinocchio story (aren't we glad that they got off that donkey schtick?) and also by Fantasy Island. I want to keep these stories short, to make them easier to write to a conclusion, but to explore different facets of the subject in each one, and also the different reactions from the boys involved. Carl Boelke is mentioned in this tale; I'm gradually getting a revision of Carl's personal experience ready to post here at BC.

* * * * *

By Christopher Leeson

Version date 01-03-15

Dean Fontain was too wild for his sedate parents to control. But their neighbors, the Boelkes, recognized what their friends were going through and told them about the secret that had changed their lives: the secret of Pleasure Island. What the Fontains learned that night astonished them and they couldn't help but think that their neighbors were playing a bad joke. They were actually saying that their pretty and well-behaved daughter Carla used to be a very bad boy, Carl.

"That's ridiculous," said Mrs. Fontain. "I remember when you brought that precious little girl home from the hospital eighteen years ago."

Mrs. Boelke shook her head and almost smiled. "There's magic involved. The first time you saw Carl as a girl, the enchantment he brought from Pleasure Island put false memories into your mind. We remember what really happened because the island people give parents a protective charm, but everyone else sees no change when a boy comes back different. Because of the spell you can't remember how badly Carl behaved, and even that you complained that he was tempting your Dean into so much trouble.”

“No,” replied Mr. Fontain curtly, “we certainly don't remember anything like that.”

"It's all true," said Mr. Boelke. The neighbors then offered to let the Fontains wear their charms overnight, telling them that the enchanted metal would take away all their false memories. Dean’s parents thought the idea was silly, but still something made them both go along with the joke. But by morning they knew that it was no joke. The charms had worked like, well, like a charm. They had awakened up knowing everything about Carl Boelke. The pair immediately went over to their friends’ home.

Carla was there with them, finishing the breakfast dishes. She was a pretty, upbeat teen who usually dressed in a way that would catch the attention of the neighborhood boys. It was hard for the Fontains not to stare, now remembering what a sour loudmouth Carl Boelke had been.

To get some privacy for her visitors, Carla's mother gave the girl some money to spend at the ice cream shop. A minute later, Carla had gone out the door and the four adults were left free to confer.

"How did you find out about Pleasure Island?" Mrs. Fontain asked.

"A friend at the hospital told me," replied her neighbor. "She had a boy who was hooked up with drug dealers and she had found out about Pleasure Island just in time to save him. Now he's a cheerleader who's doing well in school."

Mr. Fontain reached into his pocket and handed back the charms. "These things took the wool away from our eyes. We'd give almost anything if Dean were just as well behaved as your Carla is, even if it means that we have to exchange a son for a daughter. But can't the Island people fix a boy's bad personality without changing his sex, too?"

"All I'm sure of is that there's a good reason why they don’t want to do it that way. A sexual reversal gives off an energy that they call mana and they're able to capture and store it for use later. A gender change is actually not what they're after; it’s just a by-product of the mana-harvesting."

Mr. Fontain frowned. "What exactly is mana?"

Mr. Boelke looked at him very seriously. "All we know is what we've been told. Mana is what magic is made of, and it's also the energy that makes some babies develop into males in the womb. Developing infants who don't have the mana-absorbing gene are born female. Have you see films about how a boy and girl fetus look exactly the same until after a period of development? They develop into different sexes because the baby with the mana-gene is drawing in mana that enables its development into a male.

"Remove that energy from a male, even when he is fully grown, and he will go to the human default form, female. Younger males have the most potent mana, so the wizards do all they can to recruit mana donors at a young age. But not at too young an age, because exploiting children is against another one of their rules. With parental consent, they can take the mana from an older child, because Pleasure Island has a law that says that a child is not a legal adult until twenty-one. If on Pleasure Island, a contract with the parents or legal guardian is makes donation without the boy's consent legal to to that age of maturity. They are not very much interested in taking mana from males over twenty-one for some reason."

"Hiring wizards must be expensive," Mr. Fontain suggested.

“Not very,” said Mr. Boelke.

This surprised the other couple. “Are you saying that they don’t care about money because because what they are really after is the mana?" asked Mrs. Fontain.

“It seems so. In fact, I've heard that they can make gold out of lead; money means little to them. They want mana."

"You're lucky that Carla turned out to be so pretty," Mrs. Fontain said. "I felt so sorry for the homely girls at my old school. They always seemed either angry or sad. A lot of the angry ones became feminists."

Mrs. Boelke shook her head. "Becoming girls won't necessarily, make a boy pretty. Beauty is in their genes. But the Island people explained that ex-boys are always happiest as girls if they're popular. If sent home after the shock of having a sex-change, they might lash out and cause trouble. But if a boy is popular with his friends, it’s easier to enjoy his new life. Haven’t you noticed that except for Hollywood actors, popular people don't usually become troublemakers? They offered for no extra charge to use a little of Carl's mana to power a magic spell to make him angelic-looking, no matter what his genes said."

“What's the island like? They aren't rough with the boys, are they?” asked Mrs. Fontain.

"Not at all," Mr. Boelke assured them. "The management gives them all sorts of ways to have innocent fun. But any boy can get himself into trouble if he's determined to make the effort. Once our fees were paid, the Island's reservation office sent Carl a registered letter. It said that he had won a free two-week vacation on Pleasure Island. That's the usual ploy they use to lure boys there without arousing suspicion.

"Carl was the type that didn't trust anything, so he checked on the internet and found that Pleasure Island really existed. He also found out that it was an independent island entirely without blue laws that affect older teens: no curfews, legalized drugs and bawdy shows, and a very low drinking age. He told us he was thinking about going. That's when we tried some negative psychology, telling him that it sounded like he would be allowed to run wild in Europe and that we didn’t think that it seemed like a good idea. He absolutely insisted on going after that.”

"Remembering what Carl used to be like,” said Mrs. Fontain, “I can understand how you would have been made desperate. But I can't believe that our Dean is totally bad, deep down. Pleasure Island seems so drastic."

Mr. Boelke smiled. As a neighbor of many years, he knew that Dean was Dennis the Menace to the nth degree, and had also been a thief and a vandal, a good Sundance Kid to Carl's Butch Cassidy. "We had to take the Island's word for it,” he explained, “but their people tell us that the magic doesn't work on good kids. They won't even accept boys that don't already have a long record of getting into trouble. They also won't take on faith everything that parents and guardians say about a boy. Some people might have motives to lie. Instead, they do their own background checks. In a little while, they confirmed that Carl's record was perfectly awful. Our councilor said that anyone as good at being naughty as our son would change very rapidly on Pleasure Island."

"Incredible," said Mrs. Fontain.

"They told us how it worked. On the enchanted island, bad behavior creates some sort of mystical catalyst, an energy field that allows the boy's mana to be tapped. Every day, bad boys acting bad will lose mana and that will make them more and more girlish, physically. At the same time, the Island enchantment starts the beauty-magic flowing. In a couple of weeks, they become lovely examples of the feminine sex. But because it's magical, the transformation happens under a powerful illusion. Certain psychic boys are able to see other guests changing, but they can almost never see anything strange about their own reflections. Once they reach the point of complete physical and genetic femininity, they'll remain girls, even after they leave the Island.

"Because the illusions conceal the truth, a boy won't become frightened or try to escape. As soon as he becomes a true she, a boy is able to see what they really look like and that's always a shock. But while they are still in a daze, that's the time to send them home. The management gives him -- her -- new identity papers and puts her on a plane. That is, unless her parents have already contracted to have the boy -- the former boy, that is -- sent to one of the special schools on the mainland. The schools will board transformed boys and help speed along their adjustment to the thousand and one details of living life in a new sex. We understand that their record of success is very high."

"I can imagine that Carl would have been furious," ventured Mrs. Fontain.

Mr. Boelke nodded. “We'd thought that he'd have become easier to handle as a girl, but he -- she -- wasn't. We had to ask Pleasure Island for help."

"You sent him -- her -- to a school?" asked Mr. Fontain.

“No, we didn't want to send her away. They have sleep-teaching CDs that are very low-priced. But we thought we needed professional help, so we chose the option of a private tutor, one who was licensed with the resort. The lady found a rental house over in Oakdale and we had Carla stay with her. Carla was a much better person when she came back. She had even started to like boys. That's good, because to attract a boy, a girl will naturally want to look and act the way that the popular girls do."

"I noticed she likes miniskirts," Mrs. Fontain offered.

"Yes. Carla's also making frequent trips to the beauty parlor and I've even seen her practicing how to walk like in the mirror."

The Fontains looked into one another's faces, amazed and thinking about the possibilities.

* * * *

Dean's parents did some discreet inquiry and were able to back up independently many of the things that the Boelkes had been telling them. They wondered; did the government know that boys were being turned into girls? It had to be against the law, but, then again, crime and terrorism was everywhere and the administration was dong nothing to stop it. There were so many laws that no one was enforcing, it was small wonder that wizards could get away with anything, too. The couple used the contact number that the Boelkes had provided and started a negotiation with the resort representatives. In a week, the Island called back. They had confirmed that Dean was by all accounts a very bad kid. They said that they would be pleased to help change him for the better on Pleasure Island. It wasn't long before the younger Fontain was on a plane bound for his vacation spot. In just over two weeks, he -- she -- was back.

Like most former boys, Dean -- now Deanne -- was fit to be tied. She bawled out her folks and promised to call in the law for child abuse. That didn't go well. Social services only suggested to the Fontains that their daughter needed psychotherapy. Also, everyone in the neighborhood had magically forgotten about Dean. Whenever she told anyone the truth, she only creeped them out and sounded like a nut case. When she got some documents proving she had been male, the bureaucrats simply corrected the errors and made her officially female from birth. She sulked in her room for days, until concocting a scheme to get even. If her folks were expecting to get a good girl out of all this, she was going to give them just the opposite. She intended to make them sorry that they had ever asked for a daughter.

Deanne had a stash of cash left over from Dean's occasionally illegal activities. This she used to buy the sexiest outfits on the Internet and went to school wearing them. Her parents were scandalized, but she didn’t stop there. She did everything she could to upset them. And Deanne was always very public about her misbehavior, wanting the whole town to know that the Fontains didn't know how to raise a girl right.

Moreover, being just as hormonal as Deanne as ever Dean was, she hooked up with the best-looking gay girls in school and openly took them to the hot spots. That cost a lot, and so she started stealing again. At first, Deanne didn't care much for girl-on-girl sex, but it was an acquirable taste and she started to go along with it more and more. She also began casting her net wider to get action out of some of the naive and inexperienced girls who weren't natural lesbians. Best of all, Deanne knew that her folks, being traditional types, were being devastated by all the scandalous talk.

Then, one day, the pattern changed. Deanne noticed how super the class president, George Gravely, looked. She tried to fight the attraction, but over the next few days she realized that a lot of other dudes were looking ultra-cool, too. She thought she was losing her mind. Even though the rebellious young miss used her formidable will power to steer clear of the attractive boys, she would lie awake for hours having fantasies about being with them. As for the girls, it soon became hard even to remember their faces. How could she, with boys occupying so much of her mind? Pretty soon, Deanne thought she'd burst if she didn't soon get her arms around a real live boy.

Deanne didn't know that her desperate parents had sent for a set of Pleasure Island sleep-teaching discs. Deanne would hear the lessons subliminally, without being aware that she was receiving lessons that urged her to accept new patterns of behavior and attitudes that were socially current with other teenaged girls. Each night after midnight, the hidden device in Deanne room would start up and play discs. The one that it never failed to play was called "The Lesbian Cure."

After a couple weeks, the programming of the Cure had begun to affect her thoughts and actions. Deanne's revenge plot fell apart, totally, as she stopped hanging with the girls, but instead thought about coming up with lots of different excuses to meet boys. At first, when cornered all alone with some randy guy, she'd get furious at all the aggressive kissing and groping. But her sleep-teaching was telling her not to be a quitter and so Deanne always came back for more. In fact, she even lost her old attitudes against having sex with boys. She was coming to be like the girl she might have been had she been born female originally and she wasn't always choosy about whom she hooked up with. The wild and crazy ones – especially the band guys -- were her favorites.

But if she wasn't choosy, Deanne also wasn't always wise -- certainly not about safe sex.

A few months of intense social activity, life slammed her with a shocking surprise. As soon as the Fontain's discovered what was bothering their daughter, they moved swiftly. Every night, in every room in the house, they secretly played the disc "Proud Mommy, Happy Mommy."

Deanne graduated and had her baby three months later. It didn't take long for the vigorous, healthy young woman to get her figure back. Needing a job, she signed with a modeling agency, which sounded like easy work. It didn't turn to be as easy as she had assumed, but it suited her well enough. At first, Deanne attracted wide notice for doing cheesecake-style car and motorcycle advertising, and then her agent lined her up with some really glamorous gigs, swimsuit modeling and lingerie ads, first in the print media, and then on television. Her career was going so swimmingly that it was like Deanne had fairy godparents looking out for her. She was able to assist with the increased household expenses by contributing generously. Furthermore, as a proud and happy parent herself, she started putting some money each month into a child's college fund.

The End

The Beauty and the Beast by Aladdin, Chapter 1

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Serial Chapter

Genre:

Science Fiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

A story of Necromantra

By Aladdin

Edited by Christopher Leeson

Written 2005
Revised 06-30-2022

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The back story of Necromantra, a supporting character in MANTRA Magazine (Malibu Comics), is rich and complex. Ultraverse fans remember Necromantra as the Ultraverse’s most powerful and outrageously evil femme fatale. This novella, The Beauty and the Beast, continues and concludes the four-part Necromantra miniseries published in 1995.

Necromantra, the Arielles, the Tradesmen, the Darkur, and the Aerwa, are original creations of Malibu Comics and are copyrighted by Marvel Comics, Inc.
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Chapter 1

Guided by moonglow and starlight, I was following a cart lane through the heart of a cornfield. But with every step I took, I wondered more and more how I came to be where I was. What did I have to do with cornfields? Disoriented, without bearing, I looked up to find the North Star, perplexed to be unable to recognize any of the jewel-bright constellations.

In trying to recall the reason for my journey, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know my own name.

In fact, I could remember nothing at all prior to this moment.

Puzzled about my own identity, I glanced down and beheld a stranger’s body wearing an ankle-length cloak. I started to touch myself and found that my hands and arms felt smooth. I must have been young and that surprised me. But I was more surprised that the silhouette of my hands against the moon’s aura looked like a woman’s.

Why had I been assuming that I was a male?

My hands, exploring beneath my cloak, discovered a contoured body, firm and slender. This was unmistakably a woman’s body, so how could I have forgotten anything so fundamental as my own sex?

A coarse sound broke the silence and I took for granted that it was a crow's call. But how could I identify a crow’s cry while being unable to remember who I was? I ducked as the fearless thing flew past my head and settled to the earth amid a crisscross of lunar shadows. My lips suddenly felt tight. Only belatedly did I realize that this facial sensation was a smile.

I said to the avian, "Aren’t you supposed to be a day-bird, Master Crow? What’s brought you out so late?" My soft, high-pitched voice sounded unfamiliar to me.

Ahead, beyond the bird, I noticed a table set up and thought it looked very out of place in a farmer’s field. My stepping toward it caused the crow to scurry from my path. I saw the table was cluttered with cups, dishes and platters, and there were stools enough for several people. Had there been a picnic, a sort of harvesters’ feast? But where were the feasters? Had they eaten their fill and departed, leaving everything behind? Or had they fled away in sudden fear?

But why should I be thinking about fear and flight? Was it because I had myself been frightened just before my memory vanished? I though I did sense anxiety at the back of my mind. What was I afraid of? Was it something other than this location's darkness, loneliness, and emptiness?

I made out a child's teddy bear propped up on one of the stools. The sight of it made me feel sad. Would the child return and reclaim its stuffed pet, or would the bear languish here, its cloth rotting, its seams breaking, its every fiber of stuffing stolen away to make bird nests? But wasn’t that Nature’s way? The detritus of death ever supports the arrival of new life.

But beyond the table hung an even sadder sight -- an executed man suspended from a cross. Had he been a murder victim or a punished criminal? If the latter, who had chosen to make his place of execution a lonely spot in a cornfield?

I stepped closer. With relief, it became clear that that this was no tragedy. It was a comedy. I saw not a corpse but a scarecrow, a crude homunculus tied to a wooden frame. A small sound, a laugh, escaped my throat. Here was a scarecrow and only a few yards away was a bold crow scratching for grubs.

While turning away I heard a rustle behind me. Pivoting back, I espied no bestial night-prowler but a wandering girl-child, one who surely should not have been out by herself at such an hour.

Though the young one must have seen me plainly, she deigned not to glance my way. I watched her place a stool beneath the scarecrow, a stool like one of those around the table. Upon this she nimbly climbed, stood up, and reached out to touch the effigy’s carved-pumpkin head.

I heard myself saying, "Girl, are you lost? Do you need help to find your way home?"

As if I had not spoken, the child got down from the stool without reply and walked into the forest of corn, her steps making no more sound than a field mouse.

I stood wondering. Had I seen a living child, or was it a ghost? I went forward and put a hand upon the seat of the seat, making sure that it was wooden and not phantasmagorical. The stool felt real. Did that mean that the girl had been real also? I sighed. Poor creature. If she had been a ghost she I would not have to fear for her happiness. She would not need to fear the night nor endure the pangs of loneliness. Ghosts contentedly existed beyond the boundaries of human sorrow. Or I at least assumed they did.

With that thought still in my mind, I beheld a carmine glint upon the ground. Going to the spot, I sank to one knee and reached out, touching something small and as smooth as glass. I held this discovery up to the moonlight and saw it flash again, like a ruby in a metal setting. And it did have a setting, to which a thin, supple chain was attached. The pendant's glittering fascinated my sight.

"Go back," someone to my rear said, his voice rough and cracked.

I turned but beheld only moonlit stalks of corn. Who had spoken? Was the field haunted after all?

For no reason, a child's rhyme floated to the surface of my mind: Birdie with the yellow bill hopped upon my window sill, cocked its shining eye and said....

What did it say?

"Go back."

I looked at the crow and smiled ruefully. So that was what the birdie with the yellow bill had wanted to say!

*****

The next thing I knew, I heard the thin, weak lungs of a woman screaming.

How it surprised me to realize that I was the person making such an alarming noise.

I tried to sit up but found I could move neither my arms nor legs. Was this sleep paralysis? As I came more awake I realized I was bound by cords and tied to a frame – perhaps a rack. Was I someone’s captive?

Voices were speaking, unintelligible voices, but I listened nonetheless. Little by little, I started to understand the conversation, though not the foreign words. I mean, I heard gibberish, but meaningful thoughts began to register on my mind. Why was that so? Were these speakers projecting their thoughts, or was I a mind reader?

"Have you succeeded, wizard?" one asked. This speaker’s voice was strange-toned and hard; I drew the impression that I would dislike him if I met him.

"I believe so, Tradesman," replied the ‘wizard.’ "It is a pernicious devil, this Soul-Rider. Our spells have weakened its grip, but it it will take the determined desire of the witch herself to truly banish it. She commands great power and if her wish to be cleansed is strongly enough rooted, she will set herself free."

“Her control by a defiant demon renders her a useless asset,” said the wizard’s intimidating companion. “If she does not rid herself of it, she might as well be destroyed.”

As I listened, I began to realize that somewhere behind the curtain of forgetfulness I had formerly lived a life of my own.

What a pity that the first memory coming back to m e was that I was a murderer, that I had murdered many times over. I did not like knowing that, but I liked even less recollecting that the last person whom I had slain had been the very person that I had loved most in the world.

I began wishing that I could cover over these terrible memories again.

But I couldn’t.

“Do you wish to die?” the Tradesman asked me.

I was continuing to remember things, mostly bad things. I had been made a prisoner, a slave. I was told I belonged to an alien race called the Tradesmen.

My interrogators were three of these Tradesmen and the location was a nearly empty room with little in it except for chairs for the use of my self-declared masters.

All were of the same build, barrel-chested, and dressed alike. Their outfits were very utilitarian – canvas-colored suits with many pockets. The most inhuman thing about them showed in their legs, which were articulated like those of bovine beasts. I had never seen them without full-face helmets with tinted lenses to conceal their eyes. But these heavy masks had a mechanistic appearance that reminded me of breathing devices. Did these creatures have a problem with the atmosphere that seemed quite normal to me? If they had weaknesses, I wanted to learn what they were.

As their name suggested, trade was the business of this race. More than a business, trade seemed to give purpose to their existence. It seemed incongruous that emotionless beings could be driven by greed and acquisitiveness. I was still getting used to the idea that I was one of the commodities that they had in stock.

More memories were returning. I recalled that I was a powerful witch, but yet I had somehow I had been taken captive. I knew that conditions, intellectually, to be degrading, but then why I feel so strangely detached from my fate?

“You do not answer me,” said the Tradesman.

I regarded his masked face and murmured, “I’ve forgotten the question.”

He repeated the interrogative. “Do you wish to die?”

“Yes, sir, I do wish to die.”

I unable to see it, I felt the frown under his mask. “Why do some human beings value their lives so casually?”

“Sometimes humans value their lives greatly, but a change of mood can make them indifferent to death.”

“Would your mood be improved if you are informed that the demon that afflicts you can be removed?”

“I wouldn’t believe you.”

“It is true. You can be free from its influence, at a price.”

I looked off to the side and sighed. “I’m sure that I wouldn’t care for the terms you ask.”

“In that you stand in error,” the Tradesman replied. “The price shall be entirely acceptable to you.”

“You miscalculate,” I said.

“We shall see. Come.”

The three Tradesmen fell in as a group and I followed them. A short distance away was a bleak room where I’d been kept and experimented upon by human-looking wizards. It made me wonder why they used human wizards. Were the Tradesmen themselves unable to wield magical power?

If so, that might be another possible weakness.

But I saw something in the room that had not been there before. It looked like a glass coffin. “Look through the transparent lid,” the talkative Tradesmen said. I complied and the sight within sickened my heart and started my limbs quaking.

“You bastards!” I shouted.

“This is the human being you killed,” said one of the Tradesmen. “What feelings does it’s appearance invoke in you?”

“It sickens me!”

“Be more precise.”

“It makes me feel shame. I would rather die than look at it.”

“Would you continue to register shame if you were aware that the girl-child can be brought back to life?”

“Back to life?” I echoed.

“The young female may be revived. Our doing so shall be your payment for accepting a binding contract with us. If you do not, her condition shall be a permanent one.”

I looked at him incredulously. “How can she be revived?”

“It is well known to you that your foe Boneyard resurrected his own slain minions many times. Have you never wondered how the necromancer came by a spell so remarkable?”

I made a guess. “He purchased it from – the Tradesmen?”

“At a very high price. On the contrary, your master Archimage chose to spurn our offer. He continued to war with his enemy using inferior sorcery and was utterly vanquished.”

“Boneyard himself lived only a few months longer than Archimage did,” I reminded the alien.

The Tradesman, ignoring my interruption, said, “We have preserved the body in this maintenance capsule. Her bodily damage has been repaired and Princess Arielle needs only the spark of life to resume the life you took from her.”

“I am the wrong person to negotiate with,” I said.

“Our analysis disagrees. You will consent to our terms and she will be conducted to her home in safety, to live her a normal life amongst her own people.”

I shook my head, more in amazement than negation. With so few words the creature had me backed into a corner. I searched my mind to dredge up enough inner darkness to permit me to refuse.

My dark side argued that the most kindest act would be to leave Arielle dead. What did she have to come back to? What was life except a veil of sorrows? Princess Airelle had had paid the price to be free of it. If she returned to life, she the suffering would happen again. She would have to be sad again, would have to die again.

But, yet….

“What exactly do you want from me?” I heard myself asking.

“Swear fealty. Be scrupulously obedient. Be the dedicated servitor of any party who becomes your purchaser. Commit yourself to the fulfillment of his every desire for as long as Princess Airelle lives.”

“If Airelle returns to Ulik,” I protested, “Lord Pumpkin will kill her again.” The magical monster had hated the royal family of Ulik. Airelle’s father had become Ulik’s high prince only because he was only member of the dynasty that the Pumpkin had not got around to destroying.

“Lord Pumpkin is gone from the Godwheel. It is possible that he will not return in the girl’s lifetime,” the Tradesman said.

“I still don’t care for your terms,” I declared.

“But yet you will accept them.” He’d said that as a statement, not a question.

I was quiet for a moment before asking, “What if I swear falsely? Why would you trust me to respect such an odious bargain?”

“Because we know we are addressing the knight Thanasi, not the demon. Our available documentation informs us that Sir Thanasi was a man of his word. Also, you have the certain knowledge that if you do not hold to every particular of your commitments, the girl will be found by us and returned to death.”

I felt tempted to say yes, but why should I care about one single girl? Was she more important than the death of my every best friends in exchange for a long life? I had worn a practical suit of armor, but my real armor had been my utter shamelessness.

“Will you make the compact?” the masked urged.

Would I or wouldn’t I?

As I saw things, I had no choice at all.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2
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APPENDIX TO THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

The History of Thanasi

By Aladdin

Edited by Christopher Leeson

In the mid-Fifth Century, Archimage. a wizard exile from the Godwheel, arrived on Earth to recruit fighting men. He had to form an elite bodyguard to protect himself from his necromancer brother, Boneyard. Two of his recruits were Lukasz and Thanasi, fighting men who had already demonstrated prowess amid the constant warfare that driven the Roman Empire to the precipice of its fall.

The two men began a centuried life as comrades fighting against Boneyard and his agents. Whenever they became battle casualties, Archimage used magic to place their souls into new bodies. In all that time, neither Archimage nor Lukasz had cause to doubt the nobility of Thanasi’s character or his loyalty.

Then, in the modern age, Archimage discovered that one of his band had betrayed him. Before he could defend himself, Boneyard struck. The knights were slaughtered to a man and Archimage was taken captive.

But Archimage had a contingency plan prepared. At the moment of disaster, a pre-prepared spell was triggered and the soul of the slain Lukasz was transmigrated into the body of a young divorced mother named Eden Blake. Archimage had chosen her from among many as part of his plan, for Eden was an ultra of great magical potential. Though Lukasz was shocked to awaken to life in such a shape, he grudgingly adjusted both to womanhood and the use of sorcery. He was, of course, strongly motivated to find and free Archimage in hopes of restoring his manhood by means of the latter’s vast magical capability.

Lukasz, having called his female persona Mantra, came to discover that the knights’ betrayer had been his own best friend Thanasi. Boneyard had bribed knight by offering him the ability to steal bodies at will, effectively making him immortal. But in the process, the noble warrior underwent a radical personality change. He became murderous and his attitude toward Lukasz had become one of wild hostility. The traitor professed to fear Lukasz’s vengeance and was therefore obsessed with destroying him first.

Their feud becoming more bitter, Lukasz grew committed to the death of Thanasi. He saw the rogue knight as not only a threat to Mantra’s life, but also to the friends and family he had acquired while living the life of Eden Blake.

During Mantra’s early adventures, she faced overwhelming difficulty and was approached by an alien race called the Tradesmen. They offered Mantra aid in exchange for her her next-born child. Mantra laughed and agreed, intending to never have any such child.

Lukasz, meanwhile, had learned that the spirit of Eden Blake still had connections to her former body. The two of them established telepathic communication and out of this platonic intimacy love bloomed. At last, with the help of the ultra Pinnacle, Lukasz managed to transfer his soul into the empty shell of a male clone, thereby leaving Mantra’s body in to Eden. But at the moment that he exited Eden’s body, Thanasi's soul entered it, taking control and keeping Eden’s spirit suppressed.

The two ex-knights faced off, but both were whisked off to the mega-world called the Godwheel. Arriving there safely, the pair renewed their feud.

Later, defeated in battle, Thanasi’s spirit retreated into limbo, but continued to haunt the proximity of Eden Blake. When Lukasz and Eden returned home to Earth, they made love for the first time and this resulted in an unnaturally swift pregnancy. They were suddenly the parents of a baby girl, whom they named Marinna. Thanasi, in possession of the child, magically accelerated its bodily development, becoming an adult witch who dubbed herself Necromantra. The sorceress kidnapped Eden and also her daughter Evie, intending to drain their magic and increase her own.

Lukasz, aided by Pinnacle, traced Necromantra to her lair and engaged with her. There as Thanasi’s prisoner, Eden joined in the fight but was struck down. With her dying breath, she urged Lukasz to take back her body and save both himself and Evie. Lukasz complied and the restored Mantra fought and defeated Necromantra. Mantra cast her hated enemy into a dimensional rift which led to some unknown place. The villainess vanished and Lukasz was left hoping that she was finally dead.

Nonetheless, Necromantra survived. The warp led to a medieval-style human kingdom located on the Godwheel. Left powerless from her ordeal, she was rescued from the attack of a giant snake by the intervention of a nobly-born maiden named Arielle, assisted by her father’s hunting party.

The father, a local ruler named Tavon, took a fancy to the mystery woman and Necromancer accepted his suit, but only for self-serving ends. She sought out a wizard for advice on how to regain her full power and was told that she must sacrifice an enemy, a beloved, and also a magic-user. She accomplished this by slaying the serpent, her husband, and the wizard.

Afterwards, the witch assumed authority as queen-regent on behalf of the minor Arielle. The grieving teen remained unaware that her stepmother was her father’s murderer. Necromantra’s rule was tyrannical and warlike. When the Tradesmen informed her that she had been born to be their slave, (due to Mantra’s promise), Necromantra fought back. She called up a horned demon and its attack destroyed a powerful Tradesman.

The determined Tradesman redoubled their efforts to claim their prize. They summoned a new ally, an evil artificial being called Lord Pumpkin. When his first attack on Necromantra failed, the Tradesman enhanced his power by means of a magical red jewel. So armed, his next attack was successful. To save herself, Necromantra once more summoned the demon. To empower itself, it took Arielle as a human sacrifice. Nonetheless, Necromantra was defeated and captured by the Tradesmen. The aliens took both her and the body of Aierelle away with them.

At the last scene of the mini-series, Necromantra is seen walking along a benighted country lane. We are not given to understand what this vignette represents, if it is real or if it is no more than a vision or dream experienced by the captive Necromantra.

Necromantra would reappear in three of the last Mantra stories, when Lauren Sherwood, not Lukasz, has become Mantra. This incident is retold in our story The Wounded World.

Shortly after, Malibu Comics ceased publication at the dictates of its new owner, Marvel Comics. To date, it has not recanted its decision.

When addressing plot of The Beauty and the Beast, the author set himself to the task of explaining how Thanasi could have convincingly changed from a noble knight to a vicious witch. The author pit this question directly to Mantra-creator Mike Barr, who never addressed the answer convincingly. This mystery is at the core of the present story.

NOTE: Necromantra’s appearance in the previous story The Wounded World. was an alternate-world version of Necromantra. This story places Necromantra in what we present as the original Ultraverse. We would hope that something like this would occurred if the original comic series had continued.

End

The Beauty and the Beast by Aladdin, Chapter 2

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Serial Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Written 2006

Posted 07-20-22
Revised 07-21-22

THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, CHAPTER 2

A story of Necromantra

By Aladdin

Edited by Christopher Leeson

After my capitulation to the Tradesmen, I was sold as a chattel slave to King Q’zon of the Darkur race. His people have long been engaging in an interminable war against another dominant non-human species, one called the Aerwa. The Darkur are violent and brutish. In contrast, I sized up their foes as being less repulsive, both in nature and appearance. Both tribes are capable of magic and from a distance their sorcery-charged battles look light shows. Though the Darkur will do anything to win, they have lately been getting the worse of the conflict.

Physically, the Darkur resemble big-framed humans loaded down with muscles. They have brutal faces, pointed ears, and come in divers colors. A single family might display as many hues as a bowl of Easter eggs. But the most noteworthy aspect of their race is the fact that they have shape-shifting abilities. It allows for them to morph into more destructive forms, most of them as ugly as a drug addict’s feverish nightmares.

But their metamorphic powers have limitations. As far as I can see, they can choose the general type of creature that they wish to become, but cannot refine their shape-shifting to allow them to impersonate specific beings, not even other Darkur. This skill must be magical in origin, for it allows them to more than double their size and, for all I could tell, their mass, too. This is something that Earth science holds to be impossible.

Of course, the more I learn about the true nature of the universe, the less respect I have for Earth science.

The best Darkur fighters are those able to create weapons out of their own bodies – including strangling tentacles, organic spears, or jets of acid. Nonetheless, they have hand-held weapons, including energy-discharging small arms that I would call “blasters.” They seldom employ mechanized weapons of war.

Q’zon had purchased me to serve him as a super weapon against their enemies. Ironically, I hated the Darkur more than I did the Aerwa, though those were the ones I was supposed to oppose. And I don't see my attitude as being quirky; to know the Darkur is to hate them.

To keep the Tradesmen happy, I scrupulously did as told. Through my service with Archimage’s knights I’d become a capable military strategist, but I avoided volunteering military advice to the Darkur, lest it be too helpful. I had to keep my resistance passive, unfortunately, for any overt treachery on my part was certain to get both me and Airelle executed. My uselessness in military planning caused Q’zon to size me up as dim-witted, which was fine with me. The less expected from me, the better I liked it. In truth, though I was slaying hundreds of the Aerwan foe merely by following orders, I could have slain thousands if I'd wanted to and I was left free to do my own planning.

Being in the Darkur kingdom was like being thrown into into a cage of hungry lions – a fate that I actually have experienced, given my long life. Their sports were bloody battle games and their whole society seemed to get it jollies from killing and destroying. Even Earth’s Nazis would have come off as courtly gentlemen in comparison. One of the most disconcerting habits of the Darkur was their determination to feed on the flesh of their enemies. Oddly, they seemed to think such culinary homage was the supreme compliment to a worthy foe.

Be that as it may, I would have preferred to be eaten by a Darkur rather go to bed with one of them – or with a hundred of them, which was hardly unheard of in Darkur. Fortunately, the Darkur hold some races, including humans, to be repulsive. They are no more attracted to humans than humans are to farm animals. Oh, admittedly, there are perverts in both races, but I took care to keep clear of that sort of Darkur. One reason I could hold them at bay was the fact that I let them know very early on that I was as lethal as all hell.

I never met a Darkur with a good nature, but – within limits – one could earn their respect. A person had to do this in a practical way – by demonstrating his proficiency at killing them.

So, living among psychotic monsters had become my way of life. It was something I had to endure in order to keep Arielle safe. Loving and protecting someone who hated me with a passion wasn’t so bad. If kept up long enough, it can actually make one feel like a good person.

And feeling that way was something that I’d been missing out on for a long while.

Incidentally, the Tradesmen had permitted me to speak to Arielle soon after her restoration to life. I’d wanted to confirm that this person supposedly back from the dead was truly Arielle and not some magical simulation or impostor.

In talking to her, I became convinced that she was truly whom she claimed to be. The girl, by the way, remembered being seized by the Beast prior to being lost to oblivion, but she didn’t quite understand where it had come from. I told her the truth on that point, but Arielle continued to feel kindly toward me. That was not the reaction that I had been looking for.

I told her that I had to leave soon and urged that she go home and forget about me. I tried to appear cold and matter of fact, as if I didn’t care anything about her. Her kindness and sympathy hurt me, and why not? Kindness is overrated. It plays into the hands of the trickster and exploiter, while doing little good for the benevolent and compassionate.

“Marinna, you shouldn’t have agreed to slavery just for my sake!” she had admonished me once. “Your life is too precious to be thrown away on my account.”

“How can you say that?” I asked. “I murdered you. I owe you.”

“I understand that, but you were the victim of the beast who was possessing you.”

“Be that as it may, the beast might still come back and I don’t want you anywhere near me when it does.”

She shook her head. “My father is dead. My living kin are strangers to me, except for one cousin. If I return to Ulik, the aristocracy will never allow me to rule in my own right. Different factions will use me as a political pawn, expecting me to marry whatever warlord they’re backing at the moment. I’d be better off at your side. Maybe my love can give you the strength you need to hold the monster at bay.”

“It’s just the opposite! The beast is determined to kill everyone whom I most love. That’s why it picked on you!”

She perked up. “So you’re admitting you love me! Let’s go with that!”

“No, I won’t accept your love. You should hate and avoid me. Your forgiveness is misplaced because you don’t know the half of what I've done. If you did know, it would make you despise me.”

“What’s the other half?”

“Don’t force it. It’s too painful.”

“No, tell me! It may be less terrible than you think. I will try very hard to forgive you. Besides, this secret clearly bringing you pain. Maybe it will stop hurting if you shared it.”

“Oh, Arielle! You’re a sweet child, but you need to become an adult if you’re going to survive. The cardinal lesson of life is to never forgive a wrong! Never give any person the benefit of the doubt. Instead, search out his secrets until you know what game he's playing! Scoundrels always ask for toleration because toleration leaves them free to injure the people they want to injure.”

She shook her head. “There is bad in all of us, Marinna, but look at yourself. You are not asking for toleration now, so how can you be evil? What I see in you is a woman ready to sacrifice everything for those she cares about. You can’t expect me to believe that you can't break free of the Tradesmen’s grip if you want to. You are staying to protect me. What I want is for you to escape now and let me go with you!”

I shook my head in pity – pity for myself, mostly. “You can’t come with me, Airelle. I am bound for nowhere. Every path I take is just another byway into darkness.”

“That may change in time,” she said.

“Don’t think that way. Love and trust are the quickest shortcuts to ruin and death.”

She shook her head. “Without love and trust, why should I want to continue living?”

“You will change your ways someday,” I told her. “We all do. The brutalities of life defeats us in the end. They can corrupt even a saint. The sooner you change your outlook, the better you’ll prosper.”

“If that's what you think, tell me why should I want to go on living?”

“I'm only trying to explain why you shouldn't love or trust me. I’ve been keeping secrets from you. I’ve know from the start who killed your father, Lord Tavon. It was not the horned beast, it was not Lord Pumpkin, and it was not the Tradesmen.”

“You knew?” she asked with a gasp. “Why haven’t you told me?”

“I had good reasons not to. Selfish reasons. Everything I’ve ever done has been selfish.”

“Is submitting to the Tradesmen on my behalf something selfish?”

“One good act can’t offset a lifetime of evil,” I said. “Just answer one question: Who was the last person with your father before he died? Have you ever considered that that person could be the murderer? It’s easy to guess why they would do it. The most powerful motives for murder are always lust for gain and lust for power.” Arielle knew very well that I had been the last person with Tavon. I was something that I had had to admit to the investigators.

“Don’t say any more,” she told me.

“Whatever you’re thinking right now,” I said, “it’s probably the right thing.”

I saw the color go out of her. This was torture for her, I knew, but I tried not to be sorry for it. A little pain when she was young would set the foundations of a happier life. A future queen needed to be hard and cruel. I was educating her, preparing her for punishing the evil people that she would someday have to judge. A survivor needs to always stay suspicious, always be ready to strike back. A simple life may yield happiness, but governing means giving up all regard for the lives of others. Compassion is a luxury that a power-wielder cannot afford. Knowledge brings pain, but pain -- when it doesn’t kill us -- makes us stronger.

She had gone silent, so I left her. While departing, I was looking forward to the day when Arielle would learn of my death and a smile would rise to her lips. After all, what parent won’t wish future happiness on his child?

Darkur beds are meant for brutes padded with muscle and skins as thick as rhino hide. Trying to sleep on such an instrument of torture oftentimes brings nightmares.

And there was one particular nightmare from which I could find no escape.

I would discover myself amid the bloody carnage of a battlefield, remembering that I am not Thanasi any longer, but Necromantra. I realize, too, that this great host of men had perished only because I had betrayed them. I know I have done it because their deaths had put me at an advantage. Why should I not be content?

Of a sudden, a giant beast with horns and wings rears up from a crater. It glares, but not at me. I realize that it is looking at my daughter Arielle who is standing on the field and watching us. I can tell that the beast realizes that Necromantra is not his enemy, but that Arielle poses a very great threat to it.

I am never able to remember the dream from that point on.

I awake in terror and roll from my bed. In panic I crawl to that spot on the floor where I have chalked a diagram of mystical runes. And go to the center of it and invoke the wizards' spell taught to me by the Tradesmen’s conjurers. The chant is one crafted to keep the beast at bay.

After the spell is cast, the battle reverts to stalemate. I stagger back to my hard bed then and fall across its boards, succumbing to sleep the sleep of the battle-weary. Mercifully, the slumber that then envelops me is almost always dreamless.

***

After months in the fortress of Krad-Rog, I learned from bribed slaves that a delegation had been welcomed in by Q’zon. These humans, spies tell me, are not captives, but emissaries from a human land. Upon discovering that they come from my former city of Ulik, I have to know more about them.

Over the next couple days, I learn additionally that the visitors are Ulikan rebels seeking alliance with the mighty Q’zon. I regard that idea as madly reckless. If those within Ulik admit the powerful and ruthless Darkur into their country, how on earth do they ever expect to get rid of them?

Such a ploy, I know, will place Arielle at great personal risk. I haven’t brought my daughter back from death only to see her destroyed all over again so soon.

I at once make it my highest priority to find out what is going on in Ulik.

***
I soon learned where the ambassadors were lodging and consequently went to meet them in stealth, winding my way through covert passageways built into the stonework of Krad-Rog. Because the Darkur can sense magic, I avoided the invocation of sorcery as I made made my way along.

I came out through a disguised exit near the area where the visitors were housed. Guards were posted thereabouts, but I eluded them. I soon sighted certain officials of Ulik, one of whom I had known before, Baron Vigon. He was a senior aide beholding to an important grandee from the countryside, Viscount Armand. I stepped out of the shadows into their full view and said, “Hello, my lords.”

They turned my way and saw me dressed in a human gown given me by Q'zon, a piece that was probably loot from a military raid. Because of that, I wouldn’t have given odds that the former owner was still alive. Nonetheless, I had rigged myself out to look very much like the queen-regent whom they had known in Ulik.

"My lord Baron Vigon," I said, keeping my voice to a whisper.

Vigon greeted me uneasily.

I returned the sort of smile that I had occasioned myself in court. "I take it that you recognize me, my lord."

"You are unforgettable, my lady,” the dignitary said. “Forgive my reaction, but you have been assumed dead for months. King Q’zon has informed us that he is holding you captive, but we had our doubts.”

"Sometimes I cannot myself believe it," I said.

“How did you come here, my lady?”

"I was attacked by the Pumpkin, but he fell victim to an attack by another of his many enemies,” I explained. “I fled, but fell into the hands of the Tradesmen, who had been watching the misfortunes of Ulik like vultures."

“The Tradesmen?!”

“They deemed that I would make a acquisition as a political pawn and so sold me to the Darkur. Tell me, sire, did my daughter Arielle arrive safely at Ulik?"

“Why, yes she did.” Vigon said. “Arielle also told us of her captivity with the Tradesmen, but did not mention that you were with her.”

“I asked her not to,” I lied. “I was ashamed of the fate that the Tradesmen intended for me.”

It seemed that Arielle had kept our meeting secret. Why hadn’t she denounced me for a regicide once she returned to Ulik?

“Does Arielle now rule the land, as is her right?” I asked.

"Alas, Arielle is no better than a captive. Viscount Erhan has put advanced a claim upon the throne of Urlik and intends to marry the princess and rule in her name as prince regent. To make matters worse, several of the courtly factions are colluding in his treasonous conspiracy. My master, Viscount Armand, opposes Erhan’s pretensions and is marshaling the forces of the countryside to set affairs right."

So, Armand and Erhan were now quarreling over power. I had no reason to favor either of the two rogues. Armand’s jockeying for power was surely no more honorable than Erhan’s. As for Duke Erhan, I only knew that he had served Lord Tavon as Warden of the Armory. Ulik must have fallen into a deplorable state if nonentities like Armand and Erhan could now be strutting before the people as the best candidates for usurpation.

"About this marriage,” I said. “Is Arielle satisfied with Erhan’s proposition?” To my mind, it was a match made in Hell. Arielle was fresh and young, an idealist in love with life. Erhan was, no doubt, a cynical middle-aged schemer with an ongoing fascination for power.

"Her opinions are not being taken into account,” said Vigon. “Armand seeks to restore the princess’s rights as Tavon’s legitimate heiress."

I assumed that Vigon was really saying that the country magnate saw himself as a better candidate for prince regent. But to Vigon I said, "Even granted that I am held captive here, is there any aid that I may extend to my daughter?"

By these words I had tossed my own chips into the game of power. For now, making friends with Armand’s faction would serve me best. After all, Armand’s men were standing right in front of me, and Erhan’s were nowhere to be seen.

"You can help, my lady! " the baron said. "You retain many admirers and sympathizers in Ulik. If you publicly declare yourself against Erhan’s scheming, some of his power-backers may fall away.”

Was this true? Did I still hold support in Ulik? Why should that be? They knew me for a harsh authoritarian with blood on her hands. In fact, if I suddenly showed up at Ulik as a participant in this political wrangle, it would be natural if Arielle denounced me for the worst kind of traitor.

“I made many mistakes as Queen-Regent,” I said. “I behaved badly because I was ever in fear that the murderers of Tavon would strike at me next. But by doing unjust things, I only made affairs worse.”

“You had sublime political instincts, lady. Many people saw you as the solid rock to cling to during tempestuous times. If you now throw your support behind the Viscount, Erhan's power might be restricted to the capital and a few castle strongholds."

I shook my head. “You are proposing a dangerous game. If you use the princess as a chess piece, you will be placing her life in grave danger.”

“As matters stand, she is already in danger as Erhan’s hostage. But he has so far refrained from harming her because she retains broad support among the people, even within the capital of Ulik. That is why Erhan has so far attempted to pose as her champion. If the people can be brought to see the truth – that he is her enemy and exploiter -- it may create new fissures amongst those who the scoundrel depends on.”

“I suppose it would,” I said, nodding. I could almost hear the heavy wheels of intrigue grinding.

Unfortunately, those same wheels always grind exceeding fine. Persons unwise enough to get into their way do so at their own risk.

Ulik had become a mine field. It was fortunate that I was no newcomer to intrigue.

From this point on, my every move would have to be calculated with the utmost care. I was less concerned with my own welfare, however, than I was for the life of princess Arielle.

CONTINUED IN Chapter 3

The Beauty and the Beast by Aladdin, Chapter 3

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Serial Chapter

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Written 2006

Posted 08-22-22
Revised 08-23-22
.

THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, CHAPTER 3

A story of Necromantra

By Aladdin

Edited by Christopher Leeson

The Den of Vipers

King Q’zon grasped my hair and threw me against the granite wall.

“Deceitful witch!” He bunched his fist for a killing blow, but then opened it again at the last moment and gave me the hardest face-slap I’d ever felt. When I slid to the floor, he stood back, taking in the sight of me sprawling at his feet. I was not so far gone that I didn’t realize that my punishment had been a restrained one, at least by Darkuran standards. Though very capable of giving him back worse than he’d dished out, any rebellion on my part could be enough to trigger the Tradesmen into carrying out their threat against Airelle.

“I beg your pardon, Majesty,” I feigned to plead, “my magic is mighty but my body is weak. If I am beaten to death, I cannot serve you!”

His large nostrils flared. “You’ve served me poorly enough so far, human cow! And now I catch you intriguing!”

“Not so!” I declared. “I went seeking news of my daughter, the Princess Arielle!”

“Silence! You have no life, you have no family. You’re existence has no purpose outside of seeking to achieve perfect slavery.”

“I did no harm. When they told me what I wished to know, I withdrew!”

“Vigon saw fit to come to us seeking alliance,” the king said, “but now he wants more. He petitions me to send you with him to Ulik, there to be put to use by his master Viscount Armand. I would slay you for effrontery except that this new turn may serve my greater plans down the road. Ulik is a ripe plum ready to fall. Their new interest in you may become the bait I need to effect its subjugation.”

“I live to obey,” I told him.

He grabbed my hair again. “That is exactly why you are permitted to live,” he reminded me. “Now, get out! Your bleeding befouls my rug. Await your next summoning without making any more trouble!”

“As my lord wills,” I muttered. Now Q’zon shoved me out the door and while doing so my shoulder was skinned against a fluted pilaster. All told, I had to rate this interview with the Darkuran king as a success. My ploy I had managed to veer the schemes of both Q’zon and Vigon into new directions, and one of these might provide me with a better chance to achieve my own aims. So far, so good.

Good, yes, except that I now felt like I had some broken bones.

Fortunately, I heal with preternatural swiftness and I did not have to languish in my chamber for long before receiving a summons to attend a conference. Already in the room were King Q’zon, his aides, and most of the human emissaries from Ulik. The Darkurans pointedly ignored me, but the humans rose and bowed, as if to a queen. This was empty theater, of course. They saw me as a political tool and nothing more. How many of them would have cared if they had know about my ordeal so far in the kingdom of Darkur? And why, really, should they care about my wellbeing? In Ulik I had been a despot. I had toadies and hangers-on, but no friends. And it had never occurred to me that making friends might be a good idea.

“Marinna,” Q’zon rumbled. This struck me as a gallant acknowledgment – for him. The king’s usual terms of address were whore, slut, slave, or bitch. “These are my commands. You will accompany these emissaries in to the war Ulikan war camp of Viscount Armand. Upon your arrival there, you will do as commanded, save that you are forbidden to take any action that tends to undermine my personal interests. Short of that, your magic is at the human’s disposal.”

Taking in what he said, I continued to stand facing him attentively.

“Say something!” the king shouted. “If you have no use for your tongue, why should I let you keep it?” This, I knew, was a Darkuran joke. It was about the funniest thing I had ever heard him say to me.

“I am content and ready to serve,” I avowed with my head humbly lowered.

I’d been residing on the Godwheel for months only and had already grown jaded to its visual wonders. Sky-gazing there is a thing indescribable. The artificial solar system was a disk with a large hole at its center. In this hole hung a pair of binary dwarf stars and the light they shed on the world amounted to a perpetual sunset.

Because of this relationship between the suns and the Godwheel, the inhabitants should not have experienced nightfall. But an artificial night had been created, probably because living in perpetual daylight would have been very detrimental to the normal biological rhythm of many species. A night effect was produced by having orbiting plates in space. These periodically blocked the sunlight, thereby creating occluding the suns for close to ten hours at any location. Standing at my tent flap, I was at gazing the siege lines during a dense “night.” Oh, there were stars, but these were only lights installed on the plates.

For as long as any book remembered, this artificial world had been called the Godwheel because men assumed that only the gods could have constructed it. The builders – whoever they were – had installed a long-lived race on a satellite above the Godwheel to be its caretakers. These effective gods, the Vahdalans, had eventually fallen into factions and destroyed one another. Their story was not dissimilar from the myths of Earth’s Viking gods. These could be killed by violence, and also they required a rare magic application so as to remain young and alive. Legend held that the Asgardians had fallen in battle long ago, when their stronghold was attacked by demonic super-beings.

But if these myths of the Godwheel were based on truth, the builders had had the wherewithal to appoint actual gods to protect and manage their artificial world. If the mysterious ones were able to treat a race of gods as servants to be commanded, how much mightier than the guardian gods must the builders have been?

But pondering imponderables was a waste of time. For the most part, I accepted the Godwheel’s strange history on faith and concentrated upon righting the current situation.

During my weeks at Viscount Armand’s war camp, I’d watched the latter deploy his full forces against Erhan’s fortress – the walled city of Roch. He had ensconced himself there because this stronghold was more defensible than was Ulik City, the formal seat of High Prince of Ulik.

What I found more interesting than the military technology arrayed at Roch was the ebb and flow of the factions’ divers intrigues. The viscount drew his main support from the kingdom’s landed magnates, while Erhran was backed by the bureaucracy, the standing army, and the courtly party. At its core, Ulik was divided by a country vs city conflict. High Prince Tavon’s daughter having fallen into his hands, Erhan had announced to the realm his intention to marry her.

That move would allow him to legally rule as a regent in the queen’s name, up until the maturity of any child that they might have. This political coup had motivated Armand to strengthen his own faction by making overtures to an outside power, the Darkurans. But my sudden availability had tweaked the overall plan. Being the former regent, I had status under the laws of Ulik. To take advantage of that status, the Viscount had spread the news that he and I were betrothed. In this affair, I was a game piece, pure and simple. My "point-value" was not so great as Arielle’s in the eyes of the power-mongers, but it was better than nothing.

Armand’s maneuvers were having their intended effect. Spies came in reporting that some of Erhan’s adherents – already overawed by Armand’s military strength – were showing signs of uncertainty. Furthermore, a number of other independent factions, who had so far been standing aloof, now increased their flow of gifts to the Viscount. More importantly, some of them had started making overtures seeking serious negotiations. The consolidation of the power blocks had turned the quest for Ulik's throne into a two-team game. Events were moving toward a test of strength – such as a mass assault on Roch that would decide the issue.

The Darkuran troop contingency, incidentally, stood encamped several miles away from Roch, awaiting Armand’s call to battle. Because the Darkurans were so feared and disliked by all the Ulikans, Armand deemed it prudent to underplay his alliance with them. While these wheels within wheels were turning, I was largely left to my own devices.

Arman had set me to work as a diplomatic pawn. I was placed in the role of a glorified hostess to shore up, and even expand, Armand’s alliances. I had entertained many delegations, but a good share of these still pretended to think that I was an impostor – in deference to Erhan’s propaganda. The less blatant partisans accepted me as Queen-Regent Marinna and these were the people I thought I could deal with.

But my personal hand was not a strong one. Alone and without allies, I had little room for maneuver. I was keeping my antennae up to detect factions unhappy with both Erhan and Armand. I wanted to assume the stature of a third force, but I’d been making no real progress in that direction. After all, how many troops could I bring to the table?

Because of that, I was feeling quite boxed in, until a certain young captain of Ulik made an unexpected call at my pavilion.

I welcomed the new delegation routinely, but I couldn’t help but notice a fair-eyed young captain amid the graybeards and senior warriors. When the youth’s glance meeting mine, I froze. I was looking at no princely boy! I recognized the features my own teenage stepdaughter! What was especially baffling was that Arielle had seemingly grown into vigorous young womanhood over the few months since I had last seen her.

“A-Arielle!” I stammered bemusedly.

She raised her head and regarded me. “We have not met as yet, Madame. I am surprised that her ladyship should know my name.”

The young woman’s voice was melodic, but it was not the voice of Arielle. But if this lady in armor was not my Arielle, why did she not only have her features, but also her name?

Then I guessed the truth. When I’d first come to Ulik, Arielle had mentioned that she'd been christened Winola at birth but had, by the prevailing custom, chosen an adult name upon coming of age. She had taken for her own the appellation of the warrior whom she most admired. That meant that this female knight before me had to be Arielle’s heroine. Because they so strongly resembled one another, I could safely assume that they were blood relatives.

“I am sorry, Madame Knight,” I said. “I was misled by your close resemble to my stepdaughter. Am I right to assume that the princess Arielle is your namesake?”

“That is so, Lady Marinna,” my visitor affirmed.

From Captain Arielle’s cordial attitude, I surmised that Princess Arielle had not informed her that I had murdered her father. Why? Was she trying to protect her father’s reputation, embarrassed that her sire had married an unvetted stranger who had turned out to be his assassin?

The war-maid turned to face her retinue. “Hanno, Japet, do you recognize this lady as the former queen-regent?”

I recognized these men as officers from the kingdom’s cavalry. They greeted me correctly but without effusion. I accepted that. Many of Ulik’s subjects would hold my regency in ill odor.

“She is the very image of the queen-regent,” one of them said, and the other nodded in agreement.

“Ask her the prepared questions,” Arielle instructed them. “Appearances may be deceiving.”

They did as instructed, putting blunt interrogatives to me. I answered as truthfully as I dared and the warriors, at length, affirmed to Arielle that my answers had been proper. I then asked a question of my own. “Which power faction do you most favor, Madame Knight?”

The young woman frowned slightly, as if she disliked my term of address. Nonetheless, she answered evenly: “To be frank, we favor Princess Arielle.”

“You are for Erhan then?” I probed.

“No,” the amazon replied laconically.

There was something I liked about this untypical warrior and something told me that she and I should speak privately as soon as possible. Such was not feasible now, not while I was being closely watched by my attendants, all of whom answered to Armand.

“Where have you pitched your camp, my lady?” I asked. “Or is your barracks within the fortress?”

The term “lady” didn't go over with her any better than had "madame." I thought I understood why. When I had reigned in Ulik, I had never heard of a female warrior in my service, so her rank must have been unique. I could only assume that she wished to downplay her sex lest it diminish her in the eyes of her military peers.

“We’re encamped on the north side of the pond,” she replied, “under the banner of the slithor.”

“I don’t like slithors,” I responded lightly and with good reason. One of that species had come close to killing me upon my arrival in Ulik.

“Hopefully, you will like this one,” the warrior-maid replied. The glint in her eyes suggested a sense of humor.

Now that the necessary business had been addressed, Captain Arielle requested permission for her delegation to withdraw.

Under the dark of the night, I put my maids asleep magically and shifted to phantom density. This allowed me to exit the pavilion by way of the underground, thereby avoiding the guards posted outside. After having traveled in darkness for some distance, I levitated above ground level and solidified.

The effort had left me weak. The exhaustion of my bio-energy was always a serious matter. Though a vital world surrounded me, I could not revitalize myself by siphoning off its energy. It was my curse that I could only draw upon the expiring energies of the dying. I was like the gods of old, needing animal sacrifice – and sometimes human sacrifice – to feed upon. Without having frequent immolation conducted in my presence, I would become magically non-functional.

Killing was something that Necromantra enjoys, of course, but now -- thinking for myself -- I didn’t like it at all. But neither did I dare to accept disempowerment; the world was a dangerous place and having magic for self-defense was vital. In Darkur, when there were no battles for me to fight, King Q’zon had whipped chained enemies out into open arenas for me to execute. But here, in Ulik, I had to select my own victims.

Going airborne with levitation and a gush of wind, I began to feel weaker. Urgently, I searched for Captain Arielle’s slithor banner. Finally, having espied it amid a cluster of tents, I drifted down closer looking for confirmation that she was actually there. The sight of feminine garments hanging from clothes lines would have been a help, but I saw nothing like that.

I had another option. There exists a slight difference between the aura of a man and the aura of a woman, one that my senses can detect. I descended to earth at the rear of a large tent in order to conduct my search on foot.

In no great length of time I was able to detect traces of a female aura inside one of the pavilions and brazenly walked through its canvas in phantom form. It was very dark inside, so I summoned up a light of moonglow-intensity. I at once saw the knightly Arielle – wide awake, sitting up on a cot and staring at me as if I were a ghost. Also, she was holding a broadsword.

I stepped back and dimmed my light so as to appear less threatening. “Captain, it’s Marinna,” I whispered. “I’m sorry to barge in, but I wanted to speak to you in private.”

“What --?” the woman muttered, still groggy. “Why? What about?”

Before I could start to explain, my magical sensors started to tingle. That sword of hers, I realized, was no ordinary blade but an artifact imbued with an aura of dark magic.

The lady warrior threw off her quilt and stood up, letting me see that she was dressed in a night tunic and hose. She continued to look at me doubtfully even while warily lowering her sword.

“When I ruled in Ulik,” I said, “magic swords were not so common. Where did you get yours?”

“It’s a long story,” she replied.

I didn’t press it. Tales involving magic can be convoluted. But judging from Captain Arielle's expression, I suspected that the story that she was holding inside might be a nasty one.

TO BE CONTINUED Chapter 4

The Beauty and the Beast by Aladdin, Chapter 4

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Caution:

CAUTION: Violence

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Serial Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Written 2006

Posted 09-21-22
Revised 09-22-22

THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, CHAPTER 4

A story of Necromantra

By Aladdin

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.

Chapter 4

Plots and Plans

Captain Arielle shook her blonde head, as if trying to shoo away flies.

“The sword was given to me by a demon, she said with effort, “-- at the price of a dozen lives – the lives of my friends and retainers. I hate the thing with a passion, but if don’t hold on to it, the sword will only drift away and find another master -- maybe someone worse than I am. I can’t help but dread what it could do in the wrong hands. If you’re a sorceress, Marinna, you may understand what I'm saying.”

“I suppose I do. Nothing much surprises me anymore,” I admitted. “But did you actually sacrifice your closest friends to gain control of a magical weapon?”

“I did not!” the knight declared. “They willingly gave up their souls to save my life. We'd attacked Lord Pumpkin’s castle, intending to strike him dead, but he wasn't there and his guards were on alert. I took a death wound in the fighting and as I lay on the flagstones, a demon appeared and offered my men my life for all their deaths. Though I was still conscious and forbade it, they ignored me.

“After they perished, the Hell magic rendered me fully healed. The demon lingered for just a little while and gifted me with this sword, saying only that I should never let it go. Then he vanished. Probably he was an enemy of Lord Pumpkin, but I can only guess at his motives. He’d explained nothing! In anger, and even shame, I threw the blade into a wall, but where it struck the stone a portal opened, a kind of swirling light. My intuition told me it would lead to the Pumpkin and so I walked through. The next few seconds looked and felt like being propelled through the midnight sky.

"The next thing I realized, I'd arrived elsewhere. I smelled whiff of something like rotten pumpkins and as I followed the odor I saw buildings, objects, and artifacts on every side -- all of which told me that I had to be very far from home in a very strange land.

“Obviously you weren’t able to find and kill the Pumpkin,” I conjectured.

“I did kill him. But because of the sorcery that created him, he has a way of returning from the dead. If I’d had more time, I would have burned his body to a cinder, but as soon as he was lying broken at my feet, the sword exerted its power and dragged me back to Ulik.”

I thought that her protest sounded too pat, but didn’t want to pick holes in it. I had few options left; if I rejected this warrior because of suspicion, I would be left alone and hemmed in, unable to accomplish anything at all. I had to gamble that Captain Airella had at least spoken true about some of the things that mattered.

“My pardon,” I said. “I’m here because you and I may share a common aim.”

“How's that?”

“You avowed that Princess Arielle has some rights in this ludicrous affair. Too few people seem to remember that.”

She gave me a hard look. “How am I to believe that you could actually care about the princess? From what I've heard, Queen Marinna was a ruthless tyrant with the blood of hundreds on her hands.”

“That much is true,” I told her. “But that that was then and this is now.”

“You'll forgive me if I remain reluctant to take you at your word, Lady,” she said.

“Do you have a saying in Ulik, something along the lines of ‘actions speak louder than words’? Do me the favor of judging me on what I do; I don't expect you to believe everything I say. To begin with, tell me how many men you're able to bring into battle.”

She frowned. “That depends what you expect them to fight for.”

“I'd be asking them to protect Princess Arielle’s life and – if they are willing – secure her throne.”

“If those are the terms, I can engage maybe a dozen men-at-arms,” she said. “The rest are committed to me personally, not to Tavon’s heir. Though I personally liked and honored High Prince Tavon, his reign was so brief that he didn’t gain any wide or deep following. Our people have been oppressed for so long that they're desperate for a strong leader who’s truly on their side. They won’t care for the idea of elevating a unseasoned minor. Clearly, most are not enthusiastic for either Armand or Erhan, but most would find either of them acceptable -- as long as that one wants peace as much as they do.”

“So you say. But I think Arielle possesses both the head and the heart to become a rare queen. But for right now I have a question.”

“What?”

“You claim to be a leader for whom grown men are willing to fight and die, so why haven’t you made a claim upon the throne yourself?”

She shook her head. “A move like that would make me just one more opportunist adding to the confusion. I have no personal royal right; I’m only related to the royal family through the late queen’s side. Tavon took to wife one of the minor nobility for love, not political advantage.”

On the surface, the captain’s excuses were plausible, but I had a hunch that she was something holding back – perhaps she'd been involved in a scandal or there was another disqualifying problem. I had no inclination to pry.

“As I say, I came here hoping that we might serve the princess together,” I told her.

Arielle frowned. “And as I've already asked, why should I trust you?”

“When I reigned,” I told her, “I was insane. I’d been insane even before I arrived here. But at present I'm able to think clearly and I want to do right by your cousin. I'm forced to act quickly, though, lest I turn lunatic again. You believe that I'm serving Armand’s interests, but that's only because I’m forced to.”

“How are you being forced?”

“Powerful interests will slay the princess if I don’t do exactly as I’m told.”

“Are your speaking of either Erhan or Armand?”

“Neither. Behind the scenes, this world is game board for forces that are more powerful than any you might imagine.”

Arielle shook her head. “I want to help my young cousin, but I’m against keeping this kingdom in civil war for longer than necessary.”

“That’s my feeling, too,” I said. “I have sorcery to draw upon, but I need help and advice if I’m going to accomplish anything.”

“I’m not sure what to say,” she replied.

“Say nothing for now. Just listen to the idea I have.”

She did listen and then I left her to think things out for herself. After leaving Arielle’s tent, the wobbliness of my my attempt to fly reminded me of how great was my need for a blood sacrifice just then.

Though slaughtering domestic livestock could have empowered me somewhat, the half-formed spirits of dumb beasts are weak. What I needed was the immolation of beings of the highest order. But now that I wasn’t demonically possessed, I felt reluctant to kill selfishly. People will always dispute and fight – that's their nature – but, pound for pound, I didn’t think that the solders of Ulik deserved to die for my sake any more than had Archimage’s knights. So what did that leave me with? Where should I seek my sacrifice? Why can’t a person ever find a rampaging dragon when he needs one?

I thought my best bet was to execute one of the nearby Darkuran contingent. I hadn’t had the chance to slay many Darkurans thus far, except for a few criminals that had been given to me by King Q’zon for execution. That exercise at least had taught me the best method of taking one of them out. The species had a powerful, magically-charged spirit much stronger than even that of a human. Each one of their race would amount to a full meal for me. Yet I had to act in complete secrecy. I had been plighted to obey the king of the Darkurans and to slaughter one of his subjects would break my vow to the Tradesmen and bring about their intervention.

While I veered toward the Darkuran camp, considering how to kill one of the beings conventionally, since any out and out assassination would instantly make me a prime suspect. But I didn’t savor taking on a warrior of Darkur in my present shape, seeing as how what I had to work with was the durability of a lingerie model and the upper body strength of a thirteen year old male.

But at least there would be no lack of weapons around a war camp of this size. I employed my ebbing magic to spirit away a medium-weight sword from a rack of stacked arms.

Being thus equipped, I projected my mystical senses as widely as I could, trying to detect Darkuran life signatures. There were many of these to be found inside their tents, naturally, but it would have been suicide for me to take on a whole squad of them. Fortunately, I zeroed in on a single creature prowling alone through a wooded copse near to the bivouac proper.”

Following his bio-signature as if I were a hound, I soon sighted him visually. Landing, I stalked him to an isolated spot. It was then that I discharged a burst of sorcery at his broad back.

My shot did knock him to his knees, but it wasn’t even strong enough to render the Darkuran warrior unconscious. I ran up and chopped at his head, but the bone that I hit was hard and the hide over it thick. He thrust himself under forest cover and metamorphosed, as quick as thought becoming a formidable battle-beast that was protected by chitin-like plates and many clawed arms. One hand held a blaster pistol.

The Darkuran, getting his first look at me, snorted with scorn. His disdain for being attacked by a mere human female worked in my favor, fortunately; he didn’t shout for help – probably from fear of being laughed at if he did so. “I’ve heard that human meat is almost as tasty as that of the Aerwa,” he rumbled.

“Oh, so you haven’t already eaten humans?” I asked.

“You will be the first,” he deigned to reply.

“If I’d known that, I might have picked on some other guy.” I actually meant that, but I was now in too deep to pull out.

I saw no fear in him. Maybe the Darkur didn’t realize that I was Necromantra, a witch that even his own people dreaded seeing as how I was wearing Ulikan garb.

While the creature was taking his time, savoring an easy slaughter, I took the initiative. The best kill-spot on a Darkuran was his magical change-organ. That thing could repair even a damaged heart, but the Darkuran race had nothing to instantly repair their change-organ itself. Unfortunately, because the aliens were shape-shifters, that organ could be located in different places; I’d need a magical probe to pin it down. Before he acted, I used my adrenaline-charged magic to send my blade at him, shearing off his gun hand and disarming him – or at least “dishanding” him.

The blaster dropped in front of me and seizing it, I rolled away. He shuffled after me in that body that so resembled seafood, determined to make me sorry, but I had learned to be quick on the draw with all sorts of weapons and so fired at what was currently serving as his face. The cry coming out of that ugly puss was weak and strangled.

I shot again at the broad target of his gut – that is, the underside of his natural armor. But that hit couldn’t stop him either and I barely leaped from his way, though the sweep of one arm knocked the energy pistol out of my grasp and into the bushes.

Instead of taking flight, I surprised the Darkur by springing toward my sword on the ground. When he turned to seize me, I switched on my glowing aura to dazzle him.

“You!” the monster sibulated. He had belatedly recognized me for who I was and became unsure how to attack a foe so dangerous. During his hesitation, I sensed out the hiding place of his change-organ and I spent my last burst of energy to drive my blade aimed t at his Achilles’ Heel. I had nothing left to give; either my opponent perished now or I’d have to deal with being dead seconds later.

An indescribable sound issued from the Darkuran's ruined head and he collapsed inert. Almost at once I felt the bio-energy of his expiration flowing into me like a hot jet from a fireman's hose.

Fighting to stay alert, having been made drunk by consuming so much new energy, I heard rushing boots coming through the brush – sentries from his army's camp no doubt. I risked just two seconds of my time to recapture the Darkuran blaster (for possible future use) and then went phantom. As before, I made my escape by way of the underground, using the natural energy of the landscape as a beacon so as not to get lost.

Having resurfaced a good distance away, I flashed the captured blaster into my “mystical closet” and shot up into the fog hanging at treetop level. During my flight, I was reasonable certain that I’d left behind no incriminating clues. A little later, back at my tent, I woke up my enchanted servants and then immediately lapsed into my own exhausted sleep.

Bright and early the next morning, I heard the current news that the Darkuran ambassador was fit to be tied about a Darkuran warrior who was slain, but the killer had apparently left no trace.

Since I’d arrived, Armand’s forces had been recruiting well, increasing their host to about twice the size of Erhan’s muster. That growth had made it unlikely that the Duke would be inclined to come out to make a fight of it. On the other hand, odds of two-to-one were insufficient to take a fortified city by storm. I thought it probable that Armand would be thinking about using the Darkurans as a sledge hammer to break open the city walls and begin a street to street fight, as at the fall of Troy (which was a little before my time, admittedly). The Darkurans had firepower enough to bring it off.

If the war ended in such a way, the killing would be horrendous. Hoping to save lives, I went to the viscount with an alternate plan of my own. Ostensibly, it would appear that I was trying to help, but in fact I wanted to weaken Armand’s army by planting suspicion betwixt him and his most dangerous allies.

“My lord,” I said to my unbeloved betrothed, “it would be a pity if your Ulikan supporters became alienated from your cause in the face of outrageous Darkuran atrocities.”

“Do you have anything useful to say, or are you only fretting in the way of every other woman?” he asked.

“I’ve been in the court of Darkur, as you know, and I’ve seen the Darkurans at war; they leave nothing living behind them. And you ought to realize that if you employ their forces in battle, King Q’zon is going to claim total credit for the victory and look at you as someone deeply in his debt. If that happens, the Darkurans are going to be in a position to make heavy demands on your government, probably more than you can responsibly hand over.”

He reacted, but not in any way that I wanted him to. He blandly looked away from me and stared at the map in front of him. “Run along, my lovely,” he said. “Only a fool takes military advice from a woman.”

That rankled, of course. As I saw it, though I'd gained a new body shape, I hadn’t lost my understanding of politics or warfare. I briefly wondered whether I should at last "come out" about my background and capabilities, but decided against it. Smart women know that they hold a great advantage in life because they are continuously underestimated. I was savvy enough to know that I shouldn’t throw away such a valuable asset.

“I know, my lord. But consider this. You’ll arouse local resentment and even make enemies of your surrounding kingdoms if you’re held responsible for introducing Darkuran tyranny into Man Land for years to come. If matters go that far, how will you ever get yourself out from under their thumb?”

“I already know that all my choices are bad ones,” he said.

“Have you ever thought about this: You can win by making Erhan’s faction collapse even without crushing his military strength if you act to undermine his political strength. His major game piece is his pretext that he intends to carry on the legitimate dynasty. But if the princess were lost to him, he won’t have much of anything to offer to his power brokers. I think you’ll agree that the man is neither a lion of charisma nor a beacon of inspiration.”

“Perhaps,” the nobleman answered thoughtfully, “but the fellow is not an idiot, either. He’ll keep Airelle heavily protected and we’ll still have to launch a major assault to rescue her. Such a thing would be a bloody failure without Darkuran help. And if we don't do a successful storm, we'll have to grind though months of siege. A good share of our people will go home if try to make them stand around doing nothing for so long. Also, if we try forcing the Darkurans to be idle, who knows what those monsters will decide to do?”

“That’s one scenario, but there are several others. Ask yourself, what would be the result if you did rescue Airelle without with little violence and then impress the kingdom with your courtly benevolence toward their princess – providing that you treat her respectfully?” I asked.

He looked at me squarely. “What, exactly, is going on inside that devious mind of yours?””

“I propose putting together a plan for me to enter into Roch so that I can use magic to bring her out,” I said.

“Why bring her out?” he asked. “Why not just kill her?”

I looked gave him a hard look. “I don’t want to kill her. She’s my step-daughter.”

The nobleman shook his head and chuckled lightly. “They certainly don’t make stepmothers like they used to!” he said.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 5

The Beauty and the Beast by Aladdin, Chapter 5

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Serial Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Written 2006

Posted 10-21-22

THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, CHAPTER 5

A story of Necromantra

By Aladdin

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.

Chapter 5

A Sea of Troubles

“Not all stepmothers are like those in the storybooks,” I said.

He shook his head scornfully. “A pity. I could use a more practical-minded woman. Clear your head, Marinna! Sentimentality gets in the way of politics. The reign of Lord Pumpkin taught us how power can be won and kept.”

“But not even the Pumpkin was able to hold onto his power for more than a few years.”

“When he left Ulik, it was by his own choice. No one forced him,” he said.

“Maybe. But he must have had some reason for going. And he wasn’t able to come back and take over again when he tried. And the Pumpkin wasn’t just a walking scarecrow; he was a powerful sorcerer. If it wasn’t for that, his iron fist would have been like a glove stuffed with straw.”

“Well, don’t I have your sorcery at my command?” he asked. “Oh, certainly, you’re not to be trusted, not least of all because you're under the thumb of King Q'zon. But maybe we can come to some accord that will increase your enthusiasm for our cause.”

“Maybe we can. I suggest that we start the process by dropping any idea of killing Princess Arielle.”

He shrugged. “You’re asking only one small thing today. But what will you be asking for tomorrow?”

“To answer that, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow, won’t we.”

“I hope that’s one of your jokes,” the viscount replied.

“Just listen for a moment. You'd like to hold onto as many allies as you can, right? Slaying the heir of the old house would alienate some of the most important power blocks. On the contrary, bringing Arielle over to your side will impress the people of Ulik and even improve your legitimacy in the eyes of our neighbor kingdoms.”

He regarded me keenly. “Now that you mention it, Arielle has an even better claim to the hearts of the people than you do – and for good reason. Why shouldn’t I marry her instead instead of you?”

I folded my arms over my breasts. “Marry anyone you choose, Lord Armand. You’re not my idea of a dream match any more than I’m yours. And what does it matter if the two of us are in agreement? Sooner or later, Q’zon is going to yank me back to Darkur and you’ll lose my support. Or do you think that you can stand up to Q’zon if he asks for anything insistently enough?”

The viscount shook his head. “I didn’t want that alliance in the first place, but I had no choice but to go after it once Airelle had fallen into Erhan’s hands.”

“So marry Arielle!” It made me queasy to be offering my stepdaughter to a crooked middle-aged politician, but I’d rather have Armand scheming to marry the girl than plotting to assassinate her.

He shrugged. “If you have a plan to bring that about, let’s hear it. Otherwise, you’re only wasting my time.”

“My plan is to win Captain Arielle to our cause. Family is important to her, and the princess is part of that family. And Arielle holds the captain in high regard, so much so that she even adopted her name. I’ve talked to the older cousin and know that she is not at all fond of Erhan. If we can offer her something that she wants, we can gain her support. If we're able to do that, I propose having her pretend to choose Erhan’s cause and deploy her contingency inside Roch. I’ll go into the city alongside her disguised as one of her servants. Once I’m able to contact the princess, I’m sure I can persuade her to accept your proposition. At the same time, the captain will also be there to back me up on the idea.”

The nobleman scoffed. “Why should I think that Princess Arielle likes me any better than she likes Erhan?”

“She’ll like you for the best of reasons. You have the bigger army.”

I saw his express become less scornful. Having been one myself, it was easy for me to talk turkey to a man.

“Also,” I said, “she’s been living as Erhan’s hostage, not his eager bride. And whatever Arielle chooses, I think it her knightly cousin will support it. And you’ll be gaining another advantage; the captain will have a force of arms that will be friendly to you inside Roch. Something useful could be done with that circumstance, I’d say.”

He was frowning, but not disagreeing. “You almost think like a man. But if the princess agrees to join us, how will you get her out of Roch?”

“Easily.” I picked up a bronze candlestick. “Pretend that this is the princess, and pretend that this table is the fortress walls.” Then I made my arm and the candlestick phantasmal and passed it through the surface of the table.

“Very interesting,” he remarked. “What partners we might make if only I could depend on you.”

“Do you suppose that you could ever truly trust a witch, my lord?”

“No,” he said, “I suppose I couldn’t. But one thing at a time.”

Three days later, I was in the back of a cart with other of Captain Arielle’s servants, crossing over the drawbridge into Castle Roch. Disguise was nothing new to me. With my hair blackened and nose reshaped and enlarged by an artful appliance, I didn’t expect that anyone short of Princess Arielle herself could have recognized me.

We settled into our new quarters and Erhan gave consent for the cousins to meet. I was brought along to attend on the captain during the reunion and my disguise must have been convincing, insofar as the princess didn’t give me a second glance.

“Wait one minute before you speak, Arielle,” the older cousin whispered. Then she gave me the nod and I went about the room checking for listening holes.

I discovered two of such by my ability to detect the life-traces given off by the agents lurking behind them. I send a magical surge through each hole in turn, strong enough to put a strong man into a faint. I didn’t think that either of them would have the nerve to report the matter to their spymaster later on, seeing as how they’d be admitting that the only problem was that they had fallen asleep on the job.

“It is done,” I advised the captain. “Speak your piece.”

“What was just done?” asked the younger Arielle, her brow wrinkling prettily.

“Marinna has secured the chamber from eavesdroppers.”

“Marinna?” The girl looked at me. Her incomprehension instantly transformed into wide-eyed dismay.

“Why did you bring her?!” she fairly shouted.

“The plan was her creation. What’s wrong?” the captain asked.

“She – she murdered my father!”

The warrior-maid looked at me aghast. Seeing neither surprise nor denial in my expression, she drew her sword -- the same nasty sword that she so much hated wielding.

“Put that down,” I told her. “I've already admitted that I've had periods of insanity. There is no way I can make up for what I've already done, but I’m earnest about wishing to help the princess. After that, I’ll be wanting to leave this land and, believe me, I never want to come back.”

“If you killed Lord Tavon, you deserve to die,” the warrior told me coldly, looking very much like a warrior instead of a noblewoman.

“She claims that she was possessed by a demon,” young Arielle put in. “I wish I could believe that there was nothing else to it.” Then she hung her head. “No, I think I do believe it. But I still don’t want her near me.” The princess placed her hand upon her cousin’s fist and pressed the sword hand toward the floor. “I don’t think Marinna would harm me intentionally. Just just be careful. She’s capable of almost anything when the madness is upon her.”

I was feeling the evaporation of the camaraderie that had been growing up between the soldier and myself. Also, I felt uncomfortable receiving even cautious trust from the teenager. The guilt I felt made me want to reject kindness or mercy. But beyond that, if my stepdaughter hoped to live for a very long time, she would have to give up her compassionate nature. He would have to become much better at hating and holding grudges. It would take a wary scoundrel to survive in an environment as stormy as Ulik’s.

The princess turned my way. “You came with a plan. What is it?”

“We want to take you to the camp of Viscount Armand,” her cousin answered for me.

Arielle frowned. “Is that wise? Can we trust him?”

“No. No more than we can trust Erhan,” I ventured. “But if the Darkurans attack this city, thousands of your people will die. Each one of those beasts is worth a score of Ulikan soldiers, and they’ll be bringing with them weapons the likes of which your defenders have never had to face before. These stone walls will be no obstacle to a Darkuran attacks. If it were not for the Aerwa people, a race as powerful as they are, the Darkur would have taken over the Wold long ago.”

I was giving her the straight skinny. My aim was to get young Arielle out of the Ulikan powder keg and into a safer sanctuary. The only question was, where could we find a refuge for a royal princess even on a world as large as the Godwheel?

“If my people must die, then I should die with them,” declared Arielle the younger.

Arielle, the soldier, shook her head. “Self-immolation has to be the last resort, dear one. It is a maxim of war that the best way to make a war short is to side with the stronger contender. We believe that Erhan may be repudiated by his own people if he has no royal marriage to support his claim. That means that your exit from this city may very well prevent a carnage. Without you, Erhan will be no more appealing to his supporters than are the minor pretenders who have already given up.”

“But will mere human politics stop the Darkurans from attacking if they really want to?” the younger cousin asked.

“They might indeed attack. They’re always spoiling for a fight,” I told her. “Before they move, both factions have to act jointly in rejecting them. If the Darkurans are seen to be making war against a united Ulik, it should encourage the Aerwa to intervene. They’ve always been against outright Darkuran aggression. And because the Darkurans know that, too, it may discourage their king from going too far.”

The knight turned my way with misgivings. “That's a big ‘if.’ If we have to stand alone against the full force of Darkur, we can scarcely survive.”

She was right; I had no counter argument.

“What is my choice then?” the younger cousin asked.

I replied, “First, you should forgive yourself for this bad situation and be prepared to preserve your own life. With you out of the picture, Erhan, Armand, and the Darkur will be left to settle their own hash as best they can.”

“What about the mass of the people?” she demanded.

“In the worst case, very many will die,” I said. “But how can you help them, except by making the noble gesture of dying with them?”

“Would that gesture be so useless?”

“I believe it would be,” I replied. “History judge most grand gestures as being worthless.”

That made the teen stop and think a moment. Then she asked, “If I agree to escape with you, what then?”

“You have three choices. Stay here and support Erhan; that means Roch will probably be attacked, and probably with Darkuran support. Or, you can go over to Armand. As we’ve said, Erhan’s cause will most likely collapse in a few days. The risk is that the Darkurans may attack on their own initiative, since they’ve been sent here hoping to reap the material and political spoils of war. A united Ulik will have to reply to a Darkuran double cross and when his troops are attacked, Q’zon will probably send in reinforcements. If there is no Aerwan intervention, the Darkurans will win – and the Darkuran way of winning is about as ugly as you can imagine.

“But if the Darkurans do not attack,” I continued, “Armand has everything to gain by making you his queen. You can go along with that, if you have a strong enough stomach. Or, you may leave the kingdom entirely. Whether Erhan fights or not, his cause isn’t going to hold together. Armand is likely to be the most acceptable choice for high prince, given his wider appeal across the kingdom. But even if that happens, his throne is going to be insecure if he lacks your backing. There’ll be treachery and plots springing up all around him. He may even be forced to become a puppet of King Q’zon just to keep any kind of hold on the throne. How Ulik can get out of that kind of trap, I have no idea.”

“If I let you take me away somewhere, what going to happen to me?” the princess asked.

“You’ll be almost forgotten, only a footnote in the history of Ulik. The question is, where would you want to go? I don’t know of any place on this world that would be safe for a very young woman who has no friends or support. Royalty without a throne to barter away is no real royalty at all.”

“I can hardly see any real choice in what you're telling me,” the girl said.

“What about if you left this world entirely?” I asked. “Your cousin has the means of taking us to a different planet in space. She’s already traveled there and returned. It’s livable. I’m pretty sure that the world she visited was my own, since I first heart about Lord Pumpkin as a criminal leader back on my home world. The odds are that the sword can take us there again.”

“But what am I suppose to do on this place called Urt?”

“Not a lot. You’ll arrive there as a stranger and a commoner. All you’ll have is what you can carry with you. Your big challenge will be getting used to a civilization and to a lifestyle that’s very different from what you’re used to.”

“Which of my supposed choices will save the most Ulikan lives?” the princess asked. Then she looked at me accusingly. “If my father hadn’t been murdered none of this would be happening!”

“I would say that’s true,” I admitted. “Would my apology make you feel any better?”

“After all the harm you’ve caused, I don’t see how it can.”

“Here’s an idea you might like better. I have powerful enemies back on my home world and one of them might luck out and assassinate me one of these days. Wouldn’t it cheer you up seeing that happen?”

She looked away. "I don't know. All I really wanted was for you to be the person that I used to think you were. Maybe you've changed, but maybe you're going to suddenly change back again."

"Maybe I will," I agreed. "I hope not, but maybe I will."

Still not looking at me, the teen drew herself up against her cousin and pressed her face into the knight’s velvet tunic in a very childlike way.

Finally young Arielle looked up at her and whispered, “It sounds like the best choices are going with Armand or leaving this world entirely. What do you say, Arielle?”

Her kinswoman sighed. “The best decision is the one that will save the most Ulikan lives. But, whatever you choose, I pledge this: I will be at your side as long as you wish me to be.” Then the war-maiden addressed me, saying, “Leave us. My cousin and have to get reacquainted.”

“O course,” I said. “Only don’t talk for too long. Those spies that I stunned will not sleep forever.”

“Thank you for not killing them,” the princess addressed to my back as I was walking toward the door.

This setup was a depressing one. She had so much to learn about life. Myself, I had lived for centuries and had also died hundreds of times. I couldn't help but see things differently.

What I’d learned is that dying is easy. Living is always a sea of trouble.

I didn’t wish to force the matter as long as the princess remained indecisive. But the pressure was building on Roch and also on Armand; however reluctantly, he was drifting into a nasty place. The time was drawing nigh for me to demand a decision from her. But if young Airelle left the city, I didn’t want Arielle Senior to be implicated. That meant that I had to wait for the right moment, when she had the alibi of visibly attending a public function. As soon as that event happened, I ghosted into the princess’ apartment through the floor of one of the empty rooms above her suite.

When she saw my intrusion, she clenched her fists and declared, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Princess,” I said, “it’s high time that you decide what you’re going to do. If you do nothing this city is going to be attacked and it will fall. You’re young, Arielle, but circumstances are forcing you to become stronger than you’ve ever been before. Not only your own fate, but your country’s fate, too, depends on your choosing a course of action.”

“You make it sound so easy,” she said.

“I know it’s not easy. To make things less difficult, can you at least tell me which plan is the one that you’d least like to follow?”

She was quiet. I began to think that she wasn’t going to speak until she finally said, “I can’t marry Erhan. That would make Armand attack the city. And if he does that, he will surely send in the Darkurans first. That would lead to the worst possible outcome for the people of Roch.”

“All right, would you prefer to marry Armand instead?”

“But isn’t he marrying you?”

“That’s just politics. I don’t want him and he doesn’t want me. He’d definitely prefer you to be his...consort.”

“But you’ve said that if there is no war, the Darkurans may simply start one themselves.”

“They might. Or they might not. All I can say is that the odds of a bad outcome will be less if Armand doesn’t have to order an attack.”

“What sounds most tempting is to simply run away,” she suddenly admitted. “But that would leave the kingdom in an unstable state. Also, doing nothing is just about the worst betrayal that I can inflict on my people. I would truly deserve to be a homeless exile if I did that.”

“If you can’t decide, would you want me to decide things for you? Or maybe you’d value your cousin’s opinion more?”

“No. I have to choose my own fate. I don't want to blame anyone else if things goes wrong. I think the best idea is to go to Armand. It will make his high princedom stronger and more stable. Also, we can hope that the odds of a Darkuran attack will be lessened.”

I nodded. That was how I saw matters, also.

That much being decided, I wanted to act immediately. There were dark drapes on the windows and these I tore down for us to wear as masks and cloaks. If the guards saw the two of us fleeing in disguise, they wouldn't be sure what was happening. I touched her so I could magically reduced her weight. That made it easy to pick her up in my arms, a sixteen year old being no easy burden for one of my physique to carry. Then the pair of us went ghosting through the exterior wall of her chamber and, once outside, I called up a brisk wind to take us to Armand’s encampment. Very quickly, the gusts took us out of the range of any crossbow shots while the darkness simultaneously provided good cover.

I deposited the youngster at my pavilion in Armand’s camp in care of my maids. Then I returned to Roch and reentered it secretly. If both Captain Airelle’s servant and the princess were seen to have disappeared at the same time, that would put the captain under the light of suspicion. I acted promptly to go out amongst the milling inhabitants of Erhan's mansion to show myself looking as innocent as possible. It wasn’t very long before the disappearance of Princess Airelle became the news of the hour.

In a flash, Erhan’s options had narrowed drastically. In the morning, Armand sent word into Roch that the princess was under his protection and he was offering Erhan clemency if he accepted exile and immediate capitulation. Erhan, unfortunately, remained stubborn. This incited Armand to send additional forces into the siege lines. I knew that his plan was not to attack Roch right off, but he wanted to frighten the city people enough to turn them against their failed leader. The viscount followed up on this by dispatching officers under a truce flag bearing a warning that if surrender was not forthcoming, the fortress would be given over to sacking by the Darkuran detachment. And these agents were lavish in their descriptions of what Darkuran warfare was like.

Erhan reciprocated, sending representatives to the besiegers’ command tent affirming their master’s intention was to resist, but also seeking a truce to allow Roch’s non-essential personnel to evacuate the castle. This was tendered as a humanitarian concern, but I thought that Erhan’s real motive was to save on food over the course of a long siege. On the other hand, it seemed odd that Erhan didn't seem to understand that a Darkuran attack would put an end to the siege in a single day. And even if that were not the case, what was the usurper waiting for? Whom did he think would be bringing him supplies and reinforcements?

As I took stock of things, it seemed that the rescue plot had gone smoothly for Armand. But my concern centered on Airelle, not the viscount. Whatever would serve her interests best in the longer term, I was prepared to do for her.

The next day, Princess Arielle received her first delegation in the role of an avowed supporter of Lord Armand. She told Ulik’s visiting dignitaries that she was repudiating Duke Erhan’s cause and urging the people of Roch to renounce him also in favor of Armand, just as most of Ulik already had.

In the course of things, the evacuation of non-combatants from Roch was agreed to and I subsequently left the city along with the old, sick, female, and young. Armand’s officers received us in an orderly manner and measures were taken to send the displaced people to safer locations.

Over the next couple of days, the kingdom’s remaining neutral factions began to declare for Armand. Spies inside the fortress city reported sinking morale and dissension amid Erhan’s ranks. Armand gave the garrison even more to worry about by making a show of building siege machines and parading his troops within sight of the city walls. However, he was still disinclined to bring up the Darkuran battalion, lest they riot and launch an unauthorized attack.

Though I didn’t care for Armand either as a person or a leader, I didn’t hate him. He was a self-seeker, granted, but so were most politicians. In fact, I was in support of anyone peacefully establishing a new royal succession as soon as possible. As long as there was an active war still in progress, unexpected and unpleasant things were likely to happen. It was my opinion that the recent events amounted to one hell of a way to choose a new high prince for Ulik, but some of Earth’s past usurpers had actually turned into decent rulers – including a fair share of Rome’s emperors. But, mostly, I was just standing by as an observer. There was only so much that I could do, beyond hoping for the best regarding Ulik.

Then, a few days after the evacuation, the Darkuran battle troop stomped over from its nearby bivouac. I didn’t know what to make of this redeployment, insofar as I had received no information that Armand was authorizing it. What was especially alarming was that it was unlikely that the Darkurans would do such a thing except under instructions from their king. What was Q’zon up to? I thought that these new circumstances might presage some very bad things.

The aliens erected a new camp a short distance behind the siege lines and then held aloof from the rest of the army, like a pride of lions leisurely contemplating a flock of sheep. Among Armand’s human supporters, tensions were running high. The word went around camp that the men should keep their weapons at hand and stay close to their unit leaders in anticipation of “unexpected events.”

A very concerned Armand called me into his tent to ask me what I knew. I could only reply that if Q’zon was doing something, I hadn’t been informed about it. Then he asked me whose side would I be on in case of trouble. I told him that I wouldn’t switch sides unless it was to obey Q’zon’s direct orders. The Viscount didn’t rate that reply as being very encouraging and so waved me away without special instructions.

Outside again, I couldn't lose the feeling that ominous things were being repositioned behind a cloak of shadows. News suddenly came that the Darkuran ambassador was calling at Armand’s headquarters accompanied by a small Darkuran guard of honor which, admittedly, was something that he customarily did. Armand met the inhumans under his tent’s awning and spoke briefly with the ambassador. Then, accompanied by his own bodyguard, the viscount went into the pavilion along with the dignitary accompanied by a couple of his Darkuran “aides.” I decided to stroll over in that direction, just in case. I wanted this war to end peacefully, but the smell of trouble was thickening to the level of a stench.

Before I made it as far as the awning, all hell broke loose.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 6

The Beauty and the Beast by Aladdin, Chapter 6 & Epilog

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Serial Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Written 2006

Posted 11-21-22
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THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, CHAPTER 6

A story of Necromantra

By Aladdin

Edited by Christopher Leeson
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Chapter 6

THE VORTEX

I heard distant horns off in the direction of Roch and so sprang into the air to be able to see what was happening. Duke Erhan was responsible for the excitement, making a mass sortie from out of his beleaguered city. To me, it looked like a suicidal attack of desperation. Armand’s men were responding swiftly to the rush of the enemy. Because of that, I didn’t see what the city garrison hoped to gain by exposing itself to a superior force.

The battle was joined, but I wasn’t sure what I should do about it. The Armandites seemed to be in control and were not in need my intervention. Also, I was reluctant to kill Ulikans – of either faction – lacking any compelling reason for doing so.

Then a sudden cry went up and, with that, the situation changed massively. The Darkurans were pouring out from their camp in a widening mob. I supposed that their very presence would rout Erhan’s soldiers with ease and then the brutes would savor what would be a bloody pursuit back to the city, which I thought they might actually take before the day was out.

I was totally wrong.

Dismayed shouts came from behind me and, looking back, I saw the Darkuran ambassador and his bodyguard emerging from Armand’s tent. The former had something held in his gore-drenched fist.

That object was the severed head of Viscount Armand.

This turnabout was surprising, but I was able to guess what was going on.

I reasoned that after Princess Arielle’s rescue, Erhan saw his political position as hopeless. Clearly, he had sent negotiators to the Darkurans in order to offer them the sun and the moon if they would come over to their side. In fact, he’d probably had diplomats in Darkur for quite a while already. Q’zon, I thought, must have grown unhappy with Armand for occasionally putting the good of Ulik over the good of Darkur. Consequently, the king must have seen Erhan’s offer as an appealing one.

Having arranged the treachery, Erhan had launched his attack against Armand’s besiegers. With the latter shifting to meet Erhan’s sortie, the Darkurans struck from the rear. Armand’s array, being caught between two enemies, collapsed and a massacre began. I didn’t think anything could save the situation and I wasn’t even sure which which side I should be on. But I didn’t care. My only interest was in protecting Airelle, and that I could still do.

I stayed near the battle for as long as I dared, absorbing the energy being released by countless death blows. Simply by hovering aloft, I was being charged like a battery.

But I dared tarry not for long. With the rout of Armand’s army, the victors would soon be sweeping through the noncombatant area, where Princess Arielle was; I had to get there before before the enemy did. The camp was nearby and I reached it in under a minute.

“Marinna!” the teen shouted at the sight of me coming through the flap of her tent. She looked afraid, in fear that I was now supporting the Darkurans. The plucky girl was standing her ground, fending me off with a sword and a buckler.

“I want to get you out of here!” I said.

“No! Help my people. My life doesn’t matter!” she returned.

“Which side do you consider to be your people?” I asked.

“All of them!”

I shook my head. “War is not a party game, Arielle! Once a battle starts, it has to run its course. There's not much I can do help anyone, unless you let me help you.”

I stepped toward her, not afraid of her sword – which looked too heavy for one of her build to handle well. Besides, with my healing power I probably could have survived even a thrust through the heart. She actually lowered her blade as I drew nearer.

Then, scooping up my stepdaughter with no cry of protest from her, I went phantom and levitated the two of us through the roof of the tent. A few arrows and lances intercepted our insubstantial forms but, in the main, the fighters remained fixed on the disintegrating battle. I flew the girl to a line of rugged hills about fifteen miles away. My life-sensing power sensed nothing larger in the vicinity than a vlag -- a harmless Godwheel creature about the size of a rabbit. I set the two of us down on the craggy dome and let the girl scurry away from me.

“Keep your head low and stay here,” I told Arielle. “I’m going back to find your cousin. After that, we'll find a long-term refuge for you.”

“No, Marinna!” she yelled. “You have to do more than that!”

I left her without answering. The best thing I could do would be to find the princess' cousin, who must be with the victorious army. Young Arielle would be in a bad way if she didn’t have someone trustworthy to protect her.

From an aerial viewpoint, I saw an incoming a sight that I hadn’t expected. At that, the situation had radically shifted. This day had certainly turned into one destined for the history books!

Unknown to me, Captain Arielle had been holding her men back from engaging with Armand's allies. They were still standing in reserve when the Darkuran attack began, this making it clear to the war-maid what the real situation really was. That took away any wish she had to join in the fight and instead pretended to pursue a nearby cohort of routed Armandite soldiers to disguise her disinclination to join the battle. Arielle started shouting after the fugitives, requesting a parley. One junior officer recognized Arielle and interrupted his dash for life and engaged with her.

“What can we expect at Erhan’s hands, lady?” the lieutenant asked feverishly, trying to stanch the blood that was oozing from one elbow joint of his armor.

“I think Erhan will accept willing defectors – which you’d be wise to become,” Arielle told him. “But I also don’t think the Duke is your real problem. Keep away from the Darkurans for as long as possible, until they get bored with killing humans. Tell me, have you seen the princess or the witch?”

“No, Sir Arielle,” the lieutenant replied. “I’m sorry.”

The captain urged the lieutenant to spread the word to his unit to come back and join her band without displaying their Armandite badges. “If you pretend that you have joined my contingent it may save your lives,” she said.

I hung in midair, watching a flight of Aerwa warriors sailing over the horizon. I wasn’t totally flabbergasted at this turn of events because I had been the one to urge Captain Arielle to send emissaries to the Aerwa king with a plea for them to prevent a Darkuran expansion into Ulik. I had thought that ploy would be a long shot but, suddenly, here they were! In fact, the elf-like aliens must have been lurking in the area well before the battle had ensued, gathering intelligence and waiting for the Darkurans to make some move that would justify a war. That standard was a low bar, since there was very little that a Darkuran might do that wasn’t abhorrent to an Aerwa.

The Aerwa before me were arriving in great numbers and so their chance of victory was high. The real question was whether Q’zon would react badly to an Aerwa attack and commit to a major war which could lead to the destruction of the be the entire kingdom of Ulik.

I deemed it time to get out of sight, since I was known to the Aerwa as a dangerous enemy -- having helped Q’zon in his war against them. At the sight of their ancestral foes, the Darkuran brutes began to shape-shift into the shape of dragon-bats, so they could meet the aerial onslaught. That was the Darkurans for you; they were stubborn bastards who almost always preferred to die fighting rather than running. I was more concerned for the men of Roch; would the Aerwa hold them to be enemies, too, since the Darkurans were fighting on their side? Or would Erhan seize the moment and make common cause with the Aerwa?

But did any of it really matter?

While the wild fight raged, I resumed my search for the blonde soldier girl.

I spotted her battle flag and, wrapped in a protective force-field, made for it, setting myself down amongst the men of her band. The minor stir I created brought Captain Arielle to the fore immediately, looking at me as if uncertain whether I had come as a friend or an enemy.

I stepped toward her, saying, “I've taken your cousin out of harm's way. I think you should go join her.”

Arielle grimaced and then called an officer to her side. "Take command while I'm gone," she told him. Then to me she said, “I really do need to talk to the princess.”

Taking the warrior into my arms, I levitated her armored mass, making it less weighty than a sack of goose down. Seeing us rising skyward brought cries of amazement from her soldiers.

I at once summoned a wind to carry us speedily toward the peak of rock where, I hoped, the princess would still be awaiting my return. Happily, the girl came out from behind a boulder upon seeing the captain and I touch down.

“Will you come with me to my home world," I asked the girl,” or do you have a better refuge in mind?”

“Why must we go to some strange new world?” the princess asked in perplexity. “I don’t know all of what is going on, but surely the whole situation that we talked about before has changed.”

“Things are different but not better, I answered. “If you stay, I’ll have to go back to Q’zon. If I don’t, the Tradesmen will kill you just for the sake of hurting me.”

“What will happen if I stay here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe there will be a big war between the Aerwa and the Darkur, or maybe there won’t. Maybe you’ll have to marry Erhan, or maybe you won’t.”

“It’s better if you leave the Godwheel,” the younger Arielle said to me. “You’re too dangerous a person to have with us.”

“I tend to agree. But if I go and you stay, the Tradesmen will kill you. They’ve promised to do that and their good at keeping promises. I don’t think their power will be so great on Earth, but I do know that they’re able to go back and forth between worlds, and so there will always be some danger. No matter where you go, you’ll have to live in disguise, unless I go back to Darkur – and the Tradesmen have an uncanny way of finding people.”

She looked to her cousin. “What should I do?”

“I don’t know,” said the captain, “but whatever you do, I’ll stand with you.”

“Do you think I should stay?”

The soldier winced. “Even without the danger from the Tradesmen, you will live the life of a political pawn, just as you were doing before with Erhan and Armand. Worse, now that the Aerwa are involved, a terrible war may come to Ulik.”

“But if I flee, I don’t see how it will help our people.”

The captain shook her head. “I don’t either. But how much good have you been able to for do them while you’ve been here? Many people pity you, but I haven’t met anyone who thinks that you can rescue them from these terrible circumstances.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that there are times when we are stripped of everything except our lives. When that happens, we can either build a new life, or throw the one we already have away on principle, Unfortunately, martyrdom seldom works very well – or for very long.”

Now the princess shifted my way. “Marinna, if I go to your world, will I ever be be able see my home again?”

“Possibly,” I said. “That will depend on how afraid you are of being discovered by the Tradesmen. Your cousin possesses a magic sword that’s able to carry people across the gulfs between your world and mine.”

The girl looked at the captain with amazement. “Is that true?”

“Yes. I never told you the whole truth because it’s a sad and ugly story. Your father asked me not to burden you with it.”

“Why?”

“Because of the magical sword I possess. It’s already killed every person I loved, except you and your father.” The soldier drew her accursed blade. “I’m not sure how much we should depend on this demon steel. Sometimes it forces me to do things that I have no liking for. I never dare forget how evil it is.”

I grinned mirthlessly. "I guess I’m not the only one who lives my every waking hour in Hell," I said.

Just then I heard faint cries, like of ghosts howling from the tomb. The sounds had to be issuing from the Demon Sword. “My God! Are the souls of the sacrificed men still alive inside that filthy blade?” I asked. “Why do you keep it? Doesn’t that wailing drive you mad?”

The knight shook her head. “I would gladly be rid of it, but in the hands of the wrong person it could do great harm. I would have thrown it into a volcano by now, except that I'm hoping to learn how to free its captives. Unfortunately, I'm not a witch. I don’t understand magic. Can you do something to help?”

I regarded the gleaming metal -- a deadly piece of work, too be sure. It made Mantra’s Sword of Fangs a mere Cracker Jacks prize in comparison. “Well, girl, I’d have to study the thing before I can answer that question.”

Her eyes flashed and she snarled, “Don’t call me a girl!”

I shrugged. “I don’t know why you have that attitude, but I think it will make you fit in just fine with the women on my world.” Then I pivoted toward her younger double. “Well, what’s your decision, Princess? You already understand the options as well as I do.”

The teen shifted back toward the soldier. “I want to get away from all this death, and I don’t want to be responsible for causing any more of it. If the Tradesmen are truly a danger to me, I have to go elsewhere. But please understand, Cousin, that I am neither ordering nor requesting that you should give up the life you have made here to come with me.”

The elder Arielle shook her head. “I’ve grown weary of these power struggles. I’d hoped they’d end when we got rid of Lord Pumpkin, but they‘re still with us. I need a new life as much as you do and I certainly can’t let you explore an entirely different world alone. By your leave, Princess, I will open the way for the three of us to travel to Marinna’s world. When I was there before I saw great evil surrounding the Pumpkin, but otherwise the land seemed peaceful.”

Young Arielle gave a perplexed but assenting nod. I took it as a gesture of resignation, not of hope.

The knight thereupon took a deep breath and, handling the blade like a spear, she hurled it into a boulder across from us. It struck deep, sinking inches into solid rock. It simultaneously released a fountain of energy that spun about and transformed into a dazzling vortex. Even though the warrior stepped up and retrieved the sword, the vortex yet remained.

“Come with me,” the elder Arielle said, wrapping her arms around both her cousin and me. Then, like some sort of six-legged beast, we moved as a mass into the gullet of the whirling light.

TO BE CONTINUED IN EPILOG, BELOW

*******
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EPILOG

THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, EPILOG

A story of Necromantra

By Aladdin

Edited by Christopher Leeson
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EPILOG

TWO WALLS, TWO WORLDS

The next thing we knew, we found ourselves between two dirty brick walls inside a fetid ally. We must have stood behind a butcher shop because black flies were bouncing off our faces, very much at home in an atmosphere of rotting meat.

The captain looked at the ugly place with consternation. I was also looking, trying to figure out what country we were in. I saw posters in English and could tell that the alley we occupied had a crowded sidewalk on one side and a dead end on the other.

“There’s no use standing here,” I said and then led the two Ulikans toward the throng of pedestrians. When a pair of college-age girls sashayed by, the captain regarded their cool summer wear. “Are these maidens harlots?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, lots of women dress provocatively on my world.”

“Who forces them to do so?

“Nothing forces them, except their own vanity, I think. Many women think that wearing very little is a good way to attract attention. Many women like that kind of attention.”

“You’re joking!”

“Not at all. I’d wager that you ladies will want to wear clothes like theirs by this time next year.”

“Never!” the knight stated emphatically.

“On the subject of clothing," I cautioned, "Earth people tend to judge strangers on the basis of a lot of unimportant things, including what they wear. We have to get you into some local garments so that you won’t stand out. I can use some new duds, too, since I have nothing with me except Godwheeler fashions.”

As if to affirm my warning, a police officer stepped up to us. “Lady,” he addressed the captain. “Is that sword real?”

To my surprise, Arielle understood his speech and replied in English, “Of course!”

I spoke up. “She means of course not. The assistant costumer just issued her that sword along with the rest of that costume. Joan of Arc is being filmed a few blocks from here.”

“From here?” the officer echoed, taking in the sparing cut my sorceress outfit. “Is it a porno version? That’s the only kind of movie that’s ever made around Van Nuys. Wandering the streets in wacky costumes is going to get you gals into trouble. This isn't a nice part of town.”

Having passed along his warning, he continued on with his patrol. I was glad that he hadn’t given us any trouble, since I wouldn’t have wanted to get rough with a decent man who was only doing his duty.

But the brief conversation had informed me where we were -- Van Nuys, a suburb on the north side of L.A., which had been my take-off point from Earth. Unfortunately, it was within walking distance of Canoga Park, where another ex-knight of Archimage, Mantra, was living. If she laid eyes on me, her first reaction would be homicidal – and I can’t say I’d blame her.

“Who was that man?” the princess asked.

“A police officer,” I explained.

“What does that word mean?” asked the teen.

“A ‘policeman’ is what your people call a guardsman of the Night Watch,” I explained.

“Did he speak true?” inquired the blonde warrior. “Will I be challenged every time I go abroad wielding a blade? Is there no freedom in this land?”

“Not much, and there’s less of it every day.”

“What sort of world have you brought us to?”

“It’s the world of my birth. It’s the only world I have to offer you,” I replied.

“I think we should get new clothes, as Marinna says,” suggested the younger Arielle.

“How is it that you – ladies – are able to understand the night watchman’s words?”

The princess shrugged. “Even though he wasn’t speaking Ulikan, I understood him.”

The knight affirmed that. “On my first visit, I found that I was able to speak the language of this land. It has to be due to the magic of the Demon Blade.”

“Well, that’s a lucky break!” I said. “Knowing the language is going to make it easier for you to get along in this country. As for clothing, I’ll show you how to purchase things you need. Afterwards, we’ll find you a place to stay. But buying things takes money. That means I have to go out and get us some.”

Because Ulik had both inns and coins, the Godwheel visitors were able to grasp what I was telling them.

Leaving the pair resting at a street bench, I went off alone. In large American cities, criminals are everywhere; I readily identified a flamboyantly-dressed man as a pimp and robbed him. Now in possession of a few hundred dollars, I rejoined the girls and took them into the Goodwill store that I had noticed during my outing. The cousins emerged from the clothing section looking like sisters, in shirts, jackets, and jeans. The captain, I noticed, was carrying her armor out of sight, wrapped in a bundle. She asked me if there was any place she could hide it and keep it safe.

“Hold on to it,” I told her. “A fine, hand-made suit of plate will be worth a lot of money to a collector.” Glancing toward the princess, I said, “And the same goes for your court dress. Be sure to insist on a good price.”

“Will we ever dare to go home?” asked the warrior. “It is said that the Tradesmen never forget.”

“Maybe if I die they won’t have any good reason to keep looking for you,” I told them.

“Are you willing to do that?” the captain asked.

“Not yet,” I said.

From the thrift store, we explored the depressed residential area behind it, where there were “for rent” signs displayed. We soon found an acceptable room and I demonstrated for the Airelles how to pay a night’s rent in advance.

I advised the Ulikans not to keep their room for very long, but to instead find more permanent lodgings some other town or city. I explained that should the Tradesmen capture me, I might be forced to reveal the location of the princess if I knew it. Also, if I lost my mind again, I might get the notion to kill the two of them for some mad reason.

Food was next on our agenda. We stopped at a small grocery where I gave them another shopping demonstration. Following that, we called at a fast-food place for a warm meal. We ate from our bagged lunches outdoors, using one of the restaurant's canopied tables. I couldn’t help but smile, watching my stepdaughter wolf down her first Whopper burger with relish. “Wonderful!” the teen exclaimed. “’Tis is a dish fit for a king!”

“Yes, that’s why this eating place is called the Burger King,” I japed.

Once we were well fed, I showed them how decent people put their refuse into trash cans. “Look, it isn’t going to be easy for the two of you to settle into a world that’s so different from your own, but things generally operate in the same way. Like, in Ulik people have to earn their way by working for wages. Same here. But until you find jobs that will pay decently, you can live on a kind of dole that’s called ‘welfare.’ That’s a policy of the government for giving alms to beggars and other needy people. Anyone living in a poor neighborhood like this one will be able to tell you how to get your share of it.”

The captain frowned. “Does this land have no honor? Is it not better to starve than to beg?” Her cousin, behind her, was frowning and nodding.

“Suit yourselves. I only wish I could introduce you to some guide who’d be able to teach you everything you need to know, but I don’t have any friends.”

I refrained from explaining how I had betrayed all my former comrades to their deaths. “But I do have a mortal enemy who knows about the Godwheel and might be willing to aid you,” I continued. “She’s a decent person and I think you’d like her.”

“Why is she your enemy?” asked the warrior.

“I murdered her lover. Her name is Mantra. She’s a sorceress, like me, but she's more sane than I am. She lives nearby, but her exact whereabouts is something that I have to keep secret.”

“Why?"”

“Because she wants it kept secret. She fights evil and has made so many enemies that she's forced to live under an assumed name. I don’t want to endanger her life, nor the lives of those whom she protects.”

At that point I stood up. It was time for me to go, and they already knew why.

As I turned to leave, the knight nudged something against my arm. “Here, Marinna,” she said, pressing the wrapped Demon Sword upon me. “Keep this. I want nothing more to do with the thing. Only, I ask that you seek to find some way to free the wretched souls it has imprisoned, if you possibly can.”

“No,” I said. “That’s a terrible weapon to hand over to a madm – madwoman. And, besides, if I go mad, I won’t care about helping your friends. Maybe Mantra can offer you aid – or lead you to some other wizard who’s even more skillful than she is. And, remember, if you give the thing up, you won’t be able to return to your home, should you ever want to.”

She glanced down. “Do you truly believe that we can ever dare to return to Ulik? And, in faith, I cannot think that either of us have very much left to return to.”

“Until you decide what you should do for the long term, it’s better to keep your options open. Anyway, that’s about all I can tell you – except to say that I’m sorry I’ve made such a wreck of both your lives.”

They didn’t try to delay my departure -- and that was for the best. Until I was truly rid of the Beast, I couldn’t have friends. When I turned the first corner, passing out of their sight, I also was also passing out of their lives. I wished it could have been otherwise, but I had to do it for their own sake.

I knew that wherever I was going, I had to avoid using magic. I had good reason to think that the Tradesmen could trace a wizard by his sorcerous energy. Somehow they had recognized me as Mantra’s daughter after I'd arrived in Ulik and suddenly seized me. Maybe I’d be a little safer on Earth, but maybe not. I’d have to do my best to stay hidden; I didn’t want to do the things that the Tradesmen would force me to do.

Alone again, I was depressed, but I couldn’t afford the luxury of feeling sorry for myself. I needed to keep my wits sharp if I was going to build a new life for myself. To get started, I needed money to work with. Unfortunately, the only quick way I knew of to get cash was to commit another robbery.

Engaging in crime would soon get me into trouble, and doing it without using magic would be very dangerous. I needed a job, something commonplace that would make Marinna Thanasi easy to overlook. The whole idea of doing common labor was unpleasant, of course. Gaining wealth without violence would put a stain upon a knight's honor. But, in truth, it had been a long time since I had been living honorably.

That left the question of what could I do to support myself? My craft had always been fighting and though women were allowed to take take combat roles in this decadent age, a woman bearing arms in civilian life would attract the sort of notoriety that I didn’t want. On the other hand, I’d been gambling since the fall of the Roman Empire and knew my way around modern casinos. I thought that I was reasonably prepared to work as a card dealer. Anyway, Las Vegas would be as good a town as any to settle into.

After robbing another street criminal with the use of very little magic, I boarded a tourist flight to Las Vegas. I dropped off to sleep over the California desert.

As usual, my dreams were haunted by the specter of the Beast. As in so many of my earlier dreams, whichever way I went it was never very far behind me.

The end

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Organizational:

Title Page

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona

By Christopher Leeson

TG Themes:

Fresh Start

TG Elements:

Retro-clothing / Petticoats / Crinolines

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona: Chapter 1

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Western

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Themes:

Fresh Start

TG Elements:

Retro-clothing / Petticoats / Crinolines

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Revised May 28, 2022

Chapter 1

THE BELLE OF EERIE, ARIZONA

By Christopher Leeson

Chapter 1
.

Tuesday, December 19, 1871

A prairie chicken burst from the roadside weeds and startled the carriage horse. “Easy now, Hazel,” Mrs. Fanning shouted to the beast, tugging at the reins.

Myra Olcott, next to her aunt, bounced once on the hard seat, but was too angry to care. All she could think about was how her life had crashed like a burning building.

Abigail Myra Olcott hadn't wanted to make this trip but Aunt Irene had been insistent: “Everyone knows that a young lady has arrived from 'the East.' Everyone will want to meet you and if we don’t they might start wondering whether you have a contagious disease or something.”

Those words made Myra grit her teeth.

Irene Fanning realized her mistake. The girl's parents had died of cholera when she was twelve and it had made her angry with the whole world.

“What I'm saying,” Mrs. Fanning explained, “is that you have to be careful because you have secrets to keep. Or have you stopped caring?”

“I never liked anybody in town before and I still don’t,” the girl said.

“But they've only met you as Myron Caldwell. You have to introduce yourself as a totally new person.”

Myra scowled.

“I asked Molly O'Toole to join us today,” continued Irene. “The storekeepers all know Mrs. O'Toole. If she introduces you, it should carry weight with them. Make a good impression from the start and they'll spread the word that you're a fine young lady.”

With clenched fists, Myra declared, “I wish I’d died up there in the Gap.”

Irene shook her head. “You've said that before. But tell me,my girl, would you truly rather be dead and buried, with your soul very possibly in Hell, or would you prefer to go on living the way you are?

The maid gritted her teeth. The term “my girl” was a magical code-word compelling her to follow her aunt's orders. She hadn't been brought up to believe in magic, but magic had come to Eerie and it had sneaked out of the brush to stung her. The words “my girl” compelled her to tell the truth, a circumstance that she didn’t much care for.

“I don't believe in Hell,” the maiden replied grudgingly, “but I sure wouldn't want to go there if it's real.”

Irene shook her head. “Most people who don’t believe in Hell don’t believe in God either.”

“Hell’s demons must believe in God,” Myra retorted, “but it doesn’t seem to do them much good.”

“Yes, but they hate God and so he’s not going to be giving them any favors.”

“I hope people become ghosts when they die. Then I could live by myself without anyone telling me what I have to do.”

“Whatever you hope, it isn’t going to change the way the world is ordered.”

“What do you know? You'd fall for anything that some parson says told you,” the ginger-haired maid returned.

The farm woman sighed. The two of them had argued these ideas before. This time, she stopped talking and kept her attention on the dusty road ahead.

Once past the town welcome sign, Riley Canyon Road widened into the main street of the town. Though Eerie, Arizona was small compared to many Eastern towns, here, south of the Superstition Mountains, it was the largest settlement to be found this close to Phoenix, sixty miles to the west. The townspeople they passed turned to look. Few of them could have missed the very attractive young lady seated next to the Widow Fanning.

Irene waved to those who’d waved at her, but her forced smile masked profound tension. How would Myra behave in public? she wondered. Very few people knew the girl's real identity. Not even George Severin, the neighbor boy who helped them on the farm, had been told the truth. If they found out, Myra would be absolutely mortified.

The woman slowed the vehicle as she neared the O'Hanlon Feed and Grain Store. She stopped the horse, Hazel, with a “Whoa!” and climbed down to the unpaved street. While tying the beast’s tether to a post ring, Irene told Myra, “Come down, please. We'll visit the Eerie Saloon first and get together with Molly.”

Molly! Of all the people in Eerie, Molly was the one who Myra liked least. Irene didn't like ordering her around by magic, but Molly O'Toole was bossy by nature. In fact, she was the local prison matron and directed several “potion girls” at their duties around the Eerie Saloon. The idea of walking into a disguised jail tied her stomach into knots. The saloon owner, Shamus O'Toole, the son of a witch, had concocted a magic potion that transformed any man who drank it into a woman, a so-called “potion girl.” Myra could only wonder why some holier-than-thou Christian hadn't shot the sucker in the back of the head long before this.

Irene led Myra to the saloon's bat-wing doors and paused. The young farm woman had been brought up thinking of a saloon as an antechamber to Hell. The only other time she had gone into a saloon she had been under escort by Eerie's Judge Humphreys. She had almost been surprised when nothing bad happened inside. And, surprisingly, the first saloon person she met, the young man at the bar, had actually been courteous. Similarly, the O'Tooles, the owners, had received her -- a near stranger -- with warmth and sympathy. They had saved Myron's life that night by sorcery. Though Irene would have paid almost anything for his help, Mr. O'Toole had not asked so much as a penny for his assistance.

Before entering the establishment, Irene peered through the nearest window. She saw just two people inside, one of them sweeping the floor.

Resolved, Irene guided her niece through the swinging doors. An attractive red-haired woman was seated at a small, round table and playing solitaire. The sweeper was a teenage boy, one whom she recognized as the son of a local Mexican laundress.

Irene wasn’t sure that that the saloon girl might not be harlot, so she addressed the youth. “Young sir,” Irene said. “I think Mrs. O'Toole may be expecting me. Would you be so kind as to let her know that my niece and I have arrived? I'm Mrs. Fanning.”

The boy, Arnie Diaz, raised his glance and looked right past her. The lady's younger kinswoman had the kind of face he liked and she was looking smart in a flowery “town dress.” Myra, espying the smile at the corners of Arnie's mouth, felt miffed. She remembered the Mex kid as a friendless layabout who was easy to bully. The girl's frown warned Arnie off and he shifted his attention to her aunt.

“Si, Señora,” he said. “I will let Señora O'Toole know you are waiting.” He climbed the nearby stairs. Up above, Irene knew, the O'Tooles had their living quarters.

A few minutes later, a cheery Molly descended the stairway, already dressed for the outdoors. Her hat was rabbit fur and she was wrapped in a sleeveless cloak of evergreen hue.

“Top of the morning to ye, Irene,” she said. “And to ye, too, Myra, me girl.” The maiden showed Molly her teeth, but she wasn't smiling.

“I have the shopping list,” volunteered Mrs. Fanning. “Anytime you're ready.”

“I'm ready when ye are,” Molly replied. “It’s too bad there be so few people around just now to introduce ye to. Maggie’s back in the kitchen, but ye've already met her.”

“Yes,” nodded Irene. “She brought a very fine breakfast to us at the doctor's office.” The farm woman commenced searching her reticule until she found an envelop. This she handed to her hostess. “Here is the payment for that meal, along with a gratuity for the help you gave us that day. I should have remembered to settle up when I paid you for the purchases you made for us in Phoenix a couple days ago.”

The proprietress accepted the envelope. “I'll run it right back to the kitchen, but first...” She indicated the redhead at the table. “I'd like to introduce ye to Miss Bridget Kelly. She’s just as likely t'be found up front when the saloon opens up as are I and Shamus.”

Miss Kelly looked up at Irene. The farmer had known from town gossip that one of the “potion girls” at the saloon was a gambler. Besides Maggie Sanchez, Mrs. Fanning had only met two of the potion girls about town -- Trisha O'Hanlan and Laura Caulder. Speaking to them had always made her uneasy; it was hard to know how to behave politely around such unusual people. Did the potion girls dislike being looked at, especially by those who knew what they were?

Gathering her courage, she said to Molly, “I hope any friend of yours can be a friend of mine.”

Molly led her visitor in to Miss Kelly's table. Up close, the young lady was even more attractive than from a distance. She looked rather Irish, as Irish as the taverner herself. As it was with potion girls, Mrs. Fanning could discern no trace of masculinity in Bridget. But yet, wasn’t it a mannish trait to be a gambler?

“Bridget, this is Irene Fanning,” said Mrs. O'Toole. “She owns one of the farms to the west, along Reilly Canyon Road. Ye've probably ridden past it a few times by now. She and I will be going shopping. Please be making her feel at home whenever she drops by for business or a visit.”

“Of course, Molly,” Bridget said. She met Irene's glance and extended her hand. “How do you do, Mrs. Fanning?”

Irene took the hand. “Very well, thank you. I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Kelly.”

Bridget glanced past her to Myra. “Is this young person a member of your family?”

“Yes. That's my n—niece, Myra. Myra Olcott. She's—she's staying with me. I'm hoping that she'll decide to make a permanent home here in Eerie.”

The gambler nodded. “Let's hope so. The town needs young people. By the way, I recognize your name. You have my sincere condolences for your nephew's unfortunate accident. The loss must be very hard for you.”

“It is, thank you. If my dear Myra were not with me, I don't know how I could have held myself together.”

The distaff gambler nodded sympathetically. “A death in the family is always hard to bear. But, for now, I hope that the two of you shall have a fruitful day shopping.”

“I'm certain that we will. Thank you very much, Miss Kelly.”

As Molly and her companions reached the boardwalk, Molly made a suggestion. "I'm thinking that the quickest way t'be spreading the word about Myra is for us t'go over to the newspaper office. I'm betting that Roscoe Unger will be right eager to be served up that wild story about the robbers coming back and kidnapping Myra Saturday night."

Irene nodded. “Yes, it seems that people very much like to read about unpleasant matters.”

Silverman's dry goods store, like everything else in Eerie, was not far from the Saloon. “Maybe we'll be finding a thing or two that Myra can use,” the older woman speculated.

Ramon de Aguilar was tending to business alone. “What can I do for you ladies?” the clerk asked, his English only slightly accented. Most of the town ladies had a good opinion of Ramon. Oddly enough, it was common knowledge that the well-spoken Mexican was courting Maggie Sanchez, the restaurant owner. She wondered how he could overlook the fact that the cook had been a man who had also been an outlaw.

“Do ye see anything that ye might like t'be taking home with ye?” Molly asked Myra.

“Not if my life depended on it!” declared the maid.

Irene winced. “Listen, my girl, be courteous. If you don't have anything pleasant to say, just...just stand there and be demure.”

Myra frowned, not knowing what demure meant.

The widow at once offered an apology. “Please excuse her outspokenness, Señor. Myra simply hasn't been herself since her mother died.”

“Of course, Señora Fanning,” replied the clerk. “Feel free to look around; I will be here to assistant you.”

“You are so kind, Señor de Aguilar. Let me introduce my niece formally. Her name is Abigail Myra Olcott from New Jersey, and she's the only child of my late brother, Amos. Say hello to the gentleman, Myra.”

“Hello,” the girl complied tonelessly.

“Very happy to meet you,” the young man replied.

Myra returned the best smile she could could manage. While not having any use for Mexicans, she didn't have anything personal against this particular one.

Irene and Molly now saw to their shopping needs, though shopping was, of course, only incidental to this excursion. Irene needed to know how far she could trust her niece to behave in public. So far, her doubts had not been allayed.

Something caught Mrs. Fanning's. Dresses. None of her old clothes, even the best, would do for the Christmas dance. Except for church wear, the widow hadn't stood in need of quality clothing. But, as it had happened, an attractive man had offered her an invitation to the holiday party. The idea not only appealed to her, it also served up another good way of introducing Myra to the community.

But which dress before her was the most suitable? She knew almost nothing about current fashion trends.

“Molly,” Irene found herself asking, “what do you think would be right for the Christmas dance? I know you have good tastes, considering the nice party dress you picked up for Myra in Phoenix.”

Mrs. O'Toole took a look at the rack, regarding one garment after another. She knew that well-dressed women liked smart bodice-dresses these days, trim in the waist and riding low on the shoulders. Worn with a good corset, such a gown flattered very well a youthful woman. Molly recalled a line from a rollicking song that went something like,

The girls have no tops to their dresses at all,
As if they were bound for a bath, not a ball.

The Irish matron tried to imagine the painfully modest Irene with her hair worn differently and all gussied up. Suddenly the widow pointed at a dress.

“This one is rather nice.” Irene drew out her selection, but it seemed too sedate for Molly's tastes.

“If I were yuir age, I wouldn’t be going out socially in that Plain Jane,” the older woman said. She instead picked from the rack a low-cut dress that she very much admired.

Irene drew her lips into a profound O. “Molly,” she said, “I know you'd be the belle of Eerie, Arizona in such a dress, but people aren't used to seeing me appareled...in such a carefree way.”

“That's what I was thinking. Isn't it time ye was sloughing off a whole boxcar of cares?” the tavern-keeper asked. “Christmas is the time for new hope, for bright colors, and smiling faces. New beginnings, really. Have ye never been wanting to let people know how...well, how alive and lovely ye really are?”

Irene grimaced. “I did wear something like that at my wedding party,” she admitted. “It was a day that I still can’t forget. But everything went wrong after that. I became a widow before I learned how to be a proper bride.”

“Optimism, lassie, optimism. A seed in the spring may not look like much, but plant it and water it, and a wonderful flower will soon be blooming.”

Irene shook her head. “Spring is still a long way off.”

Molly smiled. “No, it's not. Ye're living yuir spring season right now. Enjoy it, because springtime is short.” She lowered her voice. “We both know that Myra is making a new start. But ye could use change of the same sort yuirself.”

“The neckline is frightfully low,” the farm woman observed.

“Ye've got what it takes to hold it up. And I know a lady or two that're mightily skillful with the needle, if a little alteration is needed. But whatever ye buy, ye'll have to decide today. There's not much time left for a fitting.”

“It's probably too expensive,” Irene protested weakly.

“It's tag says it's only $9.00. Any good dress is going to cost at least that much.”

“What if it doesn't look good on me?”

“Ye won't know until ye see yuirself wearing it in the mirror. Why the long face?”

“You know Tor better than I do,” the widow whispered. “Would he like a woman dressing so...frivolously?”

Molly smiled. “That's the best part of it. Tor is a prospector, not a parson.”

Upon leaving the shop, Molly excused herself briefly to make a deposit at the bank. Irene and Myra, the former carrying a large box, walked to the Ritter livery stable. Just at the point where the pair began to smell the odor from the stalls, Myra caught sight of a youth emerging from a hay shed and knew him to be Winthrop Ritter. When the boss's son smiled at her, the girl resentfully looked away.

“Hello, Mrs. Fanning!” said someone in baritone. Aunt and niece turned to face Clyde Ritter, a man in his 40's wearing a waxed mustache and a leather apron. Myra grimaced; she didn’t like the father any better than she liked the son.

“Mr. Ritter,” the Irene said, “my niece Myra is new in town. She so much likes horses that I thought she might enjoy visiting your very fine stables.”

The proprietor nodded. “The younger women surely do seem to like the large, powerful beasts.” He then looked squarely at the maiden. “Maybe you'd like some candy, Miss Myra?”

“Ma always told me not to take candy from strangers,” she replied.

Ritter chuckled. “That's good advice. Anyway, you'd be quite welcome to visit the horses whenever you feel like it. I'll be right glad to find you one who most likes being petting.”

“May we stroll about the stalls?” Irene inquired. Ritter nodded amiably and then escorted the pair on a brief tour. He kept up a stream of banter until a man in a dapper suit walked into his office. At that, he excused himself and went in to see to the fellow.

“Ritter's a bad one,” Myra hushedly cautioned her aunt. “Don't let the likes him get you cornered when you're all alone.”

“Mr. Ritter?” she replied. “He's a married man and a town leader.”

“I know what he is. I just hope you never find out what else he is.”

Just then, Myra noted Winthrop lingering nearby, peering over the divided harness room door. “Let's get out of here,” she suggested to Irene. “Young Ritter’s watching us. He was the worst killcrow at school and all the kids hated him.”

Irene nodded coolly to the tall, sturdy boy. “All right, let's go find Molly. Then we'll visit the bookstore. I know how much you like to read.”

“Fine. Any place is better than here,” the girl agreed.

The aunt and niece found Molly waiting at the bench outside the Wells Fargo Bank. The reunited threesome walked to Kirby Pinter's book shop, whose owner was a young man in this thirties, his face round and his brown hair thinning. His mustache, however, was robust.

“Myra loves to read,” Irene told Mr. Pinter. “I think you'll be seeing her around the shop from time to time.”

Kirby smiled. “Let me guess,” he said to Myra, “you especially like romances and love stories.”

The auburn wrinkled her nose. “Maybe that’s the sort of stuff you like to read. Me, I like to find out about foreign places. Adventure stories are all right, too, if they have plenty of sword-fighting.”

The shopkeeper's smile grew even broader. “Such an adventurous and imaginative young lady! I know of a book that's full of brave deeds and feats of arms. Are you familiar with Le Mort d'Arthur?”

Myra's brows knitted. “Is that Dutch?”

“It's a French title, but the book is English.” Kirby bustled to his stepladder and from a high shelf drew down an embossed volume with gilded edges. This he handed to his young visitor.

“Nice pictures,” she said, flipping though its pages. “I read a few stories about knights at school.”

“Yes, these legends are very old and they have shaped the character of many a boy and girl for the better.”

Myra knitted her eyebrows. “What does it cost?”

“Just a dollar!” the shopkeeper responded brightly.

“Well, I don't have so much as two nickles,” she replied.

“We'd better save the book for a special occasion,” suggested Mrs. Fanning. “Do you have any dime novels, Mr. Pinter?”

“For your own reading?” Kirby asked wryly.

“Oh, my goodness, no! It's the young people who can't get enough of such things.”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “They truly are popular, especially with school-age boys. But I scarcely would have guessed that blood and thunder would have any appeal for a young lady.”

“As you've found out,” Irene advised, “Myra has an adventurous imagination.”

“Do you have anything about Jesse James?” the girl interjected.

“About outlaws?” exclaimed Irene. “Not today. Mr. Pinter, do you have any magazines dealing with explorers or lawmen?”

“Oh, yes,” Kirby affirmed cheerfully. “Both topics are very popular.” He picked out a couple of magazines from his stock and offered them to Myra.

While Kirby attended to his customers, Molly had been exploring the store shelves. “Here's just what ye need t'turn a tomboy into a beacon of society,” she spoke up, holding out a book for Irene to see.

The latter took the volume from her and paged throough it, its title being The Laws of Health in Relation to the Human Form by D.G. Brinton, M.D. She saw that the first chapter discussed left-handedness. Further along, there were chapters dealing with bad habits, the care of the ears, the nose and, in fact, almost every part of the body.

“It does look interesting, Molly, but it contains so much personal detail!”

“Suit yerself,” the Irish woman said, shrugging. “But I'd say that today's young ladies are a wee bit different from what they used t'be. And tomorrow, I'm thinking, they're going to be more different still.”

“I think this one would make a good read,” Myra broken in, displaying one of the dime novels to her guardian.

“Very well,” consented Irene.

"The price is two nickles," Kirby volunteered.

Kirby Pinter wrapped the magazine and bound it with a length of string. Once they were outside again, Molly ushered the younger ladies to the news office. The saloonkeeper paused to look in through the window and noted that the printer, Roscoe Unger, seemed to be very busy at his press. Not wanting to bother the man in the midst of carrying out important work, Molly stated her misgivings to Irene, who agreed.

“Well, then,” the widow considered, “we might as well get on with our other errands. I want to take a fresh can of milk to Carmen Whitney, and pick up her empty.”

“Who's this Carmen?” Myra asked.

“She's Ramon de Augilar’s sister,” Irene replied. She's married to Whit Whitney, the barber, and they bought the town bathhouse.”

Myra shrugged. She barely knew the barber and had never met his Mexican wife.

“Mil gracias,” Mrs. Whitney thanked them when she opened the bathhouse door. “The milk I still have left would not have lasted until morning. Que lastima, I have heard about what the outlaws did at your home. Lo siento.”

Carmen Whitney was a light-bodied woman in her thirties, her slenderness accentuated by the way she wore her dark locks tied back into a bun. “Farmers are always so busy. Have you gotten all your Christmas shopping done?” the proprietress asked.

Mrs. Fanning shook her head. “I've fallen very far behind.”

Carmen sympathized with a sigh. Turning to Myra, she said, “So, you are Señora Fanning's niece.”

Myra tried not to frown. “Yeah. What of it?”

“Do you come from Pennsylvania, also?”

“No, I'm from New Jersey.” She pursed her lips, trying to remember the name of the dumpy hamlet where her aunt lived.

“Bound Brook, New Jersey,” Irene put in. “A lovely town.”

“Is it near the sea, Myra?” Carmen asked.

“Ah....no,” stammered the ginger-haired girl.

“Is it a large city?”

Unsure, Myra ventured, “It's larger than Eerie.”

Carmen laughed. “Very many places are. But Eerie today is much larger than it used to be. “Before the war, the pueblo was so small that my padres hardly bothered to visit it at all. Our tenants made almost everything we needed at the hacienda.”

“Eerie hasn’t gotten that much bigger since the war,” observed Myra.

“I do not speak of your Civil War, muchacha, but the war between Mexico and the United States. Eerie was called Cadena Roja back then. It means Red Ridge. There were no real stores for people to shop in. From time to time, a few useful things were brought in by traders, but mostly the folk made for themselves the simple things they needed. But, pretty soon, Yankee people were settling all around, even in Cadena Roja. Only the old families use that name any longer. When the American gold-seekers found the old Indian ruins among the rocks, they thought that they looked 'eerie' and so called the town after them.”

“It sounds like your family used to be rich,” stated Carmen's young visitor.

“Myra!” admonished Irene.

Carmen smiled. “Because I lived at a hacienda? Yes, my father had much land and many cattle. My brother Gregorio has been a good steward of what he has inherited and is still a wealthy man. But I am richer than he is, and in a better way. The wealth that brings joy to the soul is happiness. I have a family and I have friends. I have a new casa that my husband built. I also have a business of my own. I have the best kind of gold, though I think the prospectors in the hills would disagree.”

“A lot of people would,” observed Myra.

Irene appeared pained; Molly, just then gazing at the wall, was shaking her head slightly.

The small talk carried on for a short while longer before Carmen rose from the small table that served as her desk. “Dispenseme; it is time for me to open the bathhouse.”

“In that case, we won't keep ye any longer, Carmen dearie,” said Molly.

Their visit being concluded, the three excused themselves. Mrs. Fanning carried the returned milk can to the buckboard and, once there, gave vent to her irritation. “Myra, why must you always show such poor manners?”

“What's poor about them? You didn't hear me cuss the lady out for being a Mexican, did you?”

“Yes, we should be grateful for small favors, but a well-mannered person considers a person's feelings before bringing up any subject.”

“How am I supposed to know what somebody else is feeling?”

Irene looked frustrated, but Molly touched her hand. “Myra's not used t'being around people, especially as a lassie. Things will be getting better, mark me words. The saloon outlaws were all rough-talkers at first, too, but they soon figured out that being polite makes people like them.”

The taverner, glancing toward the seventeen-year-old, added, “Maybe ye don't remember that ye used to be about as welcome as a chicken-stealing coyote hereabouts. Thank the Lord that you’ve been given a clean record. What are ye going to do with that chance?”

“From what I’ve seen so far, it’s better to be treated like a coyote than a girl.”

“Is that so?” asked Irene. “People give girls gumdrops, but they shoot coyotes. Haven't you had your fill of getting shot at?”

“Be patient,” said the Irish woman. “Every potion girl has a lot to be angry about. She’ll be learning that anger makes for a heavy load until ye can put it down. Like, Jessie Hanks is a completely different person than she used to be.”

“Do we dare take her to the Christmas dance while she's so unready?” asked the widow.

“Keep your dance!” Myra snapped. “I never wanted to go!”

Molly shook her head. “Myra, ye may be right. Maybe ye should instead spend some time in the Eerie Saloon jail. That's the sort of place where a stage robber belongs. Ye can always room with the other potion girls. Ye’ll be finding that scrubbing and cleaning is just what you need to occupy yuir mind.”

“No!” declared Myra.

The girl's aunt shook her head. “Before we do anything drastic, let's first find out if she can behave sensibly at the party.”

“It's up to ye,” said Molly. “But on that particular subject, I was wondering if ye needed a person to fit your and Myra's party dresses. If ye do, I have a suggestion.”

“Who?” asked Irene.

“Are ye acquainted with Teresa Diaz?”

“Not personally. I know that she's the most popular laundress in Eerie, but I've always washed my own clothes. Is she a good seamstress?”

“The ladies I know swear by her.”

“But do you think she'll have time to fit two dresses before Saturday evening?”

“We can only know by asking.”

Molly led her companions to a modest house behind the main street. There, the Irishwoman informed them, the widow Diaz lived with her four children. One of them happened to be Arnie, the boy who worked at the Eerie Saloon. Though they were making this visit impulsively, they were fortunate to find the laundress/seamstress at home.

Sullenly, Myra followed her elders indoors. She didn't like meeting new people. They were almost always trouble.

The shoppers were welcomed in and ushered into a little living room cluttered with baskets of laundry. The air was heavy with the smell of dirty clothes and wet wash. Teresa seemed about forty and looked like a person who had done more than her share of hard work. Por supuesto! Senora Diaz responded to her visitors after being appraised of their needs. “Of course I can fix the two dresses! Muchas gracias for thinking of me.”

“People say your work is excellent, but the time is so short. Will you be all right?” Irene asked.

Teresa became thoughtful. “It would be best if I began the task tomorrow. Can you bring the dresses in then, at about eight in the morning, Señora Fanning?”

“That should be fine,” replied the farm woman. “I sorry to create a rush, but I only bought my new dress this morning.”

Comprendo. I have already been doing much work for the fiesta de Navidad, but have been able to keep up. My hija, Contanza, helps me.” The laundress glanced toward Myra. “Señorita, were you in school with Constanza, or with my son Arnoldo?”

“Myra only came to Eerie last week,” Irene spoke up. “She was left orphaned by the death of her mother this summer.”

Que lastima! declared the señora. “So sorry!”

Myra shrugged.

Mindful of how busy Teresa was, Molly and Irene brought the visit to a swift conclusion. Once out in the street, the saloonkeeper asked her younger friend, “Where are we off to next?”

Mrs. Fanning knit her brows. “Before I start my serious shopping, I want to introduce Myra to Reverend Yingling. If she makes a good impression, he'll speak well of her to the whole congregation. After that, Myra and I will finish up by buying groceries for the holiday. And also dry mash for the horses and cattle.”

“If ye're still in town when the noon bell rings, swing over to the saloon for lunch,” suggested Molly.

“Oh, you're leaving us so soon?”

“I shouldn’t be going paying a call on the reverend. He has no liking for people who run gambling houses and sell whiskey.”

“I understand,” Irene said.

The Yinglings owned one of the better houses in Eerie, built in the octagonal style. Irene couldn’t help but admire the veranda that entirely surrounded the two-story home. Its design guaranteed that some portion of the porch would always be in shad during the course of every hot day. Irene hadn’t sent prior word of her visit, so she was unsure if the Methodist minister would be found at home.

The widow tapped on the clergyman's door and the mistress of the house opened it. Irene knew Mrs. Martha Yingling very well from church. She was short and plump with a pleasant face and alert eyes. Her house dress was well-laundered and of good quality.

“Mrs. Fanning!” the minister's spouse exclaimed. “What brings you this way on a weekday morning? Then her cheery tone faded. “I'm sorry. Everyone has heard about your nephew and about the robbers.”

Irene glanced down, preferring silence to actively lying to protect lies already told. “It was all so shocking,” the farm woman affirmed, “but I have a happier reason to come by. My niece Myra Olcott has only lately arrived from the East. I'd like to introduce her to the pastor.”

“Oh, of course!” Mrs. Yingling responded brightly. “The parson will be overjoyed to meet a new parishioner.” The lady of the house stood out of the way as a gesture of welcome.

She led them into the minister's office, where Thaddeus Yingling looked up from his chair and recognized Mrs. Fanning.

The reverend was a big man and he looked bigger still seated behind such a small desk. Though his curly hair had largely grayed, his arms were as thick as a working man's and his shoulders were broad, square, and solid. Beyond his stature, his intense glance sent out a notice that this man was no one to fight with, either verbally or physically.

“Sister Irene!” Yingling exclaimed, rising, his voice deep and resonate. “I was intending to make a call on you later today, in respect of your recent ill-fortune. We're delighted to find you up and about.”

“Thaddeus,” spoke up Martha, “there is good news, too. Irene has brought her niece from back East to meet her new pastor.”

Yingling stepped out from behind his desk. “That pleases me very much indeed,” he said, his intimidating gaze squarely on Myra. The girl was standing stiffly, always having had a special aversion for the opinionated and high-handed minister.

The tall man smiled. “On behalf of the citizens of Eerie, I would express the fond hope that you shall find peace and friendship here among our congregation. Are you a Fanning or a Caldwell?”

“Olcott,” the maiden responded glumly.

He narrowed his gaze. “I can sense your dejected mood. Well, that is to be expected, considering your recent misfortune. And, of course, I extend my special sympathy for what happened to your cousin Thorn.”

“Yes, Reverend,” broke in Irene, “but my niece has even more reason for woe than you know. She lost her father just a few years ago, and this summer her mother passed on, too. Not having any other close relatives, she has come from New Jersey to live with me on the farm.”

“A double bereavement! I am at a loss for words!”

“I'm fine,” Myra said.

He nodded. “Courage is a wonderful quality, but there is no shame if a tender young lady gives vent to tears.”

What an annoying man! Myra was thinking.

“Please, Mrs. Fanning, Miss Myra, take your ease upon my chesterfield. Martha will be bringing you both refreshments. But I think that what is most needed here is the cheering comfort of the Lord's words. There is a a story that is my particular favorite in such circumstances.”

“No, thank you, Reverend. We ought to be...” began the maiden.

The girl felt her aunt pressing her forearm. “We’re not in that much of a hurry, sweet one,” Irene said. “We should listen to the pastor. There are times when every person needs to draw the strength he needs from a source outside of himself.”

Frustrated, the girl shuffled to the couch and plopped onto it. Her aunt took a place beside her while the minister search his Bible pages for the passage he was looking for.

“Always remember that the Lord himself was not ashamed to show the world His sorrow,” the parson said. “He shed tears for the same reasons that we do. Weeping most often conveys compassion, not weakness."

At that point, the clergyman commenced to read aloud the story of Lazarus in his tomb and the grief that came to his sisters, from John, Chapter 11.

TO BE CONTINUED, Chapter 2.

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona: Chapter 2

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

Mature Subjects (pg15)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Historical

TG Elements:

Retro-clothing / Petticoats / Crinolines

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Posted 08-07-19
Revised 06-21-22

By Christopher Leeson

Chapter 2

December 19, 1871, Continued

While the Mexican helper at the Feed and Grain store loaded Irene's purchases onto the buckboard, the woman herself stood by the front door talking to Patricia O'Hanlan. Myra, watching from the vehicle, already knew that the latter represented the new face and form of Patrick O'Hanlan, the store owner. In a way, Myra was glad that there were a few people in town as miserable as she was. Myra remembered Pat O'Hanlan as a plain, fortyish man, one hard to pick out from the crowd. But this girl “Trisha,” even wearing pants and a shirt, was something to look at. She should have been engraved on a theater poster. Myra wondered how “Trisha” was dealing with her new life.

“Well, hello, Myra,” a male voice addressed her. Looking over her shoulder at her accoster.

“George!” she exclaimed. “Have you trailing my aunt and me like some Injun going after a scalp?”

“Not a bit!” the farm boy responded, grinning. “I came in to pick up a few hardware items for Ma and Pa.”

“Well, if you're heading for the hardware shop, this isn't it.”

“No, but I thought I'd look over the O’Hanlon’s new merchandise. It appears to be of high quality.”

She tossed her head. “If that's a sneaky way of saying that you like the way I look, I've got a good mind to knock you into the street!”

“Temper, temper. Haven’t grownups told you that women shouldn't be hitting men?”

“And why not?”

“Because if a man decided to hit back, he could really hurt a light-bodied gal like you.”

“So, now you're threatening me?” the maiden challenged.

“No, I'm just letting you know why girls shouldn’t go around punching men.”

“Well, you shouldn't go popping off about a girl’s looks, not if you don't want to get hit.”

The youth's smile held firm. “I don’t I follow. Most girls like to be told they're pretty.”

“I ain't like most girls!”

George nodded. “I'd say that's true enough. Maybe living in the East has gotten you spoiled. Folks say that Eastern girls are always funny and fussy. Just be sure to behave so that folks will like you. I’m just wondering how long it’ll take for a certain Miss Olcott to turn into a rip-roaring Western sort of gal.”

“Humpt!” Myra said. “Push me too far and you'll find out how rip-roaring I already am.”

“That-a-girl!” the youth said cheerily. “Men like plucky women. Eastern ladies show up out here as spoiled as springtime apples. Luckily, this a hard country that breaks them to the saddle real quick. One day they're going to tea parties, and the next they're cutting sod, fishing, driving mules, shooting crows, and even standing up to outlaws and Indians. But I admire the way you had a run-in with outlaws and handled yourself. That makes you the pick of the litter. I'm not for wasting my time to waste on the soft and fancy sort of gal.”

Myra gave a small snort. “I'm not the least bit interested in how you use your time, Mr. Severin. You have the bad habit of getting in the way, like a dead branch underfoot. Are all Western men as snoopy as you?”

“Why'dya keep saying I'm snoopy, Miss Myra?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“What of it? Have you got secrets to hide? If you make me too powerfully curious, I may just have to find out what those secrets are."

Myra shifted toward the storefront, hoping to see her aunt coming back. No such luck. Neither her nor the “potion gal” was in sight.

“Oh, buffalo chips!” the girl said. “Where did my aunt run off to now?”

“Maybe she went back into the Feed and Grain.”

“What for? I saw her pay the bill already.”

“Or maybe the ladies went out for a bite to eat. By the way, what do you think of Trisha O'Hanlan?”

“I don't think nothing! We haven't spoken yet.”

“Has your aunt told you anything...interesting... about Miss O'Hanlan?”

Myra eyed him warily. She definitely didn't want to talk about potion girls.

“She didn't say a word about Miss O’Hanlan. Even if she had, I wouldn't be spreading gossip about it.”

“That's commendable,” said George with a nod. “But if she’s neglecting your education, you'll be surprised at all the goings-on inside this town one day.”

“There you go again, wanting to talk about other people's business. Is your life so dull that you have to spice it up with gossip?”

“My life is lively enough, I'd say. The only thing I'm lacking one thing -- and that's the right type of young lady to take to the Christmas party.”

“With your bad manners, I’m not surprised.”

“My manners are just fine. It's not ill-mannered to just warn you that there’s more to Eerie than meets the eye. If Mrs. Fanning isn't filling you in properly, maybe I should.”

“Don’t bother. I don't spread hearsay, and I also don't listen to it.”

“Every other girl I know loves gossip.”

“I don’t think you know many girls. From all I know of you, any sensible gal would cross the street if she saw you coming.”

“Well, if you ever want to know about something you can’t figure out, I'll be glad to set you straight. There’s always something happening in Eerie. A few weeks ago, two prospectors kidnapped a couple of pretty women from the Eerie Saloon and took them up into the hills. One of them got killed.”

“A woman got killed?”

“No, a prospector! “He was playing fast and loose with the wrong filly."

“So how did she get the drop on him?”

George flashed another grin. “If I told you, that would be gossiping. But just watch out. A lot of men coming West are no-accounts on the dodge. You'll be meeting a fair parcel of scalawags. Some of them will even be showing up at the Christmas hoedown. If you ask me nicely, I can escort you there and home again so as to keep you safe.”

“That sounds a little like the chicken being protected by the fox.”

“I see myself more as a wolf.”

“A coyote, you should say!”

George Severin guffawed. “Do you work hard at making a fella laugh, or does it just come natural? The more I get to know Miss Myra Olcott, the better I like her.”

The auburn beauty raised her chin. “That's a shame, since I couldn't like you even if I were paid to do it!”

“Be careful about saying things about being paid. Sure as shooting, a rascal is going to make a rude joke out of it. Not every manjack comes off as mannerly as us Severin males. But I reckon I've taken enough of your time, Miss Myra. I'll have to be on about my own business. Oh, and by the by, your aunt wants me to finish cleaning the pig pen tomorrow. I'll be seeing you then.”

“You do that. Until the job's done, I'll be thinking about you every time I smell the mess.”

George started to leave but at the last moment he turned to say, “I'm thinking that you're going to hear people talking about 'potion girls' now and then. Ask your aunt what that means. You might find the subject interesting.”

Myra scowled; she already knew all she wanted to about potion girls.

The young farmer was glad to get rid of George. She wanted to be out of town before he sauntered back but, unfortunately, Irene still hadn't reappeared. The thought of crisscrossing the streets trying to catch sight of her was unappealing. Men were likely to approach a girl they found seated or strolling alone, like George had already done.

She got down from the buckboard and went into the store. Trisha was behind the counter, but Irene wasn't to be seen. “Miss O'Hanlan,” Myra addressed her, “I thought my aunt would be back by now. Do you know where she went?”

The storekeeper's picture-pretty face glanced up from the open ledger. “Oh, she said she was going to buy someone a Christmas present. She should be be back soon.”

“Thank you,” the younger girl said. Myra returned to the buckboard, having gotten fed up with this town visit. It was a strain having to pretend to be something she wasn't. Was this how it was going to be for the rest of her days? How much more could she take before she felt like jumping off Chiricahua Ridge?

As the redhead sat waiting on the buggy seat, she grew impatient. Who was Irene buying a Christmas present for? Myra hoped it would be for herself, as long as it wasn’t more girl's clothing. But she also might be looking for a gift for George Severin. Her aunt usually gave her hired men small Christmas gift.

Myra lapsed into a daydream, one about Eerie getting what it deserved. A lot of towns burned to the ground because of arson and now she knew why. A person being pick on could only stand so much.

While Myra waited, two farm girls showed up on the boardwalk. The one with the butterscotch mane was Rosedale Severin, George's younger sister; the golden-blonde was Kayley Grimsley. The Grimsley girl hadn't liked him, but at first that hadn’t mattered. She'd been too skinny to look at as a kid. But all that changed once she'd started filling out. Then he'd tried to get her attention with good-natured insults. But, like most contrary women, Kayley took offense over at every little joke he tried out on her.

Dale – as Rosedale liked to be called – noticed Myra and smiled. The latter glanced away from the pair, her lips pursed. Being disdainful of George, she was determined not to have anything to do with his sister, either.

To Miss Olcott's annoyance, the girls made a beeline her way.

“You have to be Myra Olcott,” declared Dale. She introduced herself and also Kayley. “We just met George yonder and he mentioned that you and your aunt were in town.”

“Hi!” Kayley chimed in with a beaming smile.

“Hello yourself,” Myra answered back, not really wanting a conversation. “I guess you recognized the buckboard, huh?”

“Sure,” the Severin girl replied, “I've seen it lots of times. Where's your aunt at?”

“She's shopping for Christmas presents. If you check out a few of those other shops, I think you'll run into her.”

“That's all right. We really wanted to meet you. George has been talking Myra this and Myra that ever since you showed up. He says you’re as pretty as a peach.”

“Well, isn't that nice of him?” grumbled the redhead. “What else did he say?”

Kayley laughed. “He said that you don't seem to like him. Why should that be?”

Myra shrugged. “He talks too much. Is there anyone around who does like him, except maybe his kin?”

“I like him,” the blonde girl responded. “But he's more like a brother to me than a regular feller. Some of my earliest memories are about playing with George and Dale.”

“Well,” Myra said with a wry face, “he acting like he's a’wanting to play with me now.”

“Oh, Myra,” said Dale, “That means that George has taken a shine to you! He's always talking about how you look, what you wear, and what you do.”

Myra Olcott shook her head. “He’s always coming by and yammering about things I'm not interested in.”

Dale laughed. “That sounds like George. Are you from Pennsylvania like your aunt?”

Myra answered carefully. “No, I'm from New Jersey.”

“What's it like there?”

“It's greener than Arizona, I reckon. But at this time of year, there's usually snow on the ground.” Myra was assuming that New Jersey had to be a lot like Pennsylvania.

“We never get more than a few flakes, and that's too bad,” Kayley said. “I like pictures showing lots of snow, especially on housetops. Say, Myra, is it hard to leave home? We were both pretty young when we came West, so it wasn’t so bad for us. But if you feel like dropping in to visit, we'll make you feel welcome! Dale and I live close by. I can show you the lambs I'm raising. And Mother always has something tasty to give to visitors.”

“That sounds like fun,” the Olcott girl responded, feeling even less enthusiasm than her face betrayed.

“Sure. I hope you ride over soon. George says you have a saddle horse all your own. Did you bring it with you from New Jersey?”

“No, a stray wandered in with a saddle on its back. It's a nice horse.”

“George thinks it's an outlaw cayuse, from that outlaw gang...” Rosedale suddenly broke off and glanced down, chagrined. “Sorry. I shouldn't have brought up the outlaws. People say they kidnapped you.”

Myra winced. “Yeah, they did. They didn't hurt me none, though. Those ornery sidewinders wouldn't have had the nerve.”

Kayley gave a nod. “George was saying you have all kinds of pluck. I'd still be a jumble of nerves if I took a fright like yours.”

“It wasn't that frightening,” Myra protested.

“I didn't mean that you were frightened,” Kayley replied. “I was just saying it might have been frightening for a lot of girls.”

Myra gazed off in the direction of Stagecoach Gap, where the outlaws had taken her. She knew it could have turned ugly, except that the gang had been so eager to find the hidden loot they hadn't paid much attention to her.

“Oh, say,” Dale said excitedly, “George tells us that you and your aunt are coming to the dance this Saturday. If you do, we'll see you there. George says your fancy dancing dress is really something. He says it's better than anything that Kayley or I have. I can't want to see it for myself.”

“Maybe you’ll see it, maybe you won't.”

“Why's that?” asked Kayley.

“I think dances are silly. If Aunt Irene wasn't dragging me to this one, I wouldn't bother with it at all.”

“How come? Don't you like dances?”

“They don’t impress me much.”

“Is that because you don't know how to dance?” Dale inquired.

Myra frowned. “Okay, so I don't know how to dance. People aren't born knowing how to dance.” In fact, as Myron she actually hadn’t minded dancing. It had given him an excuse to touch pretty girls.

“But dancing is fun and you should want to learn.”

“A lot of people don't like to dance. I never saw Irene dancing.”

“Didn't you just meet Irene last week?” asked Kayley.

“Ah, yeah. I mean that she never wrote talking about dancing. But I know for sure that my own parents never danced.” That last part was also not true, but these girls couldn’t know that.

“Maybe we should get together before the hoedown and show you two or three kinds of dances.”

Myra considered that. Kayley Grimsley was mighty pretty and time spent with her seemed appealing. “Maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea,” she said. “But I don't know how much time we'll have before Saturday. There's a more that’s going on besides the usual chores. Irene will be needing help to cook for the party. Then, tomorrow, our clothes will have to taken in to be fitted. After that, who knows what more will be coming up?”

“Well, send us a message by George, if you have some spare time, and we'll come right over. Or, come visit our place. We'll have fun. Ma is a good cook, and Dale's ma is ever better!”

Just then, Myra saw her aunt returning with packages.

“Irene's back. I think she'll want to go home.”

The young ladies turned toward Mrs. Fanning and waved.

“How do you do?” Dale shouted.

“Very well, thank you, Rosedale,” Irene shouted back. “And good morning to you, too, Kayley!”

The three of them only spoke for about a minute before the young pair excused themselves and traipsed away to do more shopping.

Having taken leave of Myra, George Severin couldn't shake off the feeling that something about the pretty newcomer didn’t add up. The youth couldn't help wondering about that saddled horse at the Fanning corral. Was it possible that Thorn had ridden to the farm after the robbery, maybe wounded? Could Thorn still be alive and the women were hiding him?

As for Myra, she’d said she’d come in on the Wednesday stage. But he personally knew the stage station’s helper and the lad had told him that no girl had arrived on that run. That peculiarity made George want to check with someone else. Everyone knew that Mrs. Lurleen Deeters had witnessed the robbery and was robbed herself. After that scare, she had returned to Eerie as swiftly as possible.

George didn’t know the Deeters well enough to feel comfortable about knocking on their door to ask questions, so he sat outside under a leafless tree, keeping an eye on their porch, hoping that one of them would come outdoors, whereupon he could stroll up casually and hail them. After about a quarter hour, the youth saw Mr. Ezzard Deeters holding the porch door open for his wife.

The farm boy approached them as if he was coming directly from Main Street. He called out, “Hello, Mr. Deeters. Mrs. Deeters.”

“Oh, George,” the man called back. “What brings you to town?”

“I'm making produce deliveries for my folks,” the eighteen-year-old answered, showing them the big bag in his hand.

“Anything we can do for you, lad?” Ezzard asked.

“I don’t mean to be too forward, but I heard people saying that Mrs. Deeters was on the stage when it was robbed. I didn't expect to be running into you, but now that I have, I know my folks would want me to pass along our family's condolences.”

“Well,” nodded Mr. Deeters, “that's a fine sentiment. You Severins have always been neighborly people.”

George smiled. “You know, it just so happens that Mrs. Fanning's niece got off that very same stage just before it got robbed. She was lucky not to have to see all that gun-play.”

“I didn't know that Mrs. Fanning had a niece visiting,” remarked the old woman.

“Why, yes she has. Didn’t you notice her getting off the stage just before you got on? Red haired and awfully pretty. She's a little younger than me, I think.”

“I can't say that I noticed anyone like that,” Mrs. Deeters confessed. “But I don't know how I could have missed her, since I was sitting on the bench in front of the depot the whole time. Are you sure that the young miss came in on Wednesday?”

“Well, that's what I've understood. But maybe I'm mistaken about that. Who would know for sure? Did anyone else get off that stage while you were there, Ma'am?”

“Only Ben Meldrem got off,” Mrs. Deeters said, “and nobody could mistake him for a young lady.”

“I don’t think I know the fellow. Does he live here in town?” George asked.

“Why would you want to know?” inquired old Ezzard.

Young Severin thought quickly. “Well, Miss Myra, the niece, said that there was a man on the stage who was very kind and gracious during the ride. She says he got off at the same time she did. Mrs. Fanning mentioned that if she knew who that kindly man was she’d like to give him a big jar of fine plums.”

“Well, that's nice,” said Ezzard. “I wouldn't have supposed that Ben Meldrem was the friendly sort. But if Mrs. Fanning wants to know, he's holed up in one of those squatter shacks along the east edge of town. Just advise her not to be shocked if she finds him drunk and rude.”

“I’ll tell her,” George said. “Well, I’d better get my next errand done. There's lots of chores waiting for me back home.”

“Nice seeing you...young man,” Mrs. Deeters said, George's name having slipped her mind. “Merry Christmas to you and your folks!”

“And to the both of you, also,” the youth answered.

Severin walked briskly until he was out of sight of the Deeters. Then he went back to where his mule was tied.

Soon after, having ridden to the east edge of town, he saw that just one of the squatter shacks had a twist of smoke trailing from its chimney. It also appeared to be the most livable shanty along that sorry row, so he decided to inquire there first.

The youth’s tapping aroused a mutter of annoyance from indoors. A bewhiskered man of about fifty opened the door. His face was flushed – probably from drinking whiskey, which the youth could smell strongly about him.

“Can't a person get some sleep!” he declared. “What're bothering about, boy?”

“Are you Ben Meldrem?” George asked.

“I am. What of it?”

“Sorry, sir. People are saying that a gentleman of your name was on the Phoenix stage when it got robbed. I was intended to write my uncle about the stick-up, but not many know what exactly happened. I thought that you'd be the best man to talk to.”

“Go away, pup! I wasn't at the robbery. I got off before it happened, and I'm glad I did.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize that. But maybe you can answer another important question. Some folks think that the robbers had a confederate on the stage, someone who was able to tip them off that it was carrying a valuable shipment. He or she would have gotten off the stage the same time you did,and then rushed out to alert the gunmen in the Gap. Did anybody besides yourself get off the Wednesday stage?”

The unkempt man shook his head. “Nobody else got off! There was a couple of dudes riding with me, but they both stayed with the coach.”

“Just a couple fellows? Wasn't there a girl-passenger, too? Someone said that a gal of about my age got off the stage at the same time that you did.”

“Whoever told you that must have been drunk! No girl rode in with us!”

“You mean that she got off somewhere else?”

“No! There never was any girl. Now go away, boy. I got me some serious drinking to do.”

“Yes, sir,” George responded respectfully. “You've really set me straight about a lot of things. I appreciate it.”

“Fool kid,” the drunkard mumbled, shutting the door in his visitor's face.

The farm boy walked back to his mule, thinking hard. Everybody was agreeing that Myra had not come in on the stage she said she came in on. If she lied, why? And why was Mrs. Fanning backing her up? He could only suppose that something unusual had been going on with those two and they didn't want people to know about it. Could it have anything to do with the pair of them hiding the outlaw Thorn Caldwell?

George didn't want to jump to conclusions. Still, he liked solving puzzles when he ran into them. He sensed a mystery hanging around Myra Olcott and that possibility made her even more interesting than she already was.

The farm lad smiled, looking forward to running into the fetching redhead the next day.

With the sun high and the wind less chilling than before, the Fanning farmstead came into Irene’s and Myra’s view.

“What did you and the girls talk about?” the aunt asked.

“Nothing much.”

“You must have talked about something. Those two girls can talk a blue streak. Anyway, I'd like you make friends. Having neighbors for friends is a true blessing.”

“They just wanted to to talk about girl stuff.”

“Such as what?”

“The dance, mostly.”

“Maybe you'll see them there,” suggested her aunt.

“I don't care if I do or don't. They never liked me...before.”

“Maybe they'll like you now.”

She frowned. “Why should they?”

“Because just as it's easier for boys to make friends with boys, it's easier for girls to make friends with girls.”

“I'm not a girl!”

Irene shrugged. “Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. Just be careful what you say about the subject when other people are listening.”

Myra's only reply was the face she made.

“What else did you talk about?”

“They asked me to go visit them, or to let them come over to our house.”

“That's a good idea. We both know how a farm can be a lonely place.”

“If you’re so lonely, you should make a few friends yourself,” Myra flung back.

Her young aunt drew a deep breath. “I do have some friends. And I've just made a couple of new ones.”

“Like Molly O'Toole and that lunk Tor Johannson?”

“Well, yes.”

“Molly O'Toole's half crazy, and Tor Johannson just wants to get you into bed.”

Irene flushed. “I know you've been running with outlaws, my girl, but I won’t stand listening to that kind of wicked talk. If you have any wrong ideas about Mr. Johannson, please keep them to yourself. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Myra replied through gritted teeth. Thanks to that damned magic, she was being given an order that was going to stick.

“You shouldn't always be keeping me from saying what I need to say,” she told her aunt. “What if Johannson goes out of his head on rotgut whiskey and I find out he’s fixing to murder the both of us? Wouldn't we bad off if I couldn't warn you?”

Her aunt sighed. “I'd say that such a misfortune would be very unlikely. But I'll tell you this, my girl, if it happens that you need to inform someone about something wishing to do some good, you can say whatever you need to say.”

“Hmmm,” said Miss Olcott, not much satisfied.

“There's someone in the barnyard,” Irene said suddenly.

Myra looked up and saw three saddled horses standing tied to corral rails.

Mrs. Fanning continued on cautiously. At last, nearing the gate, the farm woman recognized Matt Grimsley's white-faced horse. The man himself stood nearby, alongside his eldest son and also Walter Severin, George's father. Irene relaxed.

When she came into the yard and reined in, the men and the boy walked up promptly.

Howdy, Miss Irene,” Grimsley said. Though not yet fifty, he was gray of hair with a face etched from years of wind and sun. The farmer was wearing a socializing jacket -- dark brown with a double row of buttons – along with a black derby and a blue silk tie.

“What can I do for you, Neighbor Grimsley?” the young widow asked.

“Well now, is this that young niece of yours that we've been hearing about?”

“It is,” Irene affirmed with a nod. “Her name is Myra.”

“Howdy, Miss Myra,” said Grimsley with a big smile. “My stars, but you are a pretty thing! It won’t be hard for your aunt to get you married off.”

Myra scowled.

The derbied farmer shook his head. “Don't be afraid of compliments, missy. They're a special privilege for young ladies only. Sooner than you think, the bloom goes off the rose.”

The girl tossed her head. “I heard that, too. So how is Mrs. Grimsley?”

The farmer's grin stiffened.

“Have you gentlemen come over to meet my niece?” asked Irene. “If you can stay for a while, I'll get the coffee heating.”

“That's not necessary, ma'am,” spoke up Walter Severin.

George's pa was younger than Grimsley and retained what were rugged good looks. His clothes were less formal than his neighbor's, though they were also newly washed. Close-shaven, he wore a pale violet bandanna and a wide-brimmed gray hat. “We've come by to offer you some help, if you'll let us, that is.”

“What sort of help, Mr. Severin?” the widow asked.

“I reckon the whole town knows that your boy – your nephew – was killed by the outlaws up in the Gap. People are saying that the body wasn't found.”

Irene shifted uncomfortably. “Ahhh, yes. We can only suppose that the bandits concealed it.”

“Well, the two of us and a couple more of your neighbors would like to help out. It must be hard for your family not being able to hold a proper funeral. Since the law is still riding after the desperadoes, it’s left to the people hereabouts to find the boy and bring him home for burial.”

Irene tried to hide her discomfort. She didn't want her neighbors spending their valuable time on a wild goose chase. It was impossible to find Thorn's body because Thorn's body was sitting right in front of them in the guise of a youthful miss. “This is hard,” Mrs. Fanning began. “I scarcely have any right to ask such a sad favor from friends, especially in what ought be the season of cheer.”

“Christmas is about helping others,” said Severin. “Nobody expects you or this tenderfoot gal to trounce off and search every hole and ravine for the boy's remains.”

“Maybe he's not dead,” spoke up Myra.

“What do you mean, missy?” asked Grimsley.

Myra had spoken up without thinking and now felt trapped into explaining herself. “I was taken up into the hills by the outlaws. Now as I think back, they never once said that Thorn was dead. In fact, one of them mentioned something about 'Thorn's share' of the gold. That got me to wondering. What if he was still alive and they intended to give him a cut of that loot?”

Irene gave her niece a sharp look.

“Well, we hope for his family's sake that he's still living,” said Severin. “But even so, it would be a good idea for us to make the search. If we can't find anything, it might give you ladies some real hope that he could actually be alive. On the other hand, if we bring him home in a less happy condition, the town can at least pay its decent respects.”

“Bless you gentlemen,” Irene said. “No matter what happens, my appreciation is more than I can express.”

“It's nothing ma'am. We'll be heading out to the Gap the first thing in the morning. After that, the plan is to fan out across the rough country, since that's where outlaws on the dodge would most likely hide a body.”

“Why would they need to hide it?” Myra suddenly asked.

“That question crossed my mind, too,” replied Grimsley. “But if Thorn was a friend of theirs, they might not have wanted to leave him lying on the ground like a dead badger. Or maybe they weren't sure if anyone on the coach knew who he was. In that case, they wouldn't want to have his identity found out. I mean, if the law started tracing Thorn's recent movements, they might get wind of who else was riding in his gang.”

“How long will you keep searching?” asked Irene.

“Hard to say,” answered Severin. “Probably for more than one day. We aren't sure yet.”

“Well, please don’t miss having Christmastide with your families; that would be sad. And the Christmas party is coming up on Saturday, too.”

“That's four days from now, ma'me,” said Grimsley. “If we haven't found Thorn by then, we're probably out of luck. Coyotes get hungry this time of year.”

“What a thing to say, Matt!” Severin put in. “I apologize, ma'ma.”

“There's nothing to apologize for,” said Mrs. Fanning. “You're doing the work of the Lord and I bless your kindheartedness.”

Severin nodded. “You're mighty welcome. By the way, that's a hefty load on your buckboard, Mrs. Fanning. We'd be glad to unload it for you.”

“Thank you,” Irene said. “You'll be in my prayers.”

When the job was done, the three neighbors rode off and Irene and Myra went indoors. The first thing the latter did was to open the stove and throw ample fresh firewood over its red, glowing embers.

“I hate having our friends waste their time,” said her aunt behind her.

“Nobody is asking them to,” the auburn answered back. “If they wear themselves out for no reason, it's all on them.”

“Myra! They're trying to do something decent.”

“It's always the decent things that get people into the worst kind of trouble.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” her aunt inquired.

“Sure. I've done a neighborly turn or two, and I've always come to regret it.”

“Never mind that. What I want to know is why you suggested that Myron might still be alive? Wouldn't it be better to have people thinking he's dead, so that they can put him out of their minds?”

“Maybe. It just slipped out when I wasn't thinking. Anyway, the more confused folks are, maybe it will be better for us.”

“I don’t know about that, but the harm is done, Irene replied. “Remember, the more lies a person tells, the more lies he'll be forced to tell later on. That’s how it usually works out.”

“What makes you into such an expert on lying, Aunt Irene?”

“Nothing. I don’t ever want to become an expert at lying.”

“Isn't it a little too late to be getting righteous about it?” her niece asked. “We've both been telling whoppers lately and every one of those whoppers have to be defended. I can hold up my end of the job, but I’m not so sure about you.”

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 3

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona: Chapter 3

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

Mature Subjects (pg15)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Historical

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Elements:

Retro-clothing / Petticoats / Crinolines

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Posted 10-6-2019
Revised 06-24-2022

By Christopher Leeson

Chapter 3

Wednesday, December 20, 1871

At sunup, Aunt Irene rechecked Myra's measurements. Following that, she folded up both party dresses, bagged them, and stowed them on the buckboard for her visit to Teresa Diaz. Myra stated her preference to stay home, and she allowed it.

Looking forward to having several hours alone, the farm girl was hoping that George Severin would not be coming over, that he would instead go with his father into the desert. Why shouldn’t he leap at the chance to ride around the foothills jawing with his fellow hunters, she thought, instead of pitching hog manure at a homestead where he wasn't wanted?

Of all the things she disliked about George, she especially disliked the way he kept talking to her like a girl. Myra could see through his wheedling ways. Boys like George didn’t care about a girl as a person; all that mattered to them was the way she looked. A boy wanted to socialize with a girl only to show her off to his friends, like a fisherman showed off the big trout he’d hooked. Any fetching girl would have served for that purpose. Myron had himself gone after Gilana for no better reason than that she had the prettiest face in Yuma. What she did and what she said didn’t matter a whole lot. What mattered was that he could make the other fellows jealous. It was only later on that he'd found out that she was actually the kind who was fun to be with.

Again Myra found herself glancing up the road, hoping not to see George riding in. To her satisfaction, the approach remained empty.

After feeding the animals, the girl went to milk the cows. Moore than any other farm chore, Myra disliked doing the milking. It just seemed so much like girl’s work. The books always talked about milkmaids, but never milk-lads. On the other hand, Myra fancied horses well enough, though caring for them was both messy and tedious.

It was so frustrating! Myron had become an outlaw to get away from the hard drudgery of farm life. A farmer had to keep scrabbling for pennies until he grew old, sick, and ready to go. Usually, though, he lost his farm to the bank and he’d have to die knowing that his life had been a total waste. If that was how the world rewarded hard work, it surely seemed better to be an outlaw. Wasn't it the outlaw who took his ease and did what he wanted until he needed money, and then he got it with the six-gun without breaking a sweat?

But it hurt to think back on the outlaw life. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to go back to it made Myra’s mood even worse that it already was.

Well, sure, Gilana Hulbard was a girl who seemed to enjoy everything that went with it. Kicking things up in a saloon at least kept away from homemaking.

While doing her chores, Myra found that there was a loose fence rail, its spike having worked its way out of it. But her difficulty in finding a hammer reminded her of her resentment that George had reorganized the farm tools and equipment to his liking. Fine for him, but now she had to waste a lot of time looking for things. After a quarter she found the hammer and secured the fence rail, but it fired her up to go through the sheds and rearrange things according to her own preferences. Myra already knew where to start – at the old feed box. Irene had stopped using it when it had started to leak grain. Since then it had been used for junk storage. Miss Olcott fancied that it should be turned into a hiding place for her own valuables. Maybe down the road she’d find something she wanted to steal and would be in need of a place to hide it.

Inside the large, lidded box, was a mass of mouse nests and scrap wood. Upon digging a little deeper, she hit upon pieces of dry and cracking harness, worn out horseshoes, rusty iron, and broken things in need of repair. She started to wonder how much of it all could be sold to a junk dealer to get it out of the way.

Myra started sorting the refuse into piles upon the hay-littered floor. Near the bottom of the box she touched upon a dusty old wooden case, one bigger and deeper than a cigar box. She remembered it from years before when it was sitting upon a standing shelf beside her parents’ bed. Her mother had saved keepsakes in it – mostly personal letters. She now found that it was still locked and there was no key attached.

The redhead took the case into the light and checked the mechanism. She didn’t think it would be any problem getting it open. Myron had learned how to pick locks from Lydon Kelsey, the local youth who had himself learned breaking and entry from his uncle, a man now away doing time for burglary.

In need of a lock-picking tool, the girl checked the tin can of old nails that she had already found and selected a strong, slender one. As Myra was turning about, she noticed a moving shadow inside the rectangle of sunlight made by the open door.

“George!” she exclaimed.

“Howdy day,” young Severin said. “I was going to start the pen-cleaning again.”

“I thought you’d be going out with your pa looking for Thorn's body.”

“Oh, he asked me if I’d like to trail along. In fact, I wouldn't have minded that one bit, but I'd already told Mrs. Fanning that I'd be back at work today. Also, I just don't think that Pa and the others are going to find what they're looking for.”

“Why's that?”

“Just a hunch.”

“A convenient hunch.”

“Why convenient?” asked George.

“You never liked Thorn. Maybe you'd actually prefer to leave him to the vultures.”

“Did your aunt say I didn't like Thorn?”

“No.”

“Then why do you suppose I didn't? You don’t know anything about what went on. You said you’d never met Myron and that you'd never even gotten a letter from him.”

“Just a hunch,” she said in mimicry.

“As a matter of fact, the two of us weren’t friends,” the boy said. “But I do want him to be found, so this awful thing can be put behind you and Mrs. Fanning.”

“That’ld be nice, but what I want put behind me is all these chores. We've both got things to keep busy at.”

“Before you disappear, Miss Myra, there was something I wanted to ask.”

“What now?”

“Pa said you told him and Mr. Grimsley that you weren't so sure that Myron was dead.”

She shrugged. “I was just thinking out loud. It's not important.”

“How can your cousin being alive not be important?”

“I guess I was saying only what I hoped could be true. But, honestly, how could a person last this long out in the open -- hungry, no water, cold. And people say he’d been gut-shot. He’s got to be dead.”

“Well, I look at it the same way. But what if the outlaws actually did take him away alive?

“They wouldn't have done that.”

“How do you know?”

“Common sense. A wounded man would have slowed up their getaway. Those snakes would rather have finished him themselves than to doddle along with an injured man and get caught. Or so I think.”

“Maybe,” he conceded. “By the way, are you still going to the party?”

Myra was glad to change of subject. “Nothing’s changed. Irene is dragging me to it. I just hope that you’re not going to make a pest of yourself while I'm there.”

He smiled. “Sorry, but if you don’t like company, you'll have to put up with more of it today. Dale and Kayley are planning to come over. They’ve gotten it into their heads that you want to get some dancing lessons.”

“Those silly females! I didn't ask for dancing lessons. It was all their own idea.”

“Yep, that’s sounds like the sort of kind of thing that those two would cook up.”

Myra sniffed. “For a lonely old farmstead, this place is getting more than its share of visitors.”

“Doesn’t a little company now and then serve to break up the routine?”

“To each his own,” said the girl, stepping widely around George on her way to the exit.

Young Severin called after her. “If you mind your manners, you’ll end up with a couple friends you can count on.”

Pausing, she looked back. “I’ll say one thing, Mr. Severin. It’ld be better to have a couple of girls chattering at me than have to stand around listening to you.”

“Oh, I'll be nearby, too. I'll be stopping in at the house for a bite to eat. I got accustomed to Mrs. Fanning feeding me up right well.”

“My aunt told me about your bottomless appetite. I hope you don't have anything against cold grub. Just don’t take too much time jawing instead of eating. You got chores to do!”

Myra picked up the locked box as she passed by it.

“What’s in that there little box?” George inquired.

“That’s for me to know, and you to...not find out.”

She left the barn then with the case tucked it under her right arm.

Once indoors, Myra checked the clock on the high shelf. It was more than an hour to noon, time enough to throw together a hot meal if she felt like it, but she had another pastime on her mind.

The girl reached into her coat pocket and took out the salvaged nail. Then, drawing up a chair at the table, she rechecked the case’s lock. It wasn't cleverly made and so, using the nail, she got it popped open in just a minute’s time. As expected, the thing was stuffed full of letters.

Myra she took the top letter and saw that it was from Aunt Claudelle. Inside was a card with a brief note wishing her mom well for the Christmas season. Myra couldn't remember ever meeting Claudelle. She had barely known even Uncle Amos.

But as uninformative as the missive was, it felt strange to be reading something written to her mother as if she were still alive. The words on paper seemed like a voice speaking though the long, empty years.

Myra went on to skim a few more of the letters. Addie Caldwell's most frequent correspondent had been Aunt Irene. Irene's letters tended to be long ones, mostly talking about what was going on back East. A lot of what Myra saw had been written during the short period that Irene had been married. One of them, with its ink tear-streaked, told how her husband had died in Tennessee.

Myra looked up at the clock again. The time was passing quickly. Though she wanted to keep on reading, she had to put together some kind of lunch for George. If she didn’t, Aunt Irene was going to make it a binding order next time and she didn’t want that. Also, if he showed up at the door and the food wasn't ready, the lazy cuss would stand around jabbering at her while he waited. The less talking they did, the better. Myra therefore opened a can of beans and spooned some of them into a pair of sauce dishes – one for George and one for herself. Hopefully, she could get hers eaten and be away from the table before he came in. In her opinion, a decent meal had to have meat, so she went to explore the pantry.

Her aunt kept the pantry door shut most of the time during the winter, with the little window to the outside half-open. That turned the small room into a cool space for food. There were some chubs of bologna wrapped in rags and sealed with paraffin. Though Myra didn’t like the task, the fragrant meat brought back positive recollections of Christmas time, when everyone was allowed to eat their fill.

Myra found a chub that Irene had already been cutting from. The farm girl chose to use that one, since sausage left open to the air wouldn't stay fresh for long. She cut a portion for herself and a larger one for George. She might as well fill him up right off, so he wouldn’t hang around waiting for her to serve seconds. Next, she sliced the end off a loaf of bread, put some churned butter into a small dish, and ladled some cooked apples into a fruit bowl from an already-opened jar.

Back in the kitchen Myra took stock and decided she hadn’t assembled much of a meal, not one that she’d enjoy eating herself. One things she had to fix was the lack of a beverage. Therefore, she went into the root cellar to pour a pitcher full of the fresh milk from the can she had started filling that morning. Once back in the house, she filled a pair of tin cups, for herself and George.

Then, deeming the preparations sufficient, the girl gave a sigh of relief.

Myra didn’t think there was time enough to read any more of the letters before George showed up, so she put them into two bundles tied with bits of string – one bundle for those already read, and one for the other ones. Then the girl concealed the box under her aunt's bed, just before a tapping sounded on the door. Expecting it to be George, she called over her shoulder, “Yeah!”

But the voices answering her came from Kayley and Rosedale. They stepped right in, toting along their carry-alls. Myra managed a welcoming smile, though she was scarcely in the mood for company.

“I guess it is lunch time,” said Kayley.

“Yeah. Do you need a bite?” Myra asked, hoping that they weren’t hungry.

“An apple, maybe,” said Dale. “Kayley and I lunched just before we started over.”

“How long can you stay,” Myra asked, meaning in actuality, “How long will I have to put up with you?”

“We don’t need to be home until supper time!” Dale replied.

That's going to be a long time, Myra thought. She sure hoped that they wouldn’t start talking about girls’ bodies. A girl’s body belonged in a fellow’s bed, not in decent conversation.

“Hey now!” exclaimed George, stepping in from outside. “Isn't it nice to be having dinner with three fetching ladies – even if one of them is only my homely little sister?”

“Homely! You mangy coyote!” Dale answered him back.

“It's still five minutes to noon,” Myra reminded the youth.

“I didn't think you'd mind,” the Severin said. “I’m figuring that it'll be best to get the chowing done so you three can get on with those dancing lessons. I know how powerfully excited you’ve been about digging into that.”

Dale shook her head. “Men always make fun of people who are trying to learn something new.”

“Always,” agreed Kayley. “Like, I want to learn to drive the buggy, but my dad talks as if I was asking him to let me break a bronco.”

“I think you could give a bronc a good fight of it,” teased George.

“You talk like a brother,” the Grimsley girl responded, “and that's not a good thing.”

“How come? Haven’t you’ve got Jeremy for a brother? What have you got against him?”

“Nothing. And we weren't talking about Jeremy, not until you brought him up.”

“Don’t worry about what your pa says. I can drive a buggy and I can teach you, Kayley,” broke in Rosedale.

“You would?” the neighbor girl asked.

“I've said it, haven't I?”

“That would be jim-dandy!” said Kayley. Looking back at the boy, she asked, “Why didn't you offer to do the same for me first, George?”

“’Cause I respect your pa. If he wanted you driving, he'd be teaching you himself. A neighbor should mind his own business when it comes to dealing with another person’s family.”

“Myra doesn't seem to care for fussy rules like that.”

“Well, it’s not my business what Myra should or shouldn't be doing. But your folks already think that our Dale is a wild girl for being allowed to drive a carriage horse at such a young age”

“Never mind,” said Dale. “Eat up your meal before your victuals get cold.”

“No rush,” her brother said. “If Myra is a truthful person, they’re already cold.”

“I'm not much of a cook,” the ginger-maned girl explained.

“You can't cook?” said Kayley. “Oh, you have to learn, or else you're not going to find the best kind of husband. Dale and I can teach you cooking.”

“We’ll, see,” Myra hedged. “My aunt’s is already teaching me that. You know what they say about too many cooks.”

“Come on, you gals, don't try to change Myra into a mirror-image of yourselves,” advised George. “I think she's mighty nice the way she is.”

“Listen to you flatter!” teased his sister. “You want to sweeten her up so that she’ll want to dance with you!”

The boy shrugged. “We’ll both be at the dance. Maybe I'll be able to persuade her to dance with me once or twice,” he said.

“Perfect!” exclaimed Kayley. “They always do square dancing. She'll need to get ready for that. Myra, square dancing is the hardest thing to learn. It takes at least four people to teach it right. George, can you stay and help us show Myra some dance steps?”

“I'm not sure I should. I won't get a whole lot done if I don’t get at it quick. Today and tomorrow are the shortest days of the year, you know.”

“If you want to make Myra like you, this is the way to start,” suggested Rosedale, trying to keep from giggling.

“Maybe George is right,” replied Myra.

“Oh, pshaw! You’re just afraid that you won’t be any good at square dancing!” exclaimed Dale. “But a person can do almost anything if he’s willing to learn.”

“Eat up quick, you two. We want to get started right away,” urged Kayley.

George was shaking his head.“This sounds like it's going to take a lot of time, and I don't have much time on my hands.”

“Would you do it if we let Myra be your partner?” Dale asked.

The youth put a sausage into his mouth without answering.

When George pushed his chair back from the table, Kayley started wheedling him. “If you just help us with the square dance, Dale and I will be able to teach Myra the simpler dances.”

“I guess I can lend a helping hand,” George conceded. “But if this foolery runs on for too long, I'll be needing to come back to finish up on another day.”

“Aunt Irene isn’t going to pay you for square dancing,” Miss Olcott reminded him.

“Well,” he smiled, “it sounds like Miss Myra is so determined to get my help that I don’t feel like I have much choice.”

“That's perfect!” beamed Dale. “George, let me wear your hat.”

“What for?” he asked.

“So Myra can tell who the men dancers are, or else she'll get confused.”

“I can be one of the men,” offered Myra.

“Don't be silly,” Dale replied. “You’ll need all the time you have just to find out how a girl dances.”

“Let's get on with this, so George can head back to his chores,” the ginger recommended.

“Well, Myra,” Dale said, “if you know any square dancing at all, you'll know that two people start out side by side and end back up together after some other dance movements. Before the dance is over, one person will have danced with everybody else.”

“I wish we had a caller,” remarked Kayley.

“I know a couple of dancing songs!” said Dale. “The hard thing is dancing and singing at the same time! Come on, choose your partners.”

Miss Severin stepped up and took Myra's hand, leaving George and Kayley as the second pair. The two couples took positions facing one another.

“All right then,” Dale continued. “Kayley and George, you start things out with the Salute.”

Kayley obligingly put her right foot forward and turned to face George. After giving him a curtsy, she turned toward Dale and curtsied once more.

“Nice,” said Dale. “Let Myra see it again, but don't move so quickly this time.”

Step by step, Dale led the others through the five stages of the dance, the end of which left even the lively Kayley panting.

“Can I be going back to the pen now so I can do something that’s easier?” asked George of his sister.

“Oh, no,” Dale said. “The lesson won't stick with Myra unless we do the whole thing over again at least a couple more times.”

“Ay yi yi! Where do you girls get so much energy from?” the youth asked.

“Lazy bones!” the younger Severin accused. “How are you going to build up a farm of your own if you don’t have enough energy to dance at a Christmas party?”

“I haven't decided that I’m going to be a farmer yet,” he said. “I've been thinking about going to sea. At least it'ld take me out to where those pretty island girls are.”

“Go to sea?” Dale exclaimed. “You've never set eyes on an ocean in all your born days!”

“That’s right,” added Kayley, “and I bet those island gals aren't half as pretty as they’re made to look in those drawings. There’s probably even prettier young ladies right here in Eerie!”

“You may have a point,” agreed George. “Some of the girls around town are real doozies.”

“Are you talking about those potion girls?” asked Kayley. “They make me nervous. Don't they seem spooky to you?”

George shrugged. “I can’t say. Myra, do you think potion girls are spooky?”

“'Potion girls' again! What in tarnation are you talking about?”

“I'd be glad to fill you in, once we get this foolery done with,” offered George.

The practice went on for a couple hours more and left four of them every bit as tired as bull-riders. Dale, especially, had gone hoarse from having sung “Oh, Those Golden Slippers” so many times.

The young people afterwards refreshed themselves with some milk and canned apples. George was finally able to go out to work, but Kayley and Dale remained excited about teaching Myra some other dances. The latter wasn't eager, but tried not to show it.

“Myra,” said Dale, “we're still hoping to see that party dress of yours. It must really be something. George couldn't stop complimenting it. Normally, he’ll laugh at the best dresses that Kayley or I show him.”

“Did you have lots of good dresses before they got lost in the stream?” asked Kayley.

“Oh, I had some,” Myra said dismissively. “But I don't know why people always go on so about clothing. The way I see it, if you’re not naked, you’re pretty much all right.”

“You surprise us, Myra,” said Kayley. “To hear folks tell it, you Eastern women and girls are supposed to talk about clothing all the time.”

“All the silly women and girls, do,” replied Myra. “But good clothes are deucedly expensive. I think there're better things to be talking about, or to spending money on.”

“Like what?” asked Dale.

“Like good meals, maybe.”

“Restaurants? But would you want to go into a restaurant if you weren't dressed your best?”

Myra shook her head. “I don’t usually worry my head about what other people are thinking.”

“I'd still like to see your party dress?” importuned Kayley.

“I can't show you now,” Myra said. “Aunt Irene took it over to that Mexican woman in town to get it fitted.”

“That's too bad,” said Dale. “We came on the wrong day.”

“Isn’t that how it always happens?” added Kayley.

“Myra?” said Dale.

“What?”

“A little while ago, you talked like you didn't know what a potion girl is.”

“No, I don't. Why should I?”

“Everybody around here knows about potion girls.”

“Dale,” broke in Kayley. “I think we should leave it to Mrs. Fanning to explain anything as important as that to Myra.”

“Sure, that's fine with me,” agreed Miss Olcott.

“But it sounds like Irene hasn't told her anything yet,” pressed the Severin girl. “And if Myra finds it out all by herself, she might be afraid, or even have nightmares.”

Myra threw up her hands. “Whatever it is, it sounds unpleasant. If the subject is so all-fired important, I'll make Aunt Irene tell me all about it tonight.”

“That may be the best way to go,” affirmed Kayley. “Just remember, Myra, even though it might sound awful, we don’t have a bad town here. That there has to be potion girls is mostly just sad.”

“Wouldn't a hanging be even sadder?” asked Dale.

“Yes, I suppose it would,” affirmed Kayley. “But it wouldn't be any stranger.”

After that, Miss Severin urged them back into the lessons. Fortunately, none of these other dances were as difficult as square dancing. There was the polka, the waltz, the Virginia reel, something that Dale pronounced as the “quadrilly,” and a dance that was like a slow polka. Even though that one came from Germany, it was called a “Scottish dance.” Myra could only suppose that the Germans misnamed it deliberately because they didn't want to get the blame.

Before too long, Irene's buckboard was heard rattling along the carriage road. Dale and Kayley started gathering up their things. Irene, upon entering, greeted her young neighbors, but because they were running late, they couldn't stay and chat for very long.

“Those are nice girls,” she told Myra after Dale and Kayley had gone outside, “but they always seem to be in a hurry. What did the three of you talk about?”

“I’d rather not repeat that silly stuff.”

Irene regarded her niece with interest. “What is it that you'd rather not talk about?”

Myra knew that she couldn't hold back anything if her aunt really wanted to know it. “They wanted to show me how to dance, in case I went to the Christmas shindig.”

“That's very nice of them. How it it go?”

“Dancing is simple. But it's a big waste of time, if you ask me.”

Without replying, Irene turned her attention to opening the bundle that she had brought back from town. While her back was turned, Myra shoved the box of letters farther under Irene's bed, using her heel.

“Teresa will need more time to finish my dress,” Irene reported, not looking Myra's way. “She said I should come back in the afternoon. Tomorrow morning, in better light, we’ll look at your dress again. If there is anything still wrong, Teresa said she’d be able to adjustment it in time. By the way, did you get much work done before the girls came by?”

“The morning work, sure. But they came in at noon and killed the whole rest of the day.”

“That's fine,” her elder replied. “It's good to be introducing yourself to people. Just don't use visitors as an excuse to neglect necessary work.”

“They wore me out with all that prancing around. I’m thinking that chores would’ave been a lot easier on my feet.”

“That's a good attitude. But now it's milking time again. If you don’t move quickly, the light will be lost.”

Myra drew on her chore coat and went outdoors, happy enough to stop talking about the visit.

George was still out by the pen, packing up for the day. Miss Olcott observed that he hadn't finished the entire job. “You ain't done yet?” she asked.

“Can you blame me?” he asked. “Don't worry, I'll get it finished before Christmas. By the way, did the girls show you the waltz and reel?”

“What's it to you?”

He ignored her tone. “You've got a knack for dancing. Maybe you want to show off some of what you learned today. Oh, dem golden slippers...” he began to sing.

“If I had any wants, they wouldn't concern you, Mr. Severin. Now stand aside; I've got a mess of work to get done before dark.”

“Okay, then. I'll be back tomorrow morning, unless something gets in the way. Like if pa and the others found something in the desert.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that,” Myra confided.

Thursday, December 21, 1871

Right after breakfast, Irene had Myra model the party dress. Clearly, Senora Diaz had done a good job and the garment didn’t need any more adjusting.

After morning chores, the twenty-first of December became a busy day with Irene making pies, cakes, and biscuits, with Myra helping at every stage. Following lunch, Mrs. Fanning made another trip into town to visit the Diaz house. Myra was left keeping a close watch on the baking so that nothing got burned.

Alone again, Myra sat down. She had had her fill of kitchen work. It wasn't that she disliked good food, but cooking was another of those things that only women should be doing. She was thinking that this situation wouldn't have happened if she had joined up at one of the forts that Myron had passed by on his travels. He’d decided not to do so because federal soldiers only cleared about $15 per month, that being even worse than a cowpoke's wages -- which stood at around $25.

Right after he had left Eerie, Myron had lived as a simple drifter, spending most of his nights out in the open, even in the rain. It was a lucky day when he could run down a stray chicken to eat. But doing that had taught him something: Ever every irate farmer seemed ready and willing to shoot a hen-stealer, no matter what the Good Book said.

He was glad enough to have taken up with Ike and the Freely boys. The selling of an occasional stolen beef or two had been enough to keep them in beans and, occasionally, let them buy a beer and a town meal. That was little enough, but it was something.

If she had a choice, Myra realized, she'd happily go back to the outlaw trail, as hard as it could get. On the contary, what could a woman do that was interesting or exciting? She knew that Irene had worked as a cleaning lady out East, living practically destitute. Cooks earned better wages, but those jobs were scarce. Anyway, Myra was a bad cook and working at getting better didn’t appeal to her.

The only women earning decent money seemed to be the cat house girls. But folks said whores got old old faster than anyone else. In Myra's opinion, it was better to be any kind of male bum rather than an old whore. Even the young ones seemed to have a hard time of it, most of them being pushed around by boy friends who acted like everything they earned belonged to them. Myra just couldn’t imaging any appealing life as a female.

Trying not to thing about the subject, Myra finished her chores and about the same time Irene came back from Eerie with her fitted dress. Then, following a hurried supper, the two of them went back to baking. By eight o'clock they had no choice but to light most of the lanterns and candles in the house to be able to see their hands in front of their faces.

In the midst of all that kitchen work, her aunt suddenly said, “I'll need some rhubarb from the root cellar.”

“Do I have to go out and get it for you?” asked Myra.

“No, I've been on standing in one place for hours; I need to stretch my legs. The floor is a mess of flour, sugar, and dough. Start sweeping it up and I'll be right back.”

Mrs. Fanning bustled outside, leaving Myra with a moment to rest. She looked up at the loft, where she had hidden the letter box that afternoon. She hankered to get back to reading more of those letters, but there just wasn’t time. So she started sweeping, so Irene wouldn’t have anything to complain about when she came back.

TO BE CONTINUED in CHAPTER 4.

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona: Chapter 4

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

7,500 < Novelette < 17,500 words

Genre:

Western

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Themes:

Reluctant

TG Elements:

Retro-clothing / Petticoats / Crinolines

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Posted 12-06-19
Revised 07-10-22

.
Friday, December 22, 1871

After breakfast, Irene was ready to set out for town. She’d be taking most of the holiday baking over to the home of one of the church ladies, the one was collecting the parishioners' food contributions. She and her helpers, which included Irene, would be responsible for setting up the Christmas feast. Myra, meanwhile, was staying home to take care of the chores.

Myra didn’t like anything about chores, but she preferred doing them to being under the eyes of the old ladies of the town – and especially Aunt Irene's watchful eyes.

By hurrying through the tasks that needed doing, the girl was trying to give herself more time to read the remaining letters. Because Irene wouldn't like her doing it, it only made her want to do it more. Getting away with something always gave her a good feeling. A little misbehavior now and then was all the more important because there wasn’t much that she could get away on account of that damned magic.

She went in for lunch and at the end of it, there still had been no sign of George. Now that it was afternoon, it seemed unlikely that the farm boy would be showing up, the December days being so short. Fine. That improved her mood. The more privacy she had, the better.

After reading several trivial letters, Myra opened one sent by Aunt Irene, dated from late April of 1866.

“Dear Addie,

“Your last letter has alarmed me. What can possibly put you into such a sad and nervous state? What are the past misdeeds that you are alluding to? And why are you saying that God cannot forgive you and Edgar because of them? Was it not my older sister who taught me about the saving grace of faith? It was from you that I learned that He can, and will, forgive any evil deed, just so long as it is earnestly repented. I know you are a good and tender person, Addie, and your husband is an honest man. Neither of you could ever stray far enough to be beyond the reach of God's forgiveness. What causes you such anguish? If I understand you, it happened years ago, so why has your sorrow not faded away after years of prayer? Dear one, why did you not alert me sooner to your distress, so that I could have offered you comfort and consolation?

“Whatever has brought you to this state, it cannot be as terrible as you suppose. Your are sorrowful and it is only the good person who beats his breast and pours ashes on his head, not the careless and consistent sinner. The Good Book names very few sins beyond the pale of forgiveness. Surely you have committed none of the abominable acts that St. Paul decries in Romans. Whatever errors you have made, or believe that you have made, the scope of your grief is what tells me that your moral sense is strong and unbroken. The Scriptures constantly affirm with certainty that repentance brings forgiveness. And surely the path of grace is open to Edgar, also.

“You are saying that if the truth were known, you and Edgar would come to scorn and would have to leave the Arizona territory in disgrace. Do I understand correctly that you and Edgar even stand in fear of jail? Search your heart, dear sister. Tell me truthfully, is it is God's scorn that you fear, or is it only the unkind sentiments of your neighbors? If the latter, think not on the opinion of flawed mankind. Think instead on God, who already knows your every misdeed and will judge them fairly against the atonement that you have already done.

“What seems a crime in the eyes of one is not always held to be so in the eyes of another. Wasn't the blameless Stephen stoned to death in Jerusalem merely for celebrating the glory of Christ Eternal? But though Stephen endured a wicked judgment, we can hardly suppose that the Lord denied that sainted man a heavenly home. Remember what is written: 'Fear not them which may kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.'

“You say that you dare not tell me more of this affair because it would make me ashamed of you. Dear Addie, do you regard me as so faithless? Whatever your shortcomings, I will not give you less love than the good father gave to his Prodigal Son. Whatever you choose to confide in me, I will listen to in the spirit of compassion, not in harsh judgment. I vow to not abandon you, no matter what sin you declare. Until I hear from my sister again, I will be praying for you and Edgar constantly.”

Myra blinked in amazement and looked again at the letter's date. It had been written not long before her mother and father had died!

Hastily, the girl began searching the box for a later letter sent by Irene. When unable to find such a postmark, the girl skimmed all the letters, regardless of dates, but found nothing in them that threw any light upon the mystery.

Myra wanted to know more. What could her parents have possibly done to plunge themselves into such a nervous state? Her aunt had no right to conceal matters that were of utmost importance to other members of the family. She was impatient for Irene to return home, being determined to confront her.

But a moment’s reflection sank Myra into discouragement. If challenged too boldly, her aunt would simply give her the order not to bring the subject up again – not with her, and not with anyone else.

Having no other recourse, Myra went back to the perplexing letter and studied it word for word.

The postmark read April 29, 1866. It would have taken a couple of weeks for a letter to reach Arizona from Pennsylvania. No, it would have taken longer. In 1866, the Union Pacific was still in Nebraska and all mail West was being carried by horse and wagon. Her mother would have received the letter toward the end of May. If her mother had written back swiftly, Irene would have heard from her in the last part of June. If Irene then hurried back a response, her mother couldn't have read it before the last half of July. But by middle July, Myron’s mother and father had already died. That last letter from Irene wasn't here.

Why not? What would the post office have done with it?

Myra knew that the incoming mail to Eerie would go to the postal shelf in Silverman’s store, where the farmers picked up their mail there as soon as they could. But what about mail never picked up? What then? If Silverman knew that the recipient was deceased, the letter would be marked to that effect and returned to Pennsylvania? Was that when Irene had decided to give up on her home town and come to Arizona?She had arrived in early October.

But in August Myron had gotten his aunt's letter, when he was living with the Severins. Probably Silverman knew where Myron was, a would deliver it to the place he knew the boy was staying. Or had the Severins written before that, to tell her the tragic news?

But what would have happened to the earlier letter from her aunt, the one written before she knew that her sister had died?

At that moment, Myra heard the clop of shod hooves on the carriage road. From the window she espied the neighbors -- Singer, Severin, and Grimsley -- dismounting. A growl sounded low in her throat. This was absolutely not a time when she wanted to bother with visitors.

Meeting them outside, she controlled her feelings and called out in even tones: “What news, neighbors?!”

“Bad news,” I would say,” said Tully Singer, a fortyish man with a wide brown mustache and chin beard. “We searched high and low. There's been no sign of your cousin's body.”

Myra didn’t reply. Unable to forget her dislike for Singer, she didn’t want him to do her any favors.

Walt Severin next spoke up. “Is you aunt at home, Miss Myra?”

“No, sir. She's in town. She'll probably be home before dark.”

“Well then, we’ll leave it to you to fill her in. We had no luck. At first we were following the hunch that Thorn was probably killed at the holdup site and the outlaws hid the body nearby. We searched that little canyon first, but nothing turned up.”

“Where else did you look?” Myra asked.

“The way we figured it,” said Grimsley, “the outlaws could have hidden it farther out. They were most likely going west, toward Yuma. They wouldn't have cared to head east, 'cuz that would take them through Eerie. If they went north, they couldn’t make good headway, given all those canyons and mountains. The way south isn’t much better, unless they had a hanker to get over the Mexican border. But if the fellows wanted to have water and food along the way, they’d go west, keeping close to the Gila River.”

“When riding west didn’t lead us to anything, we circled back the Mexico way,” put in Tully Singer. “Same story. No trace.”

“Who knows?” said Walt Severin, “Thorn might have been alive when they left here. If he died on the way to Yuma, they'd have hidden him quite a ways from here. Or maybe he's still alive. Who can say?”

Myra shook her head. “Dead or alive, you can be sure that he'll never show up in these parts again. What outlaw would ride into a town where he'd be arrested in two shakes?”

“We're inclined to agree,” said Singer. “We're durn sorry that we weren't able to bring you ladies better news for a Christmas present.”

“You've done all anyone could expect from good neighbors,” said the girl. “I thank you, and my aunt thanks you, too. Get on home now and rest up. It's the time of year that you should be with your families.”

“Right you are there,” agreed Grimsley. “Take care, Miss Myra.”

“Just a moment,” said the girl. “Would any of you gents know about what happened to the mail that must have come in for the Caldwells during the weeks before Aunt Irene arrived in '66?”

Walt Severin took the question. “That's a long time ago. Why do you need to know that, missy?”

“I'm interested in family history,” she replied.

“Well,” said Severin, “my wife and me were standing in as Myron's temporary guardians. Silverman held out the mail that your legal guardian would rightly have to deal with later – like bills coming due. I put those into your farm house. All the rest, the personal letters, would have been sent back by Aaron, I suppose.”

"What about letters written by Irene?"

"I don't recall that there were any. We did get one sent to our house, It was for Myron.

“How did Irene find out Myron was with you?” Myra asked.

“Well, right after the bad thing happened, my wife sent Mrs. Fanning a letter explaining it all. She knew what town Irene was at because she was friends with your aunt Addie. All she had to do was to address it in care of the town’s post office.”

Myra nodded, looking thoughtful.

Without much more ado, the neighbors wished the girl well and then moved off toward their own homes.

With her privacy restored, Myra went indoors and put away the box of correspondences, while holding out the important letter. She felt low, mulling over the idea that her parents could have been cheats or thieves. All her memories of them were good ones and it riled her that the letter had left muddy footprints all over her recollections. She knew she would never be able to rest easy until she found out what had happened.

The girl sat down and tried hard to remember everything she could about those long-ago days. She recalled that her parents were having trouble about money and often talked about it. Though poor, they they hadn't been gloomy people. Then, suddenly, they had stopped smiling and joking. Myron realized something was bothering them, but they wouldn't tell him what it was. Myra remembered that she had had that on her mind while reading in the newspaper how General Lee had whipped the hell out of Grant at Cold Harbor. That battle had happened in early June in the spring 1864, so Myra had a date for when her parents had started to act differently.

With house getting colder, Myra threw a couple sticks of mesquite into the stove's fire box and then returned to her chair to continue stirring up more recollections. It was about the same time, she recalled, that her folks stopped talkng about debts and bankers. Instead, her folks started talking about bills being paid off and about what improvements they wanted to make -- like putting in the windmill.

And other things had changed, too. The food had gotten better. Ma started buying more canned goods and fresh produce from Ortega's grocery. They got in more hogs and a few turkeys.The rusty and beat-up tools in the shed were soon replaced with newer ones. At the same time, his mothers blackened pots and rusty pans went out to the hen house to serve for grain pans. The kitchen shelves came to be filled with shiny new kettles and utensils. Most memorable of all, they started giving Myron store-bought toys.

Pa had started going into Phoenix more often than he had before, even though it was about sixty miles away. In fact, most of the new things were bought there. Whenever he returned from the big town, he had something flashy to show to his son.

But though the times seemed good, his folks kept talking about hard times whenever visitors dropped in. And they rarely showed off any of their nice things. In fact, his mother and father had asked him to keep his toys out of sight in their box whenever guests were coming. “Visitors'll think we're spoiling you,” was the only reason they ever gave. At the same time, ma would serve the guests using the coffee pot that had so much of its enamel broken off and did the cooking in a black and crusty old skillet instead of a new one from the pantry.

Why such odd behavior? Was it possible that her elders had gotten money from doing something dishonest and didn’t want people asking about how they could be spending so much?

But if her parents were cheating or stealing, where were they doing it? In a poor town like Eerie? Well, sure, there was gold in the mountains and Myra had heard about prospectors being robbed, with some of them being killed. But she couldn’t conceive of her folks doing anything like that. If they had, it would make them no better than outlaws!

At that point, the seventeen-year-old wanted to stop thinking about the old days.

But she couldn’t.

Myra gave the cows their second milking a little before the regular time, hoping that busy work would help her stop thinking about things. Afterward, she ate a little, but spent the twilight time mostly staring into the flames she saw in the stove's firebox slits. Before it became really dark, Aunt Irene through the door.

“Haven't you started anything heating for supper yet?” her aunt asked after a quick look-around.

Myra shook her head to clear it. “I – I was sitting by the fire and dozed off.”

The woman shook her head. “Well, we'll have to make up for lost time. Have you milked the cows yet?”

“Yes. But I have to tell you something.”

“What's that?”

“The neighbors came by. They've given up hunting for my body.”

“What exactly did they say?”

“What do you think? They said they couldn't find anything.”

The farm woman sighed. “It's too bad we had to let them waste their time. But I couldn't think of anything that would stop them without making them ask questions."

“Oh, by the way,” Myra said, “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of George all day. I always figured that for all his showing off, he was actually allergic to hard work.”

“Well, maybe he'll come by tomorrow. Everyone gets extra-busy near the holidays. But I have something to tell you, too.”

“Will it make this day even worse?”

“It depends. I was approached by a member of the Ladies' Society at church. They've already talked to to Reverend Yingling about having a memorial service done for you after Christmas.”

“More tomfoolery!”

“I didn’t care for the idea myself, but I couldn’t says no. Instead I told them that our neighbors were searching for the body and suggested that any memorial should wait for that. But now, with the search over, I’m thinking that it will be for the best if we let our friends hold the service. That way the town can get closure about Myron and set their minds on other things.”

“Why can't people just forget about a person they didn't even like and mind their own business?”

“Their hearts are in the right place, Myra. It’s their way of honoring us, just as they would honor any other decent family in Eerie.”

“We're not such a decent family.”

“Are you talking about yourself, or me?”

“They can't possibly care about me being dead. I suppose we’re going to have to pay for the lunch they'll be gobbling down at the service.”

“No, there’ll be a potluck lunch. One good thing in this is that it will be a good chance to introduce you to the community. The sooner we do that, the less curiosity will be direct your way. Just talk polite to people and try to show a decent amount of grief for Myron.”

“How much grief are you feeling?” the redhead asked.

Irene gave her a quizzical look. “I don't know what you mean. You're not dead.”

Myra turned away. “I'm not as sure about that as you are,” she stated.

Saturday, December 23, 1871

That night, Myra lay restless on her sleeping mat, thinking – or trying not to think -- about Irene's letter. Though tired, sleep refused to come and time itself seemed to hang around the loft like the dangling cobwebs. The only night sound to be heard was the rattle of the tree behind the house, being shaken by the December wind.

She kept wondering how much Irene knew about the mystery of 1866. She had a hunch that her aunt must have learned more information after her mother's last letter.

Of course, the girl couldn’t be sure that there had been a last letter. Maybe her ma was too broken to write more about what was bothering her. But the odds were that there had been one last letter.

Damn it! thought Myra. If it wasn't for that stupid Indian potion, she could have gone to her aunt and demand answers. But, as things stood, she didn't dare do that.

She kept trying to think of any honest way that her folks could have come into money. Nobody had a lot in Eerie, except the merchants who sold prospectors supplies at high prices. It had seemed that the only ways to get ahead was to find gold or pull a robbery or swindle. But if they had gotten away with a crime, why had she never heard people talking about it?

What a minute! If something big had happened, somebody had to remember! And lot of the locals would be turning up at the Christmas party! If she attended it, she’d be able to speak to almost anyone she wanted to, and do it in a completely innocent setting.

The town function that she had disliked so much up to now had just become an affair that she absolutely had to attend!

Shortly after breakfast, George Severin rode in. From the window, Myra stood watching the youth set up. It dawned on her that the snoopy hired man might know something about the dirty business that went on around Eerie.

Putting on a coat and stocking cap, she went outside and made for the hog yard. “Finally showed up, huh?” the ginger said in way of starting a conversation.

The farm boy stabbed his manure fork into the ground and touched the brim of his straw hat in greeting. “Howdy, Miss Myra. I know I said I’d come by yesterday, but my pa wanted me to fix up one of our old sheds for winter, since he was committed to going out again to look for your unfortunate cousin. By the way, I'm plum sorry that Pa and the neighbors didn’t find anything. Hopefully you and Mrs. Fanning aren't feeling too down about that.”

Myra shrugged. “It hit us pretty hard yesterday, but we've had time to sleep on it.”

“Losing kin is hard,” George commiserated. “Anyway, I wanted to get an early this morning since I’m fixing to go into town and take one of those fancy baths. I’ve even got my party duds packed in my saddle bags so I won’t have to come all the way back home to get them. By the way, are you going to ride your own horse to the party?”

“No, Irene and me will come in on the buckboard.” Now Myra decided to bring up the subject that she really wanted to know about. “George, I've been wondering, was that stagecoach robbery last week the biggest crime that’s ever come off around Eerie?”

The unexpected question made the youth’s eyebrows rise. “Well, now,” he said, “I reckon that it has to be one of the biggest. But Eerie can be a rip-roaring place every now and then. Like, last summer, the Hanks gang rode into town. It seems like they were dead-set on gunning down Sheriff Talbot.”

Myra frowned; the boy might have been angling to bring up the subject of potion girls again! Out on the trail she’d read the story in the papers. But from Molly she’d learned that the outlaws were all still alive and working as saloon women. In fact, she had even met one of them, the so called Bridget Kelly. Damn! If Myron had known that the town had gone crazy, he’d never have come within fifty miles of the place.

“Why that strange expression, Miss Myra?” George asked.

“Nothing. But I’m curious to know why you think Eerie is so rip-roaring. Have there been a lot of robberies? How were things back during the war years?”

“The war years? That's an awfully long time ago, missy. I was only about ten. The big excitement back then was that some folks hereabouts saw some real live Confederates passing buy. A troop of them rode into Phoenix in ‘62, and then skedaddled once the federals started to get close. What makes you so interested? Is it because you’ve been reading too many of those dime novels?”

She gave a toss with her right hand. “I read them sometimes. They make me hope that a person's life doesn't always have to be dull and ordinary.”

“After being kidnapped by the Bertram gang, I’d have thought you’d enjoy having things calm down.”

Her blue eyes challenged his hazel ones. “If you think I'm yellow, I'm not.”

George grinned. “No offense; I keep forgetting how spirited you are. If you like blood and thunder, I've got some magazines at home you could borrow.”

“Sure. Bring them over. Do the things that happen in those books ever happen in real life?”

George shrugged. “Once in a while, I suppose. It just so happens that I know of a few good stories.”

Myra tried to smile, knowing that a girl's smile could make a man warm up quicker than a shot of whiskey. “I really would like to hear about exciting things. I want to hear them all.”

George, leaning back against the fence rails, told his employer's niece all he knew about claim-jumping, gun-play, and robberies -- of prospectors, stagecoaches, banks, and assay offices. As it happened, most of what he recounted had occurred at nearby towns, not in Eerie.

Finally, he said, “But the biggest robbery that I ever heard of at Eerie proper was of a mining company.”

“Bigger than the stage hold-up?”

“I'm not sure. But the thief got away with the loot.”

“Who was involved?” Myra asked carefully.

“Just one man. I forget his name.”

“How did he do it?”

“He didn't use a gun. He was more of an embezzler. The company'd taken him on as a clerk and he’d sometimes find excuses to work alone after hours. One night, he opened the safe and cleaned it out completely. As far as anyone knows, the law hasn't lassoed him yet.”

“When did it happen?”

“Several years ago. I don't recall exactly when.”

These vague stories were causing Myra was to lose interest.

The youth, sensing this, said, “I’ve really got to start this job. I'd be fine with chatting with you again at the party tonight.”

“Maybe,” she said without much conviction.

"If you want to know more about the old times in Eerie, they'll be a peck of talkative characters coming to the bash. And I bet the old timers will be able to tell you even better robbery stories than I can.”

“I’ll be sure to ask them what they remember,” she agreed.

When George had flung the last forkful of dung into the manure cart, he he hitched up Hazel and led her out into the field. There he forked the mud and hog droppings across the stubbles, where they would serve as spring fertilizer. With the arduous task finished, he put things back in their places and took off for town. He was sorry to miss Mrs. Fanning's dinner table, but he had to get to town before the stagecoach came in.

Outside the depot in Eerie, he tied his mule and sat waiting on the passenger bench. Only a short while later, the Prescott stage could be seen kicking up dust east of town. The kids playing nearby, and even some of the adults, stopped what they were doing and watched it arrive, just as people elsewhere liked to do when a train pulled in.

When the coach had drawn up and braked, George approached it. He’d been informed by the station manager, Matt Royce, of the names of the guard and driver who had been robbed. “Hullo!” he yelled. “Are either of you gents Harry Cole or Robert Moorman?”

A dusty coachmen glanced his way. “I'm Rob Moorman, kid. What of it?”

“Hello, Mr. Moorman. I take it that your driver isn't Mr. Cole.”

“Not today. What's your business, youngster?”

“If you've got a minute...” George began.

The company man scowled. “I ain’t got time for jawing. We have a schedule to keep. One thing I need right now is a real meal, instead of just road dust.” He hopped down and headed for the depot.

George followed the man to the door. “You were the guard on the stage that was held up?” the youth asked.

“I was, lad. Is that important? You don't look like a reporter.”

George already knew what he he needed to say. “My family lives on the edge of town. We were expecting a young lady to come in on last Wednesday’s stage. When our wagon got to town to fetch her, she wasn't at the depot. Stranger still, Mr. Royce told us that he hadn’t seen any such girl get off. The problem is, she’d sent us a telegram from Ogden to let us know she’d be there, and we didn’t get any telegram to let us know that her plans had changed. Was there a girl on your Wednesday run, Mr. Moorman? She's pretty, has ginger hair, and is about my age.”

“A relative, or a lady friend?” the man asked wryly.

George grinned. “She’s my cousin. Ma's beside herself, thinking the gal might be lost somewhere between northern Utah and Eerie.”

The shotgun guard frowned thoughtfully. “No girl was on that stage, not during any part of the run. The only passenger who got off in Eerie was a rough-looking man in his forties. One old lady boarded here, but that’s all there is to say.”

“This is worrisome, mister,” George said.

“Well, I hope the lass is all right. Maybe you'll be getting word from her soon.”

“I sure hope so. My folks aren't going to rest easy until we know she's safe.”

Moorman shook his head. “This is a big country; too big. There's more than enough space for a greenhorn to get lost in. Excuse me now, boy.” He nodded goodbye and went into the station office.

George meandered away, not surprised by what he had been told. It only confirmed his opinion that Myra Olcott had not come in on the stage the week before. But she did in fact show up Eerie about that time, so how in blazes had she arrived, and when?

There was one thing he knew for sure: Miss Myra wasn't a ghost and she wasn't a fairy. She was flesh and blood and had come from some real place. But where was that place, and why were both she and her aunt trying to throw dust into everyone’s eyes?

He shook his head. Mrs. Fanning had always seemed honest and upright, so if she was covering for Myra there had to be a good reason. He wasn’t sure why the puzzle seemed so all fired important, except that mysteries always had an appeal for him. Also, this mystery was especially engaging because a pretty girl was involved, just like they often were in the penny dreadfuls. A touch of mystery somehow made Myra even more interesting than she was otherwise. He smiled, thinking of what she would look like at the party, combed, prettied up, and wearing that yellow dress. It was a nice one, tight in the right places.

But time was wasting and he had to get on with his business. He first had to get a bite to eat and then head over to the bathhouse, otherwise no gal at the party, especially Myra, would tolerate standing next to him for as much as two minutes!

Carrying a crate of prepared food, Sheriff Dan Talbot entered the schoolhouse just ahead of his wife, Amy. Behind the two of them their young son Jimmy was stepping through the door.

Dan put the box on the seat of an empty chair next to a table with some room to spare. While Amy unpacked it, Dan stood next to her, thoughtfully looking at their son. Things changed so quickly in everyday life. Jimmy was growing fast, but he and his wife were only getting older. People didn’t consider them a youngish couple anymore; they were middle aged, or soon would be. The day was coming when Jim would be the man who mattered, while Dan would be numbered with those old fellows shuffling along the boardwalk without a whole lot to do. The thought of that coming day was a tough cut of skunk pig to choke down.

Jimmy was moving off, going down the line of tables picking out treats for himself. Then Dan noticed Otto Euler, the brewer, standing with friends on the far side of the room. He decided to say hello to the fellow.

The lawman picked his way through jostling party goers until Euler spotted him coming. “Hallo, Dan,” the German said.

“Howdy,” Dan called up. “Are we going to be sampling any of your fine wares tonight?”

“You vill get all da beer you can svollow, I dink!”

“Say, now, just tonight the missus was wondering about your wife's health. How is she?”

Euler's good-natured grin sobered slightly. “Her cough ist much better, but she vonted to stay home tonight. She didn’t care to risk da season's drafts. But da veather ist much better dis year dan last year. People den vere coming in to get varm at the stove betveen every dance, I recall.”

“Pretty near,” agreed the lawman.

“Oh, and by da vay, Dan, how did da hunt for da outlaws go? I hear dey slipped da noose.”

“They did. Those varmints are young but foxy. They let us ride out after them, then doubled back and made another try at the buried strongbox. I feel damned bad about getting hoodwinked that way.”

“But dat deputy of yours, he got back most of da gold, ja? He ist a good one! Hast Paul come home yet? Last I hear, he vas still oot with anutter posse.”

“That's so. They found the outlaws’ pack horse wandering loose on the way to the Gila River. It's looking like the rascals have hightailed it toward Yuma. They can't have gotten away with much of the loot, though. Paul's posse will soon be heading back. We've already telegraphed Yuma to be on the lookout.”

“The bandits vill get a breather if dey get all da vay to California,” Euler said with a scowl.

“That's the truth. It's touchy business to go chasing outlaws over a state border.”

The brewer glanced toward the door. “Who are doz loverly ladies? From out of town, maybe?”

Dan also looked. “Well, well. That's the widow Fanning and she's dressed up mighty fine tonight. And the young lady with her must be...” Dan tried to remember the name that Shamus had told him. “...Myra. Myra is her niece from back East.”

This was the first time that Dan had ever set eyes on Eerie’s newest potion gal. He remembered what Thorn Caldwell had looked like and the present difference was startling.

“Doz two vill get in a lot of dancing ift dey're villing,” said Otto. “It ist at times like dees that I vish I vasn't a married man. Almost vish, I mean.”

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 5.

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona: Chapter 5

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

7,500 < Novelette < 17,500 words

Genre:

Western

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Elements:

Christmas

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Posted 01-06-20
Revised 07-25-22

By Christopher Leeson

Saturday, December 23, 1871 Continued

Keeping her voice low, Myra said to her aunt: “Everybody's gawking at me. I look stupid!”

“No you don't. People are just curious who you are. And, by the way, I’m sure they’re noticing how well you're dressed.”

“Stop saying that!”

Irene sighed. “Isn't it better to be admired than to be someone who's distrusted or feared?”

“You can keep your admiration. If I were homely I'd have fewer problems.”

“I doubt that. Don't make light of God's gifts, Myra. Whatever problems you're having, there's always someone, somewhere, who's having an even worse time of it.”

“Well, I'm more concerned more about the people who're better off than I am.”

“Envy is a deadly sin, my dear. At least you're not starving in China.” Irene motioned toward the treat-laden tables. “Think about it. When do all those hungry people over across the sea get to eat their fill like we can?”

“I don't see how my eating like a hog on a holiday is going to help anyone in China,” Myra replied.

“Maybe it can’t, but you didn't come here to overeat. This is your chance to introduce yourself into the community. As long as you're here, you should be mingling and letting people know who you are. Act friendly and they'll be friendly to you.”

“What's the point?” the girl asked. “I never made a friend who was worth anything.” She was especially remembering Ike Bertram -- the leader of the gang who'd accidentally shot her at Stagecoach Gap. Only a half-hour later, the same "friend" had threatened to finish her off so she couldn’t talk to the law. And Myra knew damn well that the skunk would have pulled the trigger if Myron hadn’t slipped away while his back was turned.

“Maybe you could make a better type friend if you’d try not to be so quarrelsome,” stated Irene. “I'm trying hard to understand your terrible attitude toward life.”

“You're just not listening carefully enough.”

Irene shook her head. “Here's some advice. Be kind and respectful even when you don't have to be and good things will come back to you.”

“Is that how you’ve managed to be so happy and successful?”

Mrs. Fanning sighed. “I'm still learning the lessons of life, just as you are. But it's very clear that one shouldn’t ever invite trouble, because plenty of it is going to be be coming his way all on its own. Just be pleasant and avoid arguments and if you're still feeling miserable after about two hours, we can go home.”

“What am I going to do inside this chicken coop for two hours?”

“Eat, make conversation, and enjoy the music. Also, do a little dancing, like Kayley and Rosedale taught you to do. And I’m sure those two will be showing up before too long. Talk to them. No doubt they'll have plenty of cheerful topics to discuss.”

Girl talk! That was the absolutely last thing that the redhead needed. In frustration, Myra stopped answering questions until Irene drifted away, having noticed a group that she knew from church.

Two hours in this place! the farm girl was thinking. It sounded like a life sentence. The only people worth talking to was the sheriff and Roscoe Unger, the newspaperman. Hopefully, she’d find them wandering around, guzzling whiskey and filling their faces with free food. But if they hadn't shown up, she was putting herself through one hell of a mortifying experience for no reason at all.

Myra looked right and left, trying to spot them. So far, she didn't like anything she was seeing. People – the men especially -- were eyeing her, like hunters with a hanker to bring down a duck. Even worse than them were the nobodies -- the bums, the old men, and the pups still wet behind the ears. To warn people off, she started to frown. But it was then that she saw Sheriff Dan Talbot looking her way!

The girl’s resolution wavered. She absolutely didn’t want to be here but, if she left without finding out a few things she'd have to keep on fretting about the mystery surrounding her parents.

Myra wondered if the sheriff knew who she was. If not, under better circumstances, she might have liked to lead him along until he made a fool of himself in front of everybody. But that would be a bad mood. She needed his advice, not his anger.

The redhead steeled herself and stepped uneasily toward the peace-keeper. When within speaking range, she at last said, “S-Sheriff.”

The tall man regarded her. “Miss Olcott, I presume,” he said.

She frowned again, realizing that he did know her. As bad as it was being around people she could fool, it was even worse being with those she couldn’t.

“Sheriff Talbot,” Myra pronounced carefully, “I came to this party mostly to speak to you. Any objection?”

“Speak about what?”

“Important stuff. But it's too private discuss inside this turkey pen.”

Dan replied, “All right. Let's go out under the stars.”

Myra nodded and followed the lawman out into the winter darkness. But it was a mild night, even for Arizona. Because the band hadn’t started playing yet, no one was dancing. People were mostly clustered in groups near the torches.

“This good enough?” the lawman asked.

“A little farther out,” she urged. “I don't want any eavesdropping.”

Dan obliged and led the young lady to a hedge of bushes at the edge of the schoolyard. “What can I help you with, Miss Myra?”

“Don't make fun of me. You had a big part in making a train-wreck out of my life.”

He smiled guardedly. “Did I wreck your life or save it?”

“I was almost dead already. Taking the last step would have ended my troubles. Because people had to meddle, I’d be justified in shooting a few people -- except I can’t because of that damned magic.”

“I didn't have any part in what happened,” Dan told her, “except that I took your aunt over to see to Judge Humphrey. And it isn't Mrs. Fanning's fault, either; she only wanted to save your life. And you shouldn't suppose that death is any easy exit. You couldn't possibly think that way if you were a better church-goer.”

Myra bridled. “Let’s be honest. You never liked me and I never liked you. But, for now, we've got business to discuss.”

“And what business would that be?”

“I need to ask you something.”

“Is that so? If you talk civilly, I'll be glad to help out. What's the problem?”

Myra took a hard swallow before saying, “I want to know if there was any serious crime committed a few years ago, one where you never identified the outlaws.”

Sheriff Talbot blinked. “Are you talking about a crime you committed yourself?”

“No, not me. But before I say anything more, I want you to promise that you won't repeat what I tell you to anyone.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “If you're holding back information about a crime, and if the criminal can still be dealt with, I’m not agreeing to let him off scot free.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. The...the people who may have done..the thing... are dead. But I’m concerned that innocent folks are going to be treated badly if the news gets out.”

“Who'll look bad?”

“The...the family of the outlaws. There's no one to arrest, and that's the honest truth. But folks might decide they have the right to give the family a hard time.”

“All right. Unless I have to arrest some guilty person, I'll keep things confidential.”

Myra felt like she had to settle for that. It was always a bitch dealing with the law. “And don't you say anything to Aunt Irene either, you hear?” she added. “I think she’d be hurt most of all.”

“I won't, not unless I absolutely have to.”

“Shake on it?” The ginger extended her hand and Dan took it.

Myra, standing back, squared her shoulders. “I-I found a letter that was sent to my mother years back. It sounded like Ma had told somebody that she'd done something bad and the person had written back to ask what it was.”

“Who did your ma write to?”

“I don't want to get into that.”

“That's not reasonable. If you went to a doctor you wouldn’t make a fuss about telling him what was hurting.”

Myra clenched her fists. If she said much more, Talbot could probably guess all the rest.

Without answering his question, she said, “I’ve been working at finding things out. That letter was written a year after the war, about the time that my folks suddenly started acting sad-like.”

Dan's eyes narrowed. “What made them sad?”

“I-I don't know, exactly. But I'm thinking that they might have been sorry for doing something wrong.”

“Why do you think they did anything?”

“Because, before that, they’d always talked a lot about owing money, but then they seemed to be able to buy anything they needed."

“Well, then, what did they steal?”

“I don't know. I'm not sure that they stole anything. But it seems to me that if they'd gotten out of debt honestly, they should have been happy, not sad.”

“What else do you remember about those days?”

“Well, the letter is dated 1866 near the end of May. But the way it reads sounds like the thing happened a couple years earlier. That would put it before the war was over. I – I’m thinking it must have happened in the late spring of 1864.”

“You would about ten back then. What else do you remember?”

“Not much. They didn't talk business with me. But we starting eating good. They also started fixing up the place. They put in that windmill, dug a new well, bought more cattle. They even had enough left over to buy me a few toys.”

Dan felt awkward. He'd sized up Myron Caldwell as a shallow brat, a bad kid. Maybe, though, beneath his armadillo shell, there had been a whole lot of hurting going on.

“Let me get just one thing clear...Thorn. Do you want me to prove that your folks did something illegal?”

“No!” she said sharply. “I want you to prove that they didn't do anything at all! If you can’t find any serious crime happening back then, I'd be able to sleep a lot easier. I don’t like wondering whether my folks were a couple of outlaws.”

Dan was tempted to remind the kid how he had hurt his own aunt by his bad conduct, but he let that thought go.

“This is a funny business. Most of the time I’ll get a complaint about someone doing a crime and then I have to go on a manhunt. But you seem to want me to check around trying to prove that no crime was committed. Well, that’s not what I’m used to, but I think I know where you’re coming from. I’d do my best to set your mind at ease, so you can start thinking about your future instead of your past.”

“Thank you Sheriff.”

“But if I find out something about your folks that smells fishy, how are you going to feel about it?”

“About as bad as I'm feeling now, I reckon. I really want to go back to thinking about them the way I used to.”

“Fine. But if we’re going to get anywhere, you have to tell me who sent that letter accusing your mother?”

“I don't see why you need to know that.”

“If I can’t find out anything by asking questions around town, I may have to speak to the person who knows the most. It was your aunt, wasn’t it?”

Myra looked away.

“You have to help me out, Thorn. I didn't know a lot about Eerie before I became the town marshal after the war. Were your folks carrying debts with the bank, or with the merchants in town? I mean, how desperate were they for money? If they weren’t too desperate, they probably wouldn’t have wanted to do anything very bad.”

The girl winced. “They had a peck of debt. The crops kept failing and the cattle weren’t doing well. But I was still pretty young and probably didn’t know half of what their problems were.”

Talbot looked back at the school thoughtfully. “Banks keep good records, and most merchants do, too. I can ask Dwight Albertson about the Caldwells' bank business, and also have a chat with the local store owners who were here that far back. Most farmers tend to be in and out of debt over the whole course of their lives. But a person looks suspicious if he pays off his debts sudden-like and then stays solvent afterwards.”

Myra shrugged. “I suppose.”

It was hard to see Myron Caldwell in the girl's face. She seemed younger than the young hellion, more of a child. “Ordinary folks might not notice if a neighbor comes into money,” the sheriff said, “not if the person keeps to himself and doesn’t spend too much, too quickly. For now, for your own good, you ought to leave the investigating to me.”

“Why for my own good?”

“Because if you ask the wrong questions to the wrong people, it could stir up some old scandal and turn them against you. That would make your life in Eerie harder. With me it’s different. People expect a sheriff to go around asking strange questions and they know better than to demand a lot of explanations. If I need to mention the Caldwells by name, I'll say as little as possible.”

Myra raised her chin. “Tell them damned little, Sheriff! I don't care for having dirty information about my folks passed around.”

“Don’t worry. I'm used to handling delicate matters.”

“Should I keep clear of Roscoe Unger, too?”

“Yes. Him in particular. He wasn’t running the print shop back then. That was Ozzie Pratt. Even so, Roscoe’ll have access to Pratt’s archives. But I'd be careful about any newspaper man. He’s always liable to spill the beans so he can sell more papers. Let me handle Mr. Unger in my own way.”

Myra nodded slowly. “So, where does all this talk leave us?”

“My advice is to relax, settle back, and enjoy the party.”

When Myra offered no reply, Dan, “I'll do what I'm able to and let you know right quick whatever I find out.”

“Thanks,” the girl replied faintly. Then, feeling all talked out, she turned and walked back toward the schoolhouse.

Dan watched her go, trying to remember that with ordinary luck, Thorn had had a good chance of turning out much better. Becoming an orphan overnight had broken him on the inside and taking a bad hit before he was old enough to handle it was probably responsible for the way he'd grown up, mean and sour.

The lawman shook his head. Jailed or dead of gunshot was how most young men like Thorn ended up. But now, as Myra, she had drawn a whole new hand. He had watched the Hanks gang go through what she was going through now and, somehow, its members had turned out a whole lot better than anyone expected. Dan was hoping that Myra was just letting her imagination run away with her. Should something bad come out about Myra's parents, it might hit her hard and make her even angrier and meaner. It might slam the door on any chance he had left to become a better person.

But whatever Dan chanced to discover, he’d have to let her have the whole truth of it. Lies never fixed anything for very long.

Although her talk with the sheriff hadn't gone badly, it didn’t sit easy with Myra to leave important things to the doing of other people, especially a lawman. the men with badges were always looking for someone to blame for something, guilty or not.

“Myra!” someone shouted.

She saw Kayley and Rosedale running out of the crowd. Miss Grimsley, in a burgundy dress, was bright-eyed and excited. Rosedale was dressed up, too. Myra tried not to frown, though she didn't feel like talking to anyone.

“Oh, Myra!” exclaimed Dale. “That dress of yours is almost perfect! You make me embarrassed coming to a party in this faded old thing!” The girl's frock was light blue and patterned with small red blossoms. Myra didn’t think it looked so bad, though it had surely gone through a good many washings.

“I didn't pick it out myself. A friend of Irene's did,” said Miss Olcott.

“Do you mean Molly O'Toole?” asked Kayley.

Myra scowled. “George doesn't seem to leave out very much when it comes to gossiping.”

Dale was gazing back at the school. “Pretty soon the band’ll come out and the boys will be asking the girls to partner up.”

“Maybe they'll ask you two,” Myra replied, wanting to change the subject.

“And you, too!” chirped Kayley.

The ginger shook her head. “Who'd ever want to dance with me?”

“Don't be so modest!” said Dale. “You're as cute as a chickadee, and that dress makes you look even better. Lots of boys’ll be asking you, mark my words.”

“But don’t ever get discouraged,” advised Kayley. “You'll be surprised how shy most of them are. The best way to get a shy boy to dance is to start talking to him – about almost anything all all, except dancing. If you know a little about horses, that’s always a good subject. If a fellow already likes you, being friendly will get him to ask you to the floor.”

“Why doesn’t the braver person do the asking?” inquired Myra. “Who set the rule that girl's shouldn't do what they need to do?”

“Mama says that only hussies ask boys to dance straight out,” explained Miss Grimsley.

“I suppose that’s true, but what's wrong with hussies?”

“I'm not sure,” replied Kayley, “but no one wants to be called one.”

“Too many people are making up the rules for everybody else to follow,” said Myra.

“Maybe so,” agreed Rosedale. “But when we're their age, we'll be the elders making up the rules for the younger people. We'll just have to be careful to make up better ones.”

“By the way, it’s so awful that pa and the others couldn't find Thorn,” put in Kayley.

Myra shook her head. “No, it’s better this way.

“Why do you think that?” asked Kayley.

“Because if he hasn’t been found dead, it may mean that he fooled everybody and got away.”

“Pa said you thought he might be alive,” spoke up Dale. “Thorn wasn't very nice, the Lord knows, but I’m sure his aunt is hoping that he isn’t dead.”

“I don’t think there was anything bad about Thorn,” said Myra, “except that he wanted to live in his own way, without everybody telling him what to do.”

“But he wanted to be an outlaw,” said Dale.

“So did Robin Hood,” Miss Myra replied.

“Maybe there’re some good outlaws, but I think most of them are bad,” Dale conjectured. “I could have liked Thorn if only he was nicer.” Suddenly she blinked. “Oh, say, I almost forgot to mention that I'll be at the church service for your cousin. I like Mrs. Fanning a lot, and I like you, too, Myra. I hope everyone will be coming out to support the two of you.”

“Look!” exclaimed Miss Grimsley. “Some boys are looking at us!”

“I hope they ask us to dance,” said Dale.

“If no boy asks you first, I'll dance with you,” Kyley promised.

Myra thought it was time for her to head out of sight. “I think I'll go inside and get something to eat,” she told her companions.

“You'll miss the first dance!” Kayley warned.

“I'm not much of a dancer. It's no big deal to me.”

“You’re just being shy,” Dale stated. “I got over my own shyness the first time a boy called me pretty. Oh, look! Here comes the band! They’ll be playing soon.”

“I'm really hungry,” Myra said.

“We'll see you later,” chirped Dale. “We want to watch the band set up.”

Different friends had been asking Irene Fanning about the carefree style of her dress. She had had to explain to one person after another how she needed to take something from the limited stock available at the Silverman's store. She didn’t want to admit how much she liked the youthful way it looked, even its bare shoulders and low neck had embarrassed her at first.

“They didn't have anything I wanted this year, either,” said Zenobia Carson. “Their rack was extremely picked over.”

“Mrs. Fanning,” Livinia Mackechnie put in, “doesn't that dress leave you feeling chilly?”

Irene, smiling patiently. “I have a warm shawl on the buckboard. I'll be fetching it if the night grows unpleasantly cool.

“How are your spirits holding up?” asked Grace McLeod.

“I'm sad for Myron,” she explained, “but I'm grateful that Myra chose to come to town just when I was feeling my lowest.”

“I haven't met your niece yet,” remarked Hilda Scudder. “If I don’t meet her tonight, maybe we can exchange introductions at the memorial Tuesday.”

Irene nodded. “Yes, she'd appreciate that. She’s desperate to make new friends and fit in. For one so young, she's had more than her share of sorrow.”

“Isn't that always so?” said Hilda. “But Christmastide is the time of year that makes people want to open their hearts to strangers.”

During the conversation, Irene had been stealing glances over her companions' heads, hoping to see Tor Johansson. But deep down she felt guilty for feeling so eager. How would Darby in Heaven feel about her wish to socialize with another man?

Then she saw someone -- a tall, broad-shouldered male. When his fair eyes fixed on her, her nerves almost failed. Irene, clenching her fists behind her back, tried hard to project a pleasant face his way. Tor flashed a smile and began his approach.

When the Swede came within arm’s reach, he remarked, “Mrs. Fanning, how pleasing it is to see you again. Have you had a nice veek?”

“Excuse me, ladies,” Irene said, stepping out from the group.

“The last few days have been busy,” she confided to the big Swede, “but I have been looking forward to the celebration.”

“I like your hair style. You look like a lady of high society.”

Irene's cheeks warmed slightly. “I'm hardly that. But wearing a bun would scarcely have been in the spirit of the season.”

“I vould agree. And your dress is a very handsome one.”

“I'm happy you think so. Some of the ladies seemed to be hinting that it's too bold.”

The prospector gave back a broad grin.

That made Irene feel awkward, but she still smiled, though nervously.

Tor remarked: “Vhen I came in, da band outside vas getting ready to start da music. You have a dance already reserved, maybe?”

“Not at all. And it would be sad to miss the opening dance.”

“Yes, dat vould be yoost terrible,” he said, offering his strong-looking arm.

A good number of ladies she’d left behind were taking note of the pair of them and the majority appeared to be more skeptical than approving.

Myra passed her aunt and Tor in the doorway, exchanging glances, but words. Tor Johansson looked so huge that it occurred to the redhead that Irene would be lucky if that big ox’s feet didn't leave her toes black and blue.

She winced upon reading the clock behind the teacher's desk. So little time had passed since her last look. At a loss for anything else to do, she paused to sample some choice delicacies: bread pudding, a jelly omelet, mince pie, cheese, and stewed prunes. She downed them with glasses of punch – bland-tasting punch, seeing as how it hadn’t been spiked.

“Hello, you must be new in these parts,” someone remarked. Myra found herself looking at Winthrop Ritter.

“I'm new in every part,” Myra answered back flatly. “Aren't you the Mex I saw cleaning pens over at Ritter's stable?”

The young man tried hard to hold onto his smile. “I don't clean pens. And I'm surely not any Mexican. My pa owns the stable, like he owns a whole lot else in this town. I'm Winthrop Ritter.”

Myra pretended to sniff. “Did you come straight over from work? Sometimes things get stuck to a person's shoes.”

Winthrop’s expression went sober. “There's a lot of poor folk hereabouts. One never knows what they drag in.”

“If you say so.”

The youth was unimpressed with the girl's charm, but he liked her looks and so maintained an amiable front. “I saw you coming in with some sort of fancy gal,” he said.

Myra shrugged. “That was my aunt, Mrs. Fanning.”

“Irene Fanning? I didn't recognize her. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you'd said you'd come with one of Lady Cerise's gals.” Then he caught himself. “Maybe I shouldn't talk that way in front of a nice girl.”

“Which nice girl are you talking about?” she asked.

“The one that’s standing in front of me,” Winthrop answered, his grin broadening. “What's your name?”

“I'm traveling under the name of Abigail Myra Olcott.”

The young man laughed. On the frontier, rascals oftentimes came from the East using false names. To be too forward about asking a person’s handle was to be considered impolite. Instead, folks would ask, “What name are you traveling under?” It tickled his funny bone to have this fetching girl respond to his question like a horse-thief on the dodge.

“That's a mighty fine name. When I hear the name Abigail, it always makes me imagine a lady of distinction.”

“And I always think of some old grandma with a cane. People call me Myra, but that’s not a moniker I care for much either.”

Winthrop nodded. “I hated my name, too. Back in school, there was a smart-mouthed kid who'd always try to make me sore by calling me 'Winnie.'”

Myra tried not to laugh, knowing that she had been that wise-apple kid. “Did you let him get way with it?” she asked, wondering what he'd say.

“Not a bit. I had to whoop him a few times to teach him manners. Before I graduated, though, he was bowing and scraping like he was some black slave.”

'You lying S.O.B.' thought Myra. The only time Ritter had ever hit Myron without getting hit back even harder was when two of his bully friends had been holding his arms. To get revenge, he'd slipped a caramel-covered onion into his enemy's lunch pail and laughed like hell to see Winnie's face change when he bit into it! On another occasion, Myron had put a “Bankrupt, Going Out of Business” sign on Clyde Ritter's main stable entrance. He'd done it on a Sunday morning when he knew that there’d only be an illiterate hired man on the job tending to the horses. He knew that the old fellow would leave the placard up all day, supposing that it was something that his boss wanted people to see.

From outdoors, Myra heard a lively tune.

“Say now,” Winthrop said, “it’s the opening dance.”

“Do you like to dance?” Myra asked. “You don't look like the type.”

He shrugged. “I don't care much for it, that's a fact. But I'm game for a little shuffle around the floor, so long as the girl I’m holding is pretty enough, and if she's wearing something I like.”

“I hope you find somebody like that.”

Winthrop smiled conceitedly. “Well, you’re pretty enough for me and you really fill out that dress nicely. Why don’t the two of us dance?”

“I'd rather be hung,” said Myra.

The youth looked surprised. “You know, you're damned easy on the eyes, but what comes out of your mouth isn’t so easy on the ears.”

“Why, Mr. Ritter! People usually tell me I'm sugar and spice and everything nice.”

“Well, I hope that turns out true. Can I get you anything?”

“I could use a little privacy.”

Winthrop, looking sour, departed with a perfunctory nod.

Myra consulted the clock again. The whole conversation had taken only five minutes. She moaned silently. What the heck could she do to fill so much time?

Myra drifted from table to table, munching. While so doing, she noticed a dark-haired girl busy in the same way. Wearing a Mexican skirt and blouse, she was showing off a nice pair of shoulders. She recognized Raquel Gomez from school. The señorita been looking plenty good just before he'd left town, but had gotten even better since then. Had Raquel come alone? Myra wondered. The Eerie Anglo and Mexican communities usually kept clear of one another in respect of each other's social occasions. But Raquel had always been the plucky type, as she needed to be to mingle so casually with people whom she scarcely knew.

“Hi, Raquel,” said the auburn. “Good eats, don’t you think?”

The Latina looked up and, failing to recognized the speaker, smiled bemusedly. “It is good food,” she agreed, her accent not being very pronounced. “Por favor, I do not think I know you.”

Myra gave the usual answer. “Irene Fanning is my aunt.”

“Oh, I work at the grocery and meet Señora Fanning there all the time. You must be the new girl that mis amigas saw shopping with the lady and Señora O'Toole earlier this week.”

While Myra didn't care for Mexicans in general, some of the pretty señoritas weren't so bad. “Have your own people held their own Christmas fiesta already?”

The Gomez girl shrugged. “Sí, last night. But a Yanqui asked me to come with him tonight. Why should I not? I like the Anglos. They have nice songs and music. Their food is very exotic! Also, I like to dance. Perdóname, what should I call you?” she asked.

“Myra,” Miss Olcott answered.

“How did you know my name?”

“Ah, someone pointed you out.”

“Someone I know?”

“Maybe. Winthrop Ritter.”

“Oh,” said the dark-eyed girl.

“Don't you like him?”

“He's not the best of the Anglos. Are you and he buenos amigos?”

“No, not at all,” asserted Myra. “I just met him.”

“Were you sorry?”

Myra nodded. “A little.”

The chica lowered her voice. “Do not let yourself be alone with such an hombre. At last summer's fiesta, he pinched me!”

Myra tried to appear commiserative. In plain fact, Myron would have enjoyed pinching Raquel Gomez himself.

“Oh, mire!” said Raquel. “He comes, the joven who escorted me,” Myra looked to see whom she meant.

Oh, Lord.

It was Lydon Kelsey, the closest thing to a friend that Myron had ever had in Eerie. It didn't surprise Myra that Kelsey had ended up asking a Mexican to a party. Even so, if he had to keep company with some Mexican girl, he had made a good pick.

Her old friend hadn't changed much, except for having on a formal suit. The jacket was of yellow-brown corduroy worn over a white, ruffled shirt, the latter being set off by a black string tie. Meeting up with Kelsey so unexpectedly made Myra squeamish, even though there wasn't a chance that he would recognize her.

“Oh, Raquel,” the Anglo youth asked, “who's this pretty niña?”

“We just met,” the señorita replied. “She is Myra, the niece of Señora Fanning.”

Kelsey met Myra’s glance boldly. “Oh, hello, Myra. I heard something about Thorn Caldwell’s cousin coming to town.” He smiled. “You probably won't know it, but I was Thorn's best friend.”

“Is that so?” replied Myra. “Who was your best friend?”

Lydon, either missing the jib or ignoring it, said, “Sometime we ought to get together and exchange reminiscences about the dearly departed.”

Myra scowled. “I don't have any memories about Myron. The two of us never met.”

“Maybe you don’t know how much he hated being called Myron. He'd hammer-punch anyone who tried to hang that sissy name on him. From what part of the country do you hail from, gal?”

“New Jersey. Most of what I know about my cousin comes from hearsay.”

“Well, he and I had some good times. By the way, that's an eye-catching frock you've gotten yourself squeezed into. Is that how New Jersey girls dress?"

“Sometimes. I had to wear the first thing I could find around the house; I'm not much interested in partying.”

“You should be. You clean up real nice.” With Myra ignoring the compliment, he said, “If you're wondering what Thorn was like, I could tell you plenty. If I came out to the farm, we could take a walk around the place. I'd be able to fill you in about a lot of things you don't know.”

“Keep that in mind for next summer,” she said tersely.

“Yeah,” Lydon muttered disappointedly, “I'll check with you then.” He looked back toward Raquel, saying, “Come on, cucaracha, let's dance up a storm.”

“You big tonto!” she declared. “I hope you do not know what a cucaracha is! Otherwise it is an awful thing to call a muchacha, especialmente if you expect her to dance with you!”

The youth took her by the wrist. “Women! Always finding offense where none is intended,” he said as he led her away.

Myra, once more alone, dared to check the time once more. The clock hands had hardly moved. How in the living hell was she supposed to stand around doing nothing until eight-thirty? Of course, there were plenty of books in the schoolhouse. But would people leave her alone if she sat down to read?

Just then, a young man edged up, not any person whom she knew. “May I have the honor of the next dance?” he asked.

Myra scowled. “Go jump off a cliff.”

The youth sighed and withdrew.

“That wasn't very nice of you,” someone remarked from behind. She recognized the voice and turned with a glare. “George, you again, like a fly going back to a...” She stopped, not wanting to say something uncouth with others listening.

“A sugar cube?” he guessed.

“That isn't even close. As bad as your arrival is, I was expecting I'd have to run into you sooner or later.”

“I promised I’d come, didn't I?”

“I talked to Dale, but she didn't mention that you were already here.”

“I just rode in alone. Dang it! Seeing you all gussied up is more fun than eating filled chocolate. I especially like your hair bow.”

“Whatever you happen to like, Mr. Severin, it has nothing to do with me.”

“It has everything to do with you. Why, I don’t think that little blue mountain off Indian Head is half so fetching.”

“If you hang around up there, I'll have to stay shy of the place.”

George's expression changed slightly and Myra cussed herself inwardly. A supposed newcomer like herself shouldn't be talking as if she knew the local sites.

Myra wondered how was she going to get rid of George quickly and keep him away from her for the rest of the evening.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 6

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona: Chapter 6

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

7,500 < Novelette < 17,500 words

Genre:

Western

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Elements:

Christmas

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Posted 4-06-20
Revised 8-12-22

THE BELLE OF EERIE, ARIZONA

By Christopher Leeson

CHAPTER 6

.
Saturday, December 23, 1871 Continued

“I watched the first dance,” George remarked casually, as if overlooking her stumble. “I didn't see you in it.”

Myra tossed her head. “That's because I wasn't there.”

“You really dislike dancing, don’t you? If that's it, you’re different from almost any other girl I know.”

“I’m sure I am. Like, how many girls do you know that like to read?”

“A lot of girls tell me they read.”

Myra gave a snort. “I’m not talking about Friskie the Pony or Little Prudy. I want to learn things. The world's a big place and I want to know all about it.”

“What do like to read?” asked young Severin.

“James Fenimore Cooper was interesting. He tells about how the country started. But he’s not the best writer I've read. His character Natty Bumpo talks too much. How can a man stalk a deer if he can’t keep his mouth shut for two minutes?”

“What else?”

“I finished First footsteps in East Africa not too long ago. Sir Richard Burton didn’t just sit around dreaming up wild adventures; he actually lived them.”

“Well, you’re a different different type, all right. Were your girl friends just like you?”

“Living way out in the country, I didn’t...” She paused. When lying, a person had to be careful.

“The only girls I knew were at school. The older they got, the more they wanted to talk about clothes and boys. Those subjects drove me up the wall and I let them know it. That's when they started keeping me at arm’s length. That was all right. My brain kept me better company than they ever could.”

“And what did you and your brain talk about?”

“Sailing off to strange lands, for one thing.” She paused, frowning. “By the way, Aunt Irene told me that I didn't have to talk to you unless I wanted to.”

“Do you always do what your aunt tells you?”

“Not when I can avoid it.” She looked back at the exit. “Excuse me, I'm too busy to be standing around yakking.”

“Busy doing what? Eating? If you don’t slow down, you’re going to fatten up like a spring calf.”

Myra scowled. "Anyone who doesn't like the way I look can leave me alone.”

“Right now you look real fine. I’d even put my name on your dance card, if you’d let me.”

“What dance card? No body gave me a dance card.”

“That was a figure of speech."

“Well, then, you ought use better figures of speech so you won't sound so silly,” observed Myra.

“I’d rather improve my dancing. From what I saw over at your house, you could use a little more practice yourself.”

“Why don’t you ask someone who actually wants to dance, if you’re so fired up about it?"

He glanced around the room. “As far as I can see, every other girl I'm acquainted with is already paired up with some fella or other. That makes things hard for a man.”

“Why ask me to dance? There has to be someone you like better than me.”

“Why do you think I don't like you?”

“If you liked me, you wouldn’t say so many things that make me want to slug you.”

“If you could get over being so snappish, I think I could like you a whole lot.”

Myra turned to leave, but paused a few steps away. In truth, she had no place to go and nothing to do. If she acted too standoffish, it would look bad and people might talk about her “odd behavior.” Instead, she wanted to leave the impression of being commonplace, so that people would stop paying attention to her.

“If you want to dance,” she said, “fine. I've got nothing going on until about eight -- when Aunt Irene wants to leave. But I’m telling you, I won’t be enjoying it and dancing is something I'm willing to do only to kill time. It won't mean that I like you and if you start jabbering too much, I’ll leave you cold. Agreed?”

He grinned. “Who do you think I am? Natty Bumpo? Sure. What a lady wants, a lady gets. But I have a condition, too.”

“What?”

Let’s not square dance. I’ve had all the square dancing I can choke down for one week.”

“At least we agree on one thing,” said Myra.

A little while later, outside, when the caller told the people to get into line for a square dance, George drew Myra away from the crowd. The youth took her to where Dale and Kayley were sitting together. The girls were in good spirits, both having found boys to dance with.

The four of them talked until the objectionable square dance was over. Then George and Myra tried out a mazurka.

After about twenty minutes, they felt in need of rest again. This time, Rosedale’s and Kayley’s partners were with them and all six made conversation. With a group so large, there was a lot of chatter, some of it annoying. Whenever a person expressed an opinion that Myra disagreed with, she'd answer back. In the course of things, Miss Olcott noticed that the boys didn't try too hard to win at arguing. It reminded Myra that Myron had had the same sensible attitude. Because boys didn’t like quarreling with girls, they would generally give them the last word. Anyway, the ridiculous stuff that usually got a girl's dander up was usually not worth bickering about.

When Myra next checked the time, it was a little after eight. Excusing herself, she sought out Irene to ask about going home. Unfortunately, that Swedish galoot was close by, hanging on her aunt's every word and smiling like a prospector clutching a handful of nuggets. Instead of going home, Irene made a plea for patience. She was having a pleasant time talking to Tor, she said, and didn’t wish to leave just yet. Rather than haggle with a damned fool woman, Myra trudged back to rejoin her young neighbors. Soon, she and George were back dancing again. Some of the party-goers started to leave. It was about nine that Irene Fanning finally showed up, also feeling ready to get back to the farm.

Sunday, December 24, 1871

On the morning of Christmas Eve, the two of them wasted no time having breakfast and getting the chores done. Irene was bound and determined not be be tardy for the Christmas service, where she would introduce Myra to the parishioners.

As it turned out, a good many of the congregation marched right up to greet her. When some of them lingered too long jabbering about unimportant things, the girl was more sorry than ever that she’d come. It was almost a relief when Reverend Yingling showed himself, causing everyone to sit down and be quiet. The introductions, good wishes, and empty complements resumed after the close of prayer, with everyone standing in the lunch line. The food, at least, was good, the church ladies having donated a good many treats, while some of it was leftovers from the party.

Mrs. Netia Severin, a handsome woman in her Sunday best, approached them, expressing regret that Thorn's body couldn't be found. The lady assured Aunt Irene that her husband and the other men had done everything possible to locate him. Irene thanked her profusely for her family’s unselfish efforts. At that point, Mrs. Severin extended a holiday invitation. “The two of you shouldn't be alone with your grief on Christmas day, of all times. And we don't want Myra to start thinking that Eerie is an unfriendly town. The whole family would be very pleased to have you both over for Christmas dinner.”

“I think that would be wonderful, Netia,” replied Irene. “Myra, what do you say?”

The girl gave a neutral shrug and a forced smile. She could hardly be enthusiastic about spending an entire afternoon in the same house as George.

It was then that the dancing Swede, Tor, showed up and engaged the whole of Mrs. Fanning’s attention. When the pair drifted away to one side, Myra sought out a quiet corner to chow down undisturbed.

Later, back home, they changed into their work clothes and got busy again. At day's end, Irene fixed a light supper and in the midst of their dining, Myra heard footsteps on the grit outside, followed by a knock. Her aunt checked and found Dan Talbot standing on the step. “Sheriff,” said Irene, “whatever brings you out at such an hour? Everyone else in town must be settling down to their meals.”

“I’ve had a busy day of it, Ma’am, but since I was passing by anyway, it seemed like a good opportunity to stop by and speak with the young lady,” replied the lawman.

Mrs. Fanning glanced curiously to her niece, and then back at Dan. “What is it, Sheriff?”

“Don’t fret. We’re having a deuce of a time catching those outlaws. I’m hoping that Miss Myra might have an opinion or two about where the three of them may like to hole up. I'd like to speak to her privately, if you don't mind.”

“Is the matter serious?”

“It’s routine. But I wouldn’t want to stir up any bad memories you may have regarding those skunks, ma’am.”

The hostess regarded him soberly. “Very well. When you two are finished, please come back in.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Fanning,” the tall man replied. “I’ll gladly take a bite when the business is done, but I won’t be able to stay long. On Christmas Eve, my Amy always works up a fancy supper.” He smiled. “She wants to make every minute of the holiday be as special as possible.”

“Your home life must be very pleasant,” Irene said.

“It satisfies me,” Dan replied. Then he looked to Myra. “Miss Olcott,” he addressed the potion girl and gestured toward the door.

Myra followed him outside into the dark. The air felt colder than before; there was a north wind blowing.

Talbot paused by the corral fence.

“Did you have time to check out what we were talking about?” the maid asked.

Sheriff Talbot nodded. “What kept me occupied was making holiday calls on Roscoe Unger, Dwight Albertson, and Judge Humphreys. Roscoe let me see some of Ozzie Pratt’s archive of old newspaper issues from the war years. As for the judge, he unfortunately only came to Arizona after the war, but has records that were passed on to him by the former justice of the peace. Dwight Albertson was actually quite helpful, too.”

“Yeah? How did it go?”

“The information I got from them is pretty sketchy.”

“Don’t rush things. I want to know the whole truth, no matter how long it takes,” replied Myra.

“I've got no reason to rush, but I thought you’d prefer me to keep you filled in.”

"I appreciate that, Sheriff.”

"The most important thing I wanted to know was whether folks had any motive to steal. Mr. Albertson wasn't so cagey as he usually is, since the people under investigation passed away a long time ago. He said that your folks had been late with several loan payments. He had also heard talk that the couple had exhausted their credit with most of the merchants around town -- up until things changed.”

“What changed?”

"In the early summer of 1864 they started making prompt bank repayments and they kept it up until the ledger was cleared. They stopped borrowing, too, even made decent deposits. Dwight had hearsay that they were paying off their store bills, too."

Myra looked away uneasily. "My aunt's said more than once that my parents left the farm debt-free."

"Do you have any idea if they could have improved their situation in any honest way?"

"No, I don't," Myra said solemnly. "They used to tell neighbors that they had gotten a bequest from a relative out East, but I don't remember they ever gave a name to whoever that was. What I remember better was that they were always worried about being late paying bills, until things got suddenly better."

“Hmmmm," Dan said noncommittally. "I was also asking folks about old robberies, especially those where the outlaws remained unknown. There was nothing I could bite on, not until Roscoe showed me a story from May of 1864. There'd been a robbery and it was an important one. Just don’t get too excited. It might not amount to anything. I wouldn’t want to start you worrying for no good reason.”

The girl stood quiet for a moment. “I can take a punch,” she finally said. “It’s worse to be standing around not knowing what to believe.”

“Are you sure? After you squeeze an orange, you can’t put the juice back.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“All right, if that's how you want it."

Myra Olcott waited expectantly.

“A couple of prospectors struck it rich back in 1862 and then sold out to a small company, the first professional mining outfit that ever set up next to Eerie. It was called Rexler and Colby.”

“I think I've heard the name.”

“You may have. They pulled out of Eerie a little after the war, relocating so they could profit from the new strike at Red Dog. But they were still here in 1864 when something bad happened that spring. A trusted clerk, Thomas Mifflin, emptied their on-site safe and got away with some cash and a good number of rough-cast ingots.”

Myra blinked. That sounded like the same robbery story that George had briefly mentioned.

"There was a determined manhunt, of course,” said Dan. “A soft-handed clerk shouldn't have been able to outsmart experienced trackers, but they never caught him. All they ever found was his horse at Phoenix. Someone had brought it to the marshal there, saying that it’d been tied up to a tree for a long time and he'd started feeling sorry for it. The marshal suspected it to be part of the robbery and it turned out he was right. But the beast was carrying no useful evidence and the general opinion held that Mifflin must have acquired another mount at Phoenix and abandoned his old one because it could be recognized.”

“Another horse? Are you sure? Don’t you think that he could have left Phoenix by stage?” asked Myra.

“That possibility was considered. The trouble is, no stage man remembered anyone matching Mifflin’s description, nor anyone at all who was carrying pieces of heavy luggage. No stable man or local would admit to selling a horse to Mifflin, either. Likewise, there were no reports of any stolen horse in the vicinity. Possibly, a helper had purchased a fresh horse for the robber and took it to him near in to Phoenix.”

“Where there any ideas about who this confederate could have been?”

“No, there wasn’t. There's no actual no proof that Mifflin ever had a helper. All that’s certain is that from the day of the robbery, no one ever reported seeing the man again. His friends and relatives, even those back East, were contacted and questioned, but none of them had heard from him in months, if not years. No evidence ever came up to gainsay their testimony.”

“So, what does any of this have to do with my folks?”

Dan grimaced. “I don't like to speculate.”

“Maybe you’re supposing that they could have been working with the thief.”

“Possibly so, but I hope that I’d be wrong.”

“What are the other possibilities?”

“They'd all be be guesswork. Hell, the whole picture we have is just guesswork.”

Myra shook her head. “From all you’ve said, there’s no good reason to think that Mifflin knew my parents at all.”

“That's the likely truth of it. Its hard to do much with a case that’s so old. I don’t know of anyone who can give us better information, unless it’s your aunt. You should be talking to her.”

“I don’t dare bring it up with Irene. She might use magic to make me shut up about the whole affair. But the fact is, I know that she knows something. I’ve been hoping to find another letter that would tell more. I asked the neighbors if any mail had come in for my folks after they’d died, but they'd left it all with the postmaster, except for things that they supposed Irene should deal with. They say those pieces were put into the house to wait for her arrival.”

The lawman frowned. “If your aunt had written an incriminating letter to your ma, she might have destroyed it once it got back into her hands.”

“Maybe so. Are you going to keep investigating?”

“I'll do what I can. People like to talk about outlaws, if you give them half a chance. Maybe I’ll find somebody who has new pieces to add to the puzzle. I can dig through more old records and news stories. They might have information that can send us down a different trail. Don't expect anything from me too quickly. Maybe there won't be anything to find.”

“Can't you be the one to question my aunt?” Myra asked suddenly. “Like I said, I don't dare do it myself.”

“It’s a sad business, lad. If she knows something, it’s probably been eating on her all these years, just like it’s eating on you now. There are times when we should let the past bury the dead. Whatever she may know, she’s probably not guilty of anything except protecting her family’s reputation. I’ve always thought of Mrs. Fanning as a good woman. Am I wrong about that?"

“She’s decent enough, but if my folks turn out to be completely different people from what I thought they were, maybe she’s fooled me, too.”

Dan regarded her studiously and then said, “If you’re hoping to find out that your parents were perfect people, you never will. Everybody’s got something to hide. Hell, there are plenty of lawmen around today that used to be wanted outlaws. If you keep turning over rocks trying to find something ugly, you may regret it. Digging up old secrets can hurt people, and -- as like as not -- it can hurt you, too. If you loved your ma and pa, the wisest thing would be to hold on to those feelings. Don’t muddy them up with unproven suspicions.”

Myra had no more talk left in her, and so the two of them went back indoors. Dan Talbot accepted a savory bowl chow and when Irene asked whether Myra had given him any good information, the lawman answered laconically. “She mentioned a deserted cabin near Yuma that the gang used once in a while. I’ll wire the local sheriff and tell him about it.” After that, he met every other question evasively.

Pretty quickly, Dan excused himself and rode off home. Myra continued to sit at the table, laden with dark and heavy thoughts. Later, in bed, she decided that she had no choice but to question her aunt, no matter what the consequences. But she wanted to hold off on that until after Christmas.

Monday, December 25, 1871

“Myra!” Aunt Irene called up from the kitchen. “It snowed last night!”

The girl perked up with interest; she had hardly ever seen snow in Arizona. The girl hurriedly threw on a robe and then clambered down the ladder to take a look outside.

Miss Olcott, standing at the threshold, a cold wind blowing in her face, saw what the farm looked like buried under a white blanket. There was no break in the cottony accumulation except where there were tallish stands of dry weeds. The farm girl bent down, poked an index finger into the snow, and estimated its depth at about four inches. She supposed that the next newspaper was going to sell a good many copies, with everyone wanted to read about the big snow.

Though it was Christmas Day, Myra felt moody and breakfast tasted bland. There was no more fancy party food. Some of it had been eaten at the Sunday service already. And it was usual to distribute what was left over to the poor of the town, including the men living in the squatter shacks.

Abruptly, Irene left the table and entered the walk-in pantry. She emerged carrying a wrapped parcel. The sight of what she guessed to be her Christmas gift made Myra wince. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think about getting you anything.”

“Sweetheart,” Irene responded, “that's all right. I know you don't have any money.”

That was bitterly true. “Is that my fault?” Myra asked.

Mrs. Fanning shook her head. “Christmas is not the time for fault-finding. Don't worry about presents. This has been a season of miracles and I'd be ashamed to ask the Lord for more blessings than He's already seen fit to send us. Until last week, I thought I would have to pass another Christmas without you, but that didn’t happen.”

Myra pursed her lips. The “blessings" so far had seemed like raw deals.

Instead of venting her feelings, the girl opened the parcel and found a wrapped book within. She was guessing the tome to be Le Morte d’Arthur, but that wasn’t so. "Innocents Abroad? What's this about?” she asked.

Irene replied with a smile. “It's the story of Mark Twain's trip to Europe and the Holy Land a couple of years ago. I know how much you like to read about far away places. And Mr. Twain is a very good writer.”

“I've read his 'Celebrated Jumping Frog' story.” She hefted the volume. “This one is one big sucker of a book, anyway.”

“I hope it will give you some good reading. By the way, there'll be no unnecessary work to do today. Just help me keep the animals well tended, the eggs gathered, and the cows milked. Oh, and we're both going to have to take baths right away, since the Severins will be expecting us for dinner.”

Socializing wasn't something that the girl looked forward to, but she didn’t think she'd be able to weasel out of it.

Myra set her new book aside and dressed for outdoors. This would be a morning to remember, she thought, walking through ankle-deep snow, leaving a distinct track of footprints. Returning indoors after the chores were done, Myra found that her aunt had been heating water to fill the tub. As was the custom, the older person bathed first. It startled Myra to realize that Irene was no longer shy about undressing in front of her. That, more than anything else, informed the girl that her aunt was truly thinking of her as another female!

A while later, soaking in her own bath, Miss Myra couldn't help but wonder about the possibility of finding more letters hidden around the farmstead. But to make a new search she'd have to be alone, and that wasn’t going to happen until after Christmas.

After bathing and donning clothing suitable for socializing, the aunt and niece went out to hitch up the buckboard. Upon setting out, they could see that the snow wasn’t deep enough to impede their short trip.

The Severins met them by their front doorstep. Escorted indoors, they found the air fragrant with fresh baking. Myra knew from childhood that Mrs. Severin was a good cook. The pleasant ambiance was a strong reminder that this really was Christmas Day.

After the holiday meal was finished, Aunt Irene remained with Mr. and Mrs. Severin to chat in the kitchen, while Rosedale coaxed Myra into joining her brothers and sister in the “family room.” This was an add-on that had been attached to the house to make it more comfortable for a growing household. Besides George and Dale, the neighbors had two younger sons and another daughter. The smaller kids were as noisy as ferrets playing with their Christmas gifts. The new tin whistle that one of the boys kept blowing made Myra want to throw a piece of firewood in his direction.

Rosedale and George were full of questions, wanting to know about Myra’s impressions of Eerie so far. They also wished to learn about her New Jersey home. Spinning a yarn about an imaginary home taxed Myra's imagination, forcing her dig deep into usable memories that were years old, or to make up things based on her reading.

Rosedale, inspired by the local weather, wanted to know about the snowy winters back East. Myra didn't have many more memories of snow than the girl did, but claimed that she had liked them and then threw in a few made-up flourishes, such as playing fox-and-the-goose with friends and making snow angels. Pretty soon, Dale coaxed the young visitor away to the little room which Miss Severin shared with her smaller sister. She proceeded to show off her favorite girlish do-dads and Myra had a hard time pretending that she was even remotely interested. Nonetheless, she kept her demeanor friendly. The ginger took care not to ask too many questions of Dale, so as to not show off her ignorance about everyday girl things.

The visiting continued until mid-afternoon, when the elder Severins sent Dale and George outdoors to begin their late-day chores. Myra was left alone with the three younger children while the adults carried on with their conversation. After another hour, Nettie and Walter Severin had to get at their own accustomed chores, while the youngest brother was put to bed for a nap. At that point, Irene informed Myra that it was time for them to leave. Farm work was waiting for the pair of them, too. The light, after all, would not last much longer.

Away the way back, Myra could see how much the snow had already melted. Though snow wasn’t good for much of anything, it did give the drab landscape a fresh look. The early melt lowered Miss Olcott's mood. It came across like a metaphor that represented the shutting down of the holiday. Whatever good feeling the season had brought with it was going to be gone, too.

Once home, the women took off their good clothes and put on choring garments. The late-day drudgery was the final end of Christmas magic. With the sun down and the lanterns turned off for the night, Myra retired to her dark loft.

The mystery that hung about her family nagged at the girl, but she knew that she couldn't rush things. Sometime, soon, she would have the privacy needed to search the house thoroughly. In fact, during the upcoming week, Irene would again be away, taking their produce into town.

Myra heard the wind outside moaning loudly. With so much on Myra’s mind, sleep didn't come swiftly. Old memories nagged at her. Like, why had her parents gotten more friendly with Matt Grimsley over the last couple years of their lives? And why did they always talk to him in such a sneaky way, with all three of them looking around and making sure that they couldn't be overheard? Before that, they had had no more than a nodding acquaintance with the Grimsley family, while maintaining stronger ties with the Severins.

Personally, Myron had not much liked Matt Grimsley. There was always something sneaky about the man. Like, Myron had caught him more than once trespassing, mostly prowling about the margins of the Caldwell property. Whenever Myron had called him out on it, the big man gave no straight answers but would only ask peevish questions in return, such as "What's the big fuss was all about?"

Her every attempt to remember a bygone incident was like stepping into a dark room and lighting a lantern. With effort, Myra managed to recall bits and pieces, though oftentimes these made no sense. Like, there was that spring day when Myron had walked home from school and discovered a strange horse feeding in the corral. When he asked his pa about it, he was told that it belonged to a traveler. Apparently, the man had fallen sick while riding by and became unable to continue. Ma had led him to a mound of hay in the barn where he could rest warmly, covered by a spare horse blanket. Then the girl remembered something else -- that her dad wouldn’t let her get close to the stranger or speak to him. Both his ma and pa explained that the fellow might have something catching. “We don't want to be taking any risks, not until we're sure we know what's ailing him.”

“Won't Ma catch what he’s got when she goes to check on him?” young Myron had asked.

“She knows how to be careful,” was his pa’s only answer.

What happened then? Myra tried hard to remember.

Remaining sleepless, Myra dredged up another kernel of memory. Three days after the stranger had shown up, Myron discovered that his horse was gone. The boy asked his ma about it and was told that the man had ridden it away.

“Is he all right now?” Myron had asked.

“He just had a flu. Don't worry about it anymore,” she told him.

Slowly, bit by bit, other memories floated to the surface like curds, but they all added up to very little. Even so, among all the ragged memories, one thing stood out. It was about the time that that the man had gone away that Ma and Pa had gotten sad and stayed sad all the time.

With a sigh, Myra snuggled into the straw-stuffed tick beneath her, the blankets covering one ear, while the other was pressed warmly into her goose-down pillow. The snow, obviously, had brought in colder weather and the darker the night got, the louder the wind howled. Now that winter was settling in, there were going to be a good many more frosty nights, she knew.

Tuesday, December 26, 1871

The next morning was a busy one. Myra and her aunt rose early and worked faster than usual, so as to not be late to the morning memorial for Thorn Caldwell. Irene wasn't insisting that the two of them take another bath, since they’d had done that the day before. By the time they'd dressed for church, it was time to leave.

Despite it being Tuesday, school was not going to be resuming until after New Year’s Day, so the premises remained available for the parish's use. Myra noticed that all the Caldwell neighbors were represented. The Grimsleys had brought their kids along, but Tully Singer and his wife were sitting alone. The whole Severin troop was there, even the youngest. When George tried to catch Myra’s eye, she glanced away.

Not far from the Severins, there sat a cowboy that Myra recognized as Carl Osbourne. Sitting beside him was his sister, the schoolteacher Nancy Osbourne. Myron had always thought that Nancy was pleasant, pretty, and he'd liked her. It dawned on her that the young schoolmistress hadn’t been at the Christmas dance. Mrs. Cullings, who had taught at the school before leaving town, had gone to all the festivals and parties.

But things were looked at differently when a teacher was unmarried. Folks said that single schoolmarms shouldn’t be socializing, lest they set a poor example for the children. Away from the schoolhouse, Miss Osbourne was hardly to be seen at all, except when attending church.

On impulse, Myra checked the room for Lydon Kelsey, but didn’t see him. She didn’t care one way or the other about that, except that it rankled her that he was going around telling people what good friends he and Thorn used to be. Some friend!

It also riled the farm girl that none of the other persons in the room had ever let on that they cared so much as a dog's hair for Thorn Caldwell. Almost everyone of them had treated him like a bad kid. So why should these same people pile into his memorial service now? There wasn't even any food being served. It frustrated Myra to think how few of the folk that Myron knew would ever miss him. Didn’t they care that the entire Caldwell family had been erased from the earth with the supposed death of Thorn? Of course they didn't care!

After that realization, she felt like a ghost haunting a church.

The situation made her wonder. Why was she still alive anyway? Was there anything left for her to live for? What part of her life, in fact, had ever been worth living? Aunt Irene, on the other hand, always kept saying that every life had some God-given purpose. Well, Myra wished that someone would spell out to her what had been the purpose of Myron Caldwell's life.

Or, for that matter, what was the worth of Myra Olcott's present life?

When the service got underway, Reverend Thaddeus Yingling spoke from the pulpit and offered up a prayer for the soul of the departed. As Thorn, Myra had kept as far away from the Eerie preacher as he possibly could. What Yingling was saying now about Thorn Caldwell’s life sounded so sketchy that a man who was just off the Prescott stage could have said all the same things regarding any saddle tramp found in the dirt, dead of snakebite.

The whole experience was coming across as something awful. Myra wished it could be done with, so that she could go home, sit in some solitary place, and feel bad all by herself.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 7

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona: Chapter 7

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

7,500 < Novelette < 17,500 words

Genre:

Western

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

Other Keywords:

Bad Boy into Bad Girl; imposture

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Posted 4-06-20
Revised 8-24-22

THE BELLE OF EERIE, ARIZONA

By Christopher Leeson

CHAPTER 7

Tuesday, December 26, 1871 Continued

At that moment, Nancy Osbourne stood and advanced to the podium. Reverend Yingling stepped back and Miss Osbourne stood facing the crowd.

Drawing a deep breath, she said: “I remember Myron Caldwell very well. “When I first came to Eerie, I saw in Myron a boy who was often sad and angry. I wanted to help, but I scarcely knew what to do. I was only seventeen years old when I arrived, new to my job and still trying to settle into a new home entirely unlike my old one.

“I thought I understood his situation. My brother and I had also lost our parents at an early age. I knew how hard a child tries to appear strong even when he is not strong at all. I also knew about the questions that a child puts to God when something tragic happens to his family. And in time I learned that even terrible wounds are eventually closed by natural healing. That is the blessed healing that comes from the mercy of the Lord. But it takes time.

“Alas, our young neighbor was to have a very short life. When we remember Myron, what is most important it that we recall not be his violent last day, but instead cherish the good student that he had been during his happier days, and the good friend that people remember him to have been then. Unfortunately, fate dealt the boy severe blows. Each of us who has been gifted with a better life ought to give thanks to our Creator that we have so far been permitted to walk an easier path than the one that Myron Caldwell was compelled to tread.

“I stand here to join my prayers to the reverend’s, asking mercy for our departed neighbor. Hopefully, Myron had time enough during his final mishap to repent at the knees of Christ. If such a blessed thing occurred, he is with his maker now. All his sorrows have been recompensed in Paradise and his former sorrows are very far away. And that is only as it should be.”

Miss Osbourne concluded with a nod to the people.

After Nancy returned to her bench, the minister reoccupied the podium. Looking straight at Irene, he said, “Dear Mrs. Fanning, as your nephew’s nearest and dearest kin, have you any words to offer on behalf of the boy whose spirit has departed with such suddenness from our mortal veil?”

Myra glanced at her aunt, who hadn't said anything about preparing a speech. What could she possibly say, the girl wondered, that wouldn’t be a damnable lie?

Irene Fanning seemed to be taken by surprise but, with an expression of both sorrow and resolution, she stood up and stepped forward.

From the podium, the widow said: “Dear friends and neighbors. I can hardly express my family’s appreciation for the sympathy you have expressed through your attendance at this service. Your support should remind everyone who is in grief that we are never alone as long as we are a part of a greater whole.

“Myron left us a year ago, determined to plot his own course. I worried every day while he was away, beseeching God that he should be shown the way to a better place. A sad event has happened, but who can say that, beyond our power to know, my wish has not been granted?”

Myra scowled. Better place? As far as she was concerned, her present amounted to nothing better than a bag of rags and wreckage. She was still unsure whether Hell and Heaven were more than a bunk tale made up by parsons but, if they were not real, she would have been glad to be dead just then.

“Many people believe that death ends all hope for the unsaved,” Irene continued, “but God is a god of life and nothing happens against His will. And is it not His will to do His utmost to deliver every soul from perdition? If that is true, Myron must have become a member of his flock. Our Methodist faith holds that unrepentant sin leads inevitably into an unhappy eternity. But isn’t it possible that none of us know all we should know about that eternity? Who of us here can doubt that whatever God wishes to achieve, He can achieve?”

Myra saw Yingling’s face abruptly tighten, as did the expressions of some of the other parishioners. But Myra wasn’t taking her aunt's words as any challenge to the Methodist faith, but that – trying to avoid falsehood -- she was speaking truthfully, but in a way that none of her listeners would be likely to understand.

“I believe at the very core of my being,” Mrs. Fanning said, “that the spirit of Myron still lingers very near. I feel his presence every day and I believe that, by God’s Mercy, his ultimate fate is not yet set in stone. I believe that the hand of grace is still open, still extended to him, and I know that if he can but extend his own hand to take it, his repentance shall open a door for him, a door to a new and better world.”

Myra cringed. However she cut it, there was no way that being female was ever going to lead her into any kind of better world.

Irene glanced down with sorrow. “I had no children of my own, had acquired no parenting skills, but I nonetheless came to Eerie with one overriding purpose in mind – to give aid and support to a child who had been left abandoned by cruel chance. It was a terrible vow that I was making and I felt unready to fulfill my responsibilities. My life until then had not prepared me for great challenges. I had been living in a daze ever since I had received a letter telling me that I was a widow. A widow at nineteen. That rush of sorrow had entirely redefined my existence even before I could stop thinking of myself as a new bride.

“After I became Myron's guardian, I depended very heavily on the strength I gained from prayer. Oftentimes, I confessed to our Creator, ‘I cannot do this by myself, Lord; I need your guidance.’ I was asking for a miracle because my task seemed so overwhelming. I didn't see how I could carry it out unless I received the mercy of a miracle.

“Somehow, with God's help, I provided for Myron and sought to teach him what I knew about living and enduring. What I have most recently learned is that we must never lose hope, not even at our darkest moments. When difficulty besets us, we need to be all the more determined to send our prayers to Heaven. A lamb may be lost, but a lamb may also be found. It is the very essence of a good shepherd to leave a hundred sheep safe in their pen and go out into the storm for the finding of a single lamb which has strayed. I know that prayer is the means by which every lost lamb calls out to its shepherd that he should come and reclaim it. Prayer is very powerful shield against the injustices of the world and prayers are often answered.”

After a brief pause, Irene stepped back from the podium, saying, “Thank you.”

Myra sat tensely, hoping that no one had been able to make sense of the jumble of worlds that her aunt had let fly. Her glance back at those in attendance fell inadvertently on George, who was likewise gazing at her. Myra quickly faced forward, but could still feel his eyes on the back of her head.

December Wednesday 27, 1871

“It's time that I took some milk and eggs to our customers in town," Mrs. Fanning told her niece," especially to the saloon. After so much holiday cooking, every family will need to stock up again, most especially because New Years is almost here. Would you come along and do some shopping?”

“No thanks,” the girl replied. “I've been in town on Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday already.”

“But we weren’t able to shop then.”

“I can’t think of anything that I need. Anyhow, I still don't have any money. And it’ld be nice to get back to reading Mark Twain.”

“If you say so, but I can think of a few things that I should be picking up. Come, help me load the milk.”

The milk cans were kept in the cold-cellar, which was accessible through a pair of sloping storm doors. The dugout that Myra’s father had built under the house kept perishables cool during warm weather and reduced the chance of freezing during winter frosts. As a team, she and Irene carried each heavy can to the buckboard. When everything was loaded, Aunt Irene changed clothes for her town trip and then set out down Riley Canyon Road.

Myra watched the buckboard diminish in the distant before setting to work searching the house. There had to be more letters to find. While occupied in the hunt, she took care not to make it look like thieves had rummaged the place. She first searched in the most accessible locations. When these didn't yield anything, the girl climbed into the loft and went through the tangled piles of storage. While at work, Myra couldn't help but think about what she should do in the event of not finding anything. Her best bet, it seemed, would be to confront her aunt directly about her parent’s possible misdeeds. Obviously, though, such a course might end badly for her.

Every trunk, box, and bag that could possibly hide a bundle of letters was poured through. The light was dim and so she needed to keep moving the hand lantern from one spot to another. The first correspondences discovered were old, unimportant ones. The letters that Irene had been saving since her arrival were almost entirely about business. Aunt Irene seemed not to have accumulated scarcely any personal mail at all, except for a few brief holiday cards sent by Uncle Amos’ wife Claudella and her daughter Abigail.

When her search turned up a letter pack whose top postmark showed the year 1866, Myra reacted as if finding treasure. She took the pack downstairs and stood in the light of the window, reading each return address. The only ones she cared about were ones sent to her mother by Irene and dated in July. It would have had to come soon after her folks were dead. Hopefully it wouldn’t have been returned to the East, but was placed in the house by Walter Severin just before Irene had come West. Myra eagerly took the pack to the table, unfolded the single page of her aunt's letter, and read through it carefully.

“Dearest Sister,

“This is the worst possible news I could ever have imagined. I can’t stop thinking about that poor man who died so terribly! How could Christian people like yourself and Edgar have become involved in a robbery? And how could you have endangered the soul of a friend by asking him to help you do wrong? I can almost hear an angel saying, 'For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'

“My only comfort is that your moral senses still seem to be intact and you fully realize that what you have done is wrong. Here I sit, at a loss to know what advice to give. I want to help you and your family set all these things right. I think I should come to Arizona as soon as possible, if only you will permit it. Our whole family must take council together and decide what is best to do. Whatever course we agree to follow, it must be directed toward doing the most good while causing no further harm.

“Please do not argue against my coming. My place is with those whom I most love, not in this lonely rented room. Write back immediately, my dearest, and afford me the hope, if possible, that you have spoken in exaggeration. I will be praying that things are not so black as you have made them sound. And keep this candle of light next to your heart: There is no sin so black that it cannot be made as white as snow through repentance and the receiving of grace."

With all my love,
Your sister Irene.

Myra sat back in her chair. "They were thieves," the girl whispered to herself. In fact, Irene’s letter had made it sound as though they had killed a man and robbed him. And they'd even brought in one of their friends to help them carry out the crime!

Thoughts buzzed around her mind like bottle flies. Had they murdered someone who had money or gold? Was there a forgotten and unmarked grave somewhere on the family property? And what had become of whatever was stolen? Had it all been spent or was some of it still hidden close by?

She wondered about the friend who'd become in involved with them. Was he still alive? A new thought leaped to mind. She remembered that Matt Grimsley had been nagging Irene about selling him the farm almost from the day she arrived. “You'll sink your every penny into this place and not be able to make a go of things,” he’d said. “From what you say, you don't know beans about operating a farm, Missy, and you’ll be needing more help in farming this land than just a boy of twelve.”

Irene, Myra remembered, had told the neighbor more than once that it wasn't up to her to sell out, that the farm belonged to Myron. She wanted to keep the land for his support him until he was of an age to take responsibility. She advised Grimsley to talk seriously to Myron at that time, but not to be importuning him on the subject before then. He was still too young to be making such a faithful decision.

It now became clear as to why Grimsley had been poking around the edges of the property. He probably had clues about where the money -- or gold, probably -- might be buried.

Myra's anger flared. She felt like going out and shooting the schemer dead. But that impulse quickly died away. It had been cholera that had killed her folks, not Grimsley. He was selfish and greedy, but so was everybody else that she'd ever met -- except, maybe, Irene. Worse, this particular person, as bad as he was, was Kayley's father. And he had other kids, too. It was even possible that his own wife hadn’t taken any hand in his dirty business.

Besides, even if Myra had a gun pointed at the man’s very heart she wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger. That damned magic spell wouldn’t have let her.

The girl sat where she was as if in a fog -- unsettled, confused. Myron himself had tried to live by the grab. He hadn’t seen that stealing was so bad. But never in Myra's wildest imaginings had she ever supposed that her own parents were the type who could have sunk so low, so low as...Myron had. Damn it! It hadn't been because of their example that he’d gone out and become a high rider. The lessons they'd tried to teach him had all been pointed in the opposite direction. But she couldn’t understand why they would have wanted him to grow up honest if they were themselves robbers.

What Myra couldn't put her mind around was the sudden discovery that her parents might not have been -- probably weren't -- good people. They had, in fact, been just... just like her. Putting that kind of thinking into her head was like being stabbed with a Bowie knife.

Dazed, weak, and sick inside, Myra rested her head upon her arms and sobbed.

Eventually, Aunt Irene came in through the door. Her tired expression changed abruptly when she saw the accusation on Myra’s face.

“What's that funny look you have?” Mrs. Fanning asked.

“I know about it,” Myra said, her voice no more than a small rasp.

Irene blinked. “About what?”

“Tell me, and don’t lie. Did my folks kill a man and take his gold?”

That question stunned the farm woman momentarily. “Who told you such a thing?!” she finally exclaimed.

“You did. I read your last letter to my mother.”

Irene swayed like a sawed tree ready to fall. “Myra! You shouldn't have! Why on earth were you digging through those old letters?”

The girl turned away and stared at the fire behind the stove grate. “I was hoping to find out that things weren’t as bad as I thought they were.”

For a frozen moment, neither of the kinswomen spoke. Myra broke the silence. “You should have told me about everything they did, the bad along with the good!”

Irene shook her head. “How could that have benefited anyone? It couldn't have changed the past. And remembering your parents with love and respect did so much to help you be a better person. I didn’t want you to lose that.”

“I did love them!” the girl shouted. "But maybe I shouldn't have."

“That love was good and right. In time, it will be what helps you to forgive them. I've been trying to do the same thing for the last five years.”

Myra swung about. “Did they really commit murder?”

Her aunt grimaced. “The question isn't so simple. I read your mother’s letter only once. I never wanted to read it again. I don't remember all the details, but I know that she and your father felt very guilty about his death.”

“I have to know what they did. I’ll lose my wits if I have to keep thinking about them back-shooting somebody like a pair of polecats!”

Irene took a deep breath. “I understand.” She thought for a moment before saying, “I still have your mother’s last letter. I brought it from Pennsylvania. I hated what it had to say, but I couldn't bring myself to destroy anything that your mother shared with me. Are you sure you're strong enough to read such a thing without having your heart broken?”

“I can’t feel worse than I do. I have to make sense of this.”

Irene stood silent for a moment and then, without words, she took the lantern from the table and ascended the ladder. Myra stayed by the kitchen table watching the moving lamplight up in the loft. She heard rummaging sounds.

Only a few minutes later, Irene came back down. She had left the kerosene lantern hanging above the ladder by a small iron hook, freeing one of her hands to carry a wooden box. She placed this receptacle on the floor and then went back up to retrieve the lamp. Myra, still in her chair, sat staring at the box as she would have stared at a cage holding a deadly viper. When Irene returned, she placed both the lantern and the small box on the kitchen table, side by side.

Mrs. Fanning took one letter from the box and handed it to her niece. Myra looked at it. Somehow, even after her thorough search, she had overlooked the most important box of all.

The letter began,

“Dearest Sister,”

“I am at my wit's end. I cannot move one way or the other. It’s like my feet are frozen in an icy pond. When we came to Arizona, Edgar and I thought we were going to build a better life, but the hardships of the land confounded us. No matter how hard we worked, every new year brought new difficulties and we also made many mistakes. But only one of those mistakes was so bad that it utterly destroyed our honor and our chance for happiness. We have been trying very hard to keep the truth from Myron, lest it ruin his life, too.

“Irene, I'm glad to finally be telling someone like you the whole story. Keeping it a secret has been like hiding a hot coal where my heart should be. I am wretched. I can say the same as what King Claudius said in Hamlet when he tried to pray: ‘My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.’”

When Myra turned to the next page, she saw spots of blurred ink. The woman writing these words had been weeping.

Myra learned that Edgar and Addie had done the best they knew, but they were used to cultivating the well-watered and fertile fields of Pennsylvania. They started out wrongly in Arizona, planting unsuitable crops in the wrong locations. Some locals offered good advice, but advice often came too late to save their plantings and there were so many other problems that came up to spoil things. After two barren harvests, they had run through their savings, all that had been left over from the sale of their old farm. They found no alternative but to borrow against their land value just to make it through winter and be able to buy what they needed for the spring. The dry fields needed irrigation, which hardly anyone knew about back home. Fortunately, there were old ditches left behind by the Indians who had been tilling the prairie even before the Mexicans had arrived. The struggling couple, taking guidance from friends like the Severins, set to work clearing out those old traces so that they could bring in water in from the local stream.

“The neighbors helped us as much as they could,” Addie Caldwell wrote, “but their own farms took up almost all of their time. The lion’s share of the ditch work had to be carried out by hired labor, mostly by local Mexicans. We could only offer wages so low that we felt ashamed of ourselves. Nonetheless, even paying that forced us into more borrowing and sank us deeper into debt.

“By the summer of 1863, the weather worsened and we learned what a real Arizona drought could be. We couldn’t have imagined such dry spells happening back East. The stream sank so low that our new ditches were left high above the water level. The next winter left us so badly off that we had to eat our pride and accept charity offered by friends at church. We ate more wild game than we did potatoes. We were grateful even when we could get no more than prairie dog meat. By the spring of 1864, were we desperate, about to lose the farm and all that was on it. We prayed many times, but no rain came out of the great empty sky.

“Then, in middle May, something happened, a thing so terrible that I dread to recall it. It was as if God’s adversary had intercepted the prayers we’d been sending to the Lord of Mercy. One night, Edgar came hurrying into the house, more excited than I had ever seen him.”

“The two of us hurried outside to check the other saddlebags,” Mrs. Caldwell wrote.“Not only did they contain ingots, but also bundles of currency. This was wealth enough to incite an outlaw to commit murder. We hid all the packs in the straw pile and then drove the buckboard out to help the injured rider. We were already thinking that the stranger must either be a businessman from the mining company or else a robber."

The couple jointly bore the accident victim to the carriage. Once back at the farm, Edgar suggested: “Let's put him in the barn.”

“Why?” Addie asked.

“So Myron won't see him.”

Addie then realized that she didn’t want the boy seeing him either, but her reasons were bad ones. She started to wonder whether her husband’s reasons were just like hers.

Myra glanced up from the page. It was very clear that the stranger had been the mining company robber, Thomas Mifflin. So, her folks had been involved in a crime, and it had been a major one.

“We should take him to the doctor in town, maybe?” Addie suggested.

“Old Scormann is no real doctor,” Edgar answered back. “He knows more about horses than men.”

“Maybe – maybe,” his wife volunteered, “we can take better care of...our visitor… ourselves."

“We might,” Edgar agreed. He glanced over his shoulder at the straw that was lightly covering the gold. “It's not safe leaving that stuff there, he said.

”Lets take him inside and put him on the hay mound,” Mrs. Caldwell said. They did, covering him with a horse blanket. Then Addie added, “I'll take the horse to the rear pen.” Her husband only nodded absently, his face a map of trouble.

For the rest of the night, one or the other of the couple watched over the stranger constantly. Addie, frequently regarding his condition by lantern light, thought that a man so injured must surely die. But was that thought simply her fear or was it her hope? She actually found herself wondering what should be done about the gold if the stranger happened to die of his head wound.

As morning brightened the dusty horizon, Mrs. Caldwell made Myron's breakfast and then hurried him out to the buckboard. She had told the boy that she needed to shop in town, and so this was one day when he wouldn't have to walk to school. But once Myron was dropped off, his mother circled about and returned home.

Myra, with a groan, rested back from the pages. She could actually remember riding to school with her ma at about the same time that there had been a sick man in the barn.

“Maybe you shouldn't read any farther,” Irene suggested.

“Leave me be,” the girl said. She had to know more. Even though she was worried about what she was going to learn, Myra was hoping against hope that the letter wasn't going to turn into a crime story.

Addie, back at the farm, found that Mifflin remained unconscious but was still breathing. She tried to do her regular chores, but frequently came back to check on him. The farmers both knew that he needed better help than they were able to provide, but yet neither of them felt like returning to the idea about taking him into town.

Riders came by the farm in early afternoon and identified themselves as workers from the Rexler and Colby mining company. One asked, “Did you see a small man in a good suit come riding out of the west along this road? That would have been a little after dark last night. He'd be astride a roan and was probably carrying full saddlebags.”

The farmers just stood there, unsure of themselves. Edgar was the first to speak. “You look like a posse. Why are you looking for such a man?”

One of the horsemen gave a gruff laugh. “He's a robber. His name is Thomas Mifflin. He vamoosed with a load of gold from the mining office.”

“Is there a reward?” Addie asked. That question earned her a surprised look from Edgar.

“We ain’t heard of any,” a derby-wearing horseman said. “If we don’t find him by dark, you can bet that there'll be some sort of a reward put up.” The speaker then looked back at his companions. “What do you think of that, boys?’”

“I think we shouldn’t be too quick about finding the fool before we know for sure that there's a reward!” suggested another man. The other riders laughed and their group, without any more talk, continued on toward town.

Myron came home at the usual hour and caught sight of the strange horse behind the barn. “Whose horse?” he’d asked. His folks made up a story that a sick man had ridden in and needed a place to rest. When the boy asked to get a look at the fellow, they wouldn’t let him. His ma said that they didn’t want him getting close to anyone who might have something catching.

The next day, Mrs. Caldwell gave Myron another ride to school. Edgar was still unable to induce the unconscious man to eat or drink. Only his faint wheezing gave testimony that he wasn’t already dead. When Addie got back, the two of them talked. They found themselves wondering about how long any person so injured could remain alive. If the injury didn't directly kill him, he'd still die a slow death from thirst, but they didn’t discuss that part of it. Come evening, the couple was in such a state of nerves that they were hardly able to exchange a word. The next morning, Edgar went out to the barn and then abruptly ambled off to the south with a shovel resting on his shoulder. Addie saw him trudging toward to a low, tree-lined ridge that marked the end of their property. While he was away, another posse, including the town deputy, stopped by and asked questions similar to the ones that the Caldwells had answered earlier.

Addie managed to tell the lawman that they hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual, but admitted that they’d talked to the company posse. As soon as the riders moved out, she started shaking like a leaf.

Later she felt able to take another look at the thief, lying there as still as a store manikin. When she leaned in closer, she wasn't able to hear his breathing. The farm wife touched his face and it felt cooler than before. She then tried to feel his pulse, but couldn't.

Her mind in a whirl, Addie Caldwell followed after the boot tracks that Edgar had made through the spring grass. Once inside the tree line under the ridge, she started to shout her husband's name, but not loudly. Only faint echoes came back.

She shouted more strongly but there were still only the echoes.

Her third yell broke in the middle as hysteria strangled her voice.

Edgar appeared momentarily and embraced his wife, albeit distractedly. The farmer told her that he already knew that Mifflin was dead. They exchanged a few anguished words and then walked back to the barn together. There they transferred the body to the manure cart, hitched up the horse, and then led the beast through the grass and in among the trees, to a point where Edgar could show Addie a partially-dug grave.

Addie had brought a shovel for herself and together they expanded and deepened the hole. It was a hard excavation, foiled by roots and stones. It was as if God was telling them that they should not do this thing, but they persisted stubbornly. Wanting to get back before Myron returned from school, they opted to finish the hard labor in the morning. The corpse had to be left on the ground, covered with a blanket weighted down by stones. On the way back to the farm, Edgar quick-stepped ahead of his wife, who was following with the cart. He reached the barnyard first and took the robber's horse out of its corral. When Addie reached the barn, he told her that he would lead the beast back to the trees where there was some grass and leave it overnight with a barrel of water.

When Myron came into the farmhouse after school, Addie let him know that it was all right to go into the barn again, seeing as how the man had gotten better and had ridden off.

According to the letter, the guilty pair completed the burial the next day. With that ghastly piece of work finished, Edgar went to the bin and transferred the gold into the cart. This he drove back to the ridge line.

He came back near sunset and the couple scarcely discussed what had happened that day. Out of the little talk they did, they agreed that they might go to prison if they admitted to what they had done. Having broken laws already, it made no sense to lose their nerve now. With Myron away again, they worked at hiding every trace of Mifflin’s brief presence, until only his horse was left behind as evidence.

In the near-dark, before the break of dawn, Edgar took off for Phoenix, riding the robber’s mount and leading the farm's horse wearing its own saddle. If anyone saw him traveling west in the gray morning light, nothing ever came of it. By dark he'd reached Phoenix and, continuing to avoid all human contact, Edgar tied the outlaw's horse to a tree at the town’s edge and then rode back east. Once in the open country, he spread out his bedroll behind a rock formation a little away from the road and slept. He slumbered for only a few hours, but then awoke and thereafter lay wide awake. Rather than waste time, he resumed his woeful journey in the dark before dawn. Once back at the farmstead, Addie let him know that no visitor or neighbor had come by since he’d left. Edgar, having little to say, fell into bed. Though he had never felt so tired, he managed only a restless sleep that night.

As the months passed, the Caldwells, little by little, paid off what they owed to creditors. At first they used the greenbacks that the thief had provided, being careful not to make the repayments too quickly. Their greatest concern was that someone might notice that they suddenly had more money than they ought to. Edgar soon began making trips into Phoenix, which he had seldom done before. A couple of days later, he’d arrive back at the farmyard – always after dark – with such store-bought things that they needed, including new tools, lumber, and preserved food. After each supply run, he and his wife would hide the purchases until needed.

When their cash ran out, the couple saw no recourse but find the means to exchange the gold for cash. That was dangerous, for the ingots were stamped with R&C, a dead giveaway as to their origin. But after giving the matter some thought, they realized that they knew one man, a neighbor, who might be able to help them with dishonest dealings. The man’s occasional signs of bad character had been keeping them aloof from him, but in this situation good character was not what they needed. Even more importantly, their neighbor was connected. He had been augmenting his meager income by means of a county job, one that he had often talked about.

The neighbor had sometimes told stories about the crooked people he'd met on the job. He had seen bureaucrats and officeholders dealing with rascals who ought to have been dangling at the end of a noose. “Hell,” he had said, “those elected skunks have the nerve to try almost anything and when they do, they usually get away with it.” He’d said that cheats and swindlers routinely bribed office holders to get protection from arrest. To be allowed to operate, scoundrels paid off lawmen and politicians and received tacit approval for peddling contraband, while others made their living fencing outlaw loot. Corrupt merchants sold guns and whiskey to the Indians, while rough young men traded in rustled cattle.

The neighbor had even boasted that he had made some little profit for himself by trucking with such people. In need of advice, the Caldwells now waited for the chance to talk to the man in private. When that chance came, they fed him sly, leading questions, most of which he answered with brazen frankness. His replies gave Edgar the courage he needed to bring up the idea that they needed help selling “a few” ingots so they could get regular money for them.

“Where did you two get gold ingots?” the neighbor had asked them straight out.

“Not in any way that we’d care to talk about.” Edgar answered stiffly. "If we thought we could take them to any old assay office, we wouldn’t be needing anyone's help, right?" He then put a small ingot into the neighbor’s hand. “If you can help us, you can sell that one for your trouble. If this goes well, maybe we can do some more business down the road.”

“This is Colby and Rexler gold?” the man replied. “I ask again, how did you come by it?”

“That will have to remain a secret for now,” Caldwell had answered back.

Whether the neighbor thought they were thieves or not, he was willing to do business. With their helper acting as a go-between, they started selling their gold for cash, though at a large discount and with a certain share going to their neighbor friend. Edgar and Addie managed to keep their cash box full and their farming business improved. When their confederate started pressing them to let him know where the main hoard was hidden, the couple stubbornly stood their ground. They weren't the kind of people who wanted to trust any man who trafficked so casually with criminals. They did, alas, nurse a gnawing fear that he might find a way to betray them for profit, but it never came to that. After all, the man’s illegal gold exchanges in their partnership had made him prosecutable also.

But Edgar and his wife had a myriad of additional concerns, such as keeping their many purchases secret. Their neighbor helped them in that regard, too. He put them into contact with shyster lawyers, men adept at forging paperwork. From the documents they bought, it appeared that the Caldwells had received a respectable legacy from a deceased relative 'back East.' That took some of the pressure off them, but not all of it.

Just a year after the robber had died, the Caldwells had managed to get their loans and the mortgages paid off without having attracted dangerous attention. Gradually feeling safer, their next move was to build up the farm.

“We erected the windmill, which Edgar had been wanting to do since the day we’d arrived at Eerie,” wrote Addie. But the Caldwells decided to fix the house as little as possible. They deemed it best if they kept on looking poor and living in a plain settlers’ house would help them do that. As much as they could, the Caldwells avoided making new friends who might begin asking them questions, and they drew back significantly from their socializing -- even with people whom they already knew.

Addie poured much of her pain into the last part of her letter, saying, “We told ourselves that we’d only do what was necessary and we were always mindful that no one would be harmed. But we both knew that we were only doing less evil than we might have. We continued to think of ourselves as Christians, but every time we stepped out under the blue sky it reminded us that every wicked thing a person does is always watched by God. The reverend always saying that worst of all sins is tempting a person to do more sinning that he would have done otherwise. We had done that, too. My heart aches to think how our neighbor’s good wife and children might grieve if they knew about his business with us.

“I am not binding you to secrecy, dear sister. I trust that you shall do whatever you deem wise and decent. Knowing what you know now, I leave it to you to do as you feel you must. You are a good person, Irene. I urge you to never put your feet upon the road that we have walked. Never forfeit your self-respect and your place in Heaven for the sake of simple material gain. Whenever we spend unearned money, we feel like it is accusing us. Remember what a jolly man Edgar used to be? It has been so very long since he has acted like that kind of man. Even during the worst days of our poverty, I remember that we could still find moments that made us smile. But there is nothing in our wickedly-acquired prosperity to give us even a moment of joy.

“I cannot understand how criminals can endure living such a life. One has to have no soul to be at ease under a burden of sin. I even have difficulty praying, which is a horrifying thing when it happens. I feel sickened when I have to ask God not to punish us for the sins we are still committing. We try to repent, but how can the Lord accept repentance from those who are forever feasting off the fruits of their wickedness? To make true restitution would cost us everything we have and such a thing could not be done secretly. We would have to admit publicly to our shame and take the full punishment. I do not know how it is possible to fear a mortal prison so much more than we fear Hell, but that is the wretched state that we live in.

“If I could restart my life at the point where Thomas Mifflin came into our lives, I know that both of us would have done otherwise. To be seduced into thievery is to give up the better treasure that awaits a righteous person in Heaven. Even if Edgar and I had lost our farm to our creditors and we had had to take to the road with neither home nor prospects, I think we would still be better off than we are today. There is no such thing as happiness without a clear conscience and a just claim to God’s love.

Never do wrong, Irene. No matter what temptation comes to your door, never do wrong.

“Your loving sister,

Addie”

TO BE CONTINUED IN Epilogue (Chapter 8)

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona: Epilogue

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Western

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Elements:

Retro-clothing / Petticoats / Crinolines

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Posted 07-07-20
Updated 09-12-22

By Christopher Leeson
.

Wednesday, December 27, 1871

The Belle of Eerie, Arizona: Epilogue; Chapter 8
Posted 07-07-20
Updated 09-12-22
By Christopher Leeson
.
Wednesday, December 27, 1871

That night, in a half-dreaming state, Myra slept only fitfully, still hearing her mother’s words speaking from those self-damning pages. At breakfast, the niece avoided the aunt's glances and neither made any effort at conversation. Afterwards, the girl sulked outside to perform her morning chores.

Later, with the work caught up, Myra lingered outside. Seated on an empty keg and swept by the north wind’s chilly breath, she stared blankly at the southern ridge’s treeline. The same questions kept running through her mind. How well had she known her parents? It was suddenly like they had suddenly become complete strangers. She held good memories, but these didn’t fit in with the reality of the old days. Worse of all, she wasn't sure of the answer to the all-important question: did she still loved them?

Myra tried hard to understand why she was so confused and feeling so raw. She wasn’t really condemning her parents for thieving. In fact, Myra wished that she could have been out robbing right then. Was it knowing that the corpse of Thomas Mifflin was buried on this property bothered her? She wasn’t sure about that either. Myron had himself come very close to killing now and then.

No, it wasn’t the thieving and it wasn’t the killing that bothered her. It was that she had grown up with a wall of secrets between herself and her parents. That whole part of her life had turned out to be nothing better than a fragile spider’s web of lies. Since the day before, every cherished memory she had clung to had become tainted, as if by walnut juice.

Her parents, she'd been forced to understand, hadn’t been special; they had been like everyone else. They'd had some good in them – she couldn’t deny that – but they had a bad side, a hidden side. What was left of that previous life now? Was it still a living thing, or had it become like a plant pulled out by its roots. She had been left standing on an illusion with nothing left to hold onto.

And what about Irene? Myra guessed that her aunt believed that her sister and brother-in-law must have gone to Hell. How else could see look at it, after reading the Good Book and listening to Reverend Yingling’s fiery sermons at church? He preached that if one died with an unforgiven sin on his shoulders he was going to be pitched into the flames. Myra was left wondering what to think. She kept hoping that God didn’t exist. He couldn’t judge anything, couldn’t punish anything, if he was nothing except a character made up for a story book.

If there was no God, there was no devil. If there was no devil, then her parents wouldn’t be suffering like prisoners inside a medieval torture chamber. They’d now be mere dust blowing mindlessly across the prairie. Myra wasn’t afraid of dying and turning into dust. That was how the Bible stories had it -- that everyone started out as dust. Would that be so terrible? It sounded a lot like going home.

But these streaks of thought were bringing her no peace. She strained hard to try to think about something else, and suddenly her mind entered a new groove. There was gold on this land, she knew.

Where had her pa hidden it? Had he placed it into Thomas Mifflin’s grave? Myra shook her head. Absolutely not! Her dad would never have wanted to open that grave again once it was closed.

So, logically, what else would he have done?

Myra reasoned that her father would probably had taken the body straight back to the wooded ridge behind the barn. He would have looked for a burial spot screened by brush and trees, so that no one could have seen him working.

Myra reasoned that the gold would have to be buried to the right or to the left of the grave. The ridge was steep and the wooded area under it was narrow before it opened into a field. Abruptly, she gasped with excitement. Her father would definitely buried it to the left of the grave. The side to the right of it would have put it close to Tully Singer’s property. In those days, the boundary line was in contention and a court action might have awarded Tully the strip of land with the gold on it. That was something that her dad would have recognized.

So, in all likelihood, the gold was somewhere to the left of the grave. Myra’s mother had written that she and her pa had gone back numerous times to retrieve ingots and that meant they couldn’t’ be buried deeply. That wood lot was tough digging, so her folks would have looked for a soft spot of ground, probably using a long, strong probing rod. She could search for such spots using a similar rod and a hammer. Of course, they might have instead put the gold into a natural rock hole or hidden it under a pile of stones.

Myra now realized one other thing. Most of Grimsley's trespassing had been done down by that ridgeline. Could the neighbor possibly learned some information that made him focus his search on that spot?

Myra wanted to go gold-hunting immediately, but reality grabbed her by the ankle. Her aunt would never let her keep stolen gold. If Irene figured out that Myra was looking for it, she would put a stop to it. The redhead couldn’t let her aunt frustrate her. She had to have that gold, otherwise the years ahead of her would be empty and pointless.

Abigail Myra Olcott considered her options. The best way to avoid Irene’s suspicions would be to win her trust. Myra had to make her less suspicious. That meant acting more friendly and cooperative. She’d have to talk like she liked the farm and wanted to keep it. The less watchful her aunt became, the more private time she would have for gold-seeking.

Then she remembered another obstacle. Under the restrictions of the magical spell, she couldn’t leave the farm without permission. Even if Myra found the gold, she couldn’t run with it. She’d be stuck until Irene took the spell off. That would probably be when she turned the farm over to her. But would she actually keep her word?

Probably. Irene was that kind of person.

This bad situation she was in might have to go on for three more years, until the age of twenty-one. That was a long time. But if the promise was kept, she'd get her aunt to move into Eerie, or some other town, so she could treasure-hunt to her heart's content.

Myra began feeling more optimistic. Wasn't this like making her parents' wish come true? They had wanted a prosperous life for their son. They had wanted Myron to be important and respected. Well, Myra thought, nothing made a person important and respected than flashing plenty of gold.

Myra, standing up, looked back at the farmhouse. This farmstead, with all its sad memories, would have to be home to her for the next three years. She'd be poor and working hard all that time. But the prize could be a very big one and she thought she could go the course.

It made her feel good thinking that she was going to be doing something that would gladden the heart of her folks.
.

Thursday, December 28, 1871

George Severin pitched just one more forkful of hay down the chute for good measure. All through this day's chores, his thoughts had been drifting back to a certain face -- the pretty-as-all-hell face of Abigail Myra Olcott.

But every time he let himself think about her, he had to ask himself who and what was she?

Just then, a sound on the other side of the loft door made the youth look over his shoulder. It was the cats – eager and hungry – meowing up a storm. Through the gaps between the barn boards, someone was out there feeding them table scraps. Then the loft door was opened by his sister Rosedale.

“Easy, kitties,” she was saying to the cats behind her, “you'll get all get fed!”

George chuckled, saying, “If those critters weren't so dumb and lazy, they'd be out catching mice and rats, not begging for milk and crusts.”

“That's cats for you,” was the only the defense that his sister felt like offering on behalf of the feline pack.

The youth jabbed his fork upright into the hay and slid down from the stack, landing boots first on the soft litter. Straightening up, he crossed over to the door.

“You’ve been awfully quit since the Christmas dance,” said his sister.

George grimaced. “I guess there hasn’t been much to talk about these days. New Years Day is coming up, but after that it’ll be the long haul of winter.”

“I thought that you liked winter better than you do the summer heat.”

“Well, I’ve like this winter so far. We had a little snow for a change. Pretty.”

His sister smiled. “I know what else you think is pretty. You were dancing up a storm with Myra. I’d have thought that you’d still be bragging about it.”

His shrugged. “Brag to you? What good would that do?”

“Are you saying that you’ve been talking to the boys about Miss Myra?”

He shrugged again.

“You know, Myra did okay dancing,” the girl continued. “She'll do even better next time. Have you asked her out to the New Years hoedown yet?”

“I'm not sure I should.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’ll only say no.”

“How come?”

“She’ll say no just because it’ld be me doing the asking.”

“Isn’t she starting to like you?”

“That little Eastern gal is a hard one to figure out.”

“Maybe she is,” Dale conceded.

“Say, Stockings, “does Myra ever strike you as being somehow – out of the ordinary?”

“In what way?”

“In any way.”

Dale showed a thoughtful face. “I guess so. She mostly likes to talk about what she’s reading, but she doesn’t read the stuff that most girls care for. And she’s not much interested in fashion, though I’d have thought that an Eastern girl would excited about clothing and fancy manners. Myra’s rough and tumble. I think she’d be a terrible tomboy if her aunt let her get away with it.”

“Yeah,” her brother agreed, “she’s something else, that’s for sure.”

“Do you suppose she got to be that way because she’s an only child?”

“Maybe.”

“You know,” continued Rosedale, “I don’t think she made many friends back home.”

“Why?"

"She acts kind of tense when she’s socializing.”

George met his sister’s glance straight-on. “What do you really think about Myra? Do you like her?”

“Wellll,” the farm girl began slowly, “I guess I do. She's not the warmest young lady I ever met, but there's something interesting about her.”

He cocked his head. “What do you mean, ‘interesting’?”

“There's something about her that draws a person to her. I don’t know what it is. She's a serious-minded type and maybe she could be a school teacher someday. How about you, Fish Hooks?” Dale asked suddenly. “Do you like her?”

Her brother rested his arm upon the middle cross board of the loft door. “I’m not sure what I feel. All I know is that Myra doesn’t like me and she hasn’t from the minute we met.”

Rosedale pursed her lips and nodded. “I noticed. But I don’t think she hates you, either. A lot of girls are shy with boys. Sometimes shy people cover up by acting mad. What makes me really mad, though, is not being able to ask a boy to go walking, or to take me to a picnic.”

George smiled. “Better not get too forward with the boys, gal, or else folks will start calling you a hussy. But if the shoe fits.…”

“Oh, you!” his sister exclaimed, scooping up a handful of hay to throw at him. It wasn’t easy to hit a target throwing loose hay and hardly any of it reached its target.

Still grinning, her brother asked, “Which boys do you like the most? Or are there so many that you can't remember them all?”

She scowled. “A girl can't talk about things like that, not even to a brother. But if you want some advice, you should treat girls differently. I could teach you how to make a girl like you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Chicken! I could so teach you.”

“Teach me what? Why most girls act like ninnies?”

She grinned. “Do you mean that about all girls? I bet you don’t think that Myra is a ninny.”

“I don’t know what she is. She makes everything topsy-turvy when she’s around.”

Dale nodded. “She does. Why do you suppose that’s so?”

“Umm. I've got my theories.”

“What sort of theories?”

“I’m not telling you anything. You’d just go running to Miss Olcott to spill the beans.”

The girl knitted her brows. “If I did, it would be to help you! A good way to get a girl to notice you is to say or do something that gets her mad.”

Young Severin shook his head. “So that’s what it means to treat girls better? Making them mad? I think I make her mad often enough. Whenever she spots me, she moves away.”

Dale came closer and pretended to sniff for bad odors. George pushed her away playfully.

“Well, if you don’t have the nerve to make her mad,” suggested Rosedale, “take a shot at being nice. Once she starts feeling easy with you around, she’s bound to be more friendly.”

George scowled. “I don’t want to be any girl’s friend. If a girl starts thinking of a boy as a friend, she’ll never let him be anything else.”

“You’re silly!”

“Oh, yeah, Little Sister, you’re a whole lot sillier than I am.”

She lifted her chin. “Hey, don’t call me that. You're only a year older than me.”

“But I'm a lot less silly.”

“Oh, pshaw! You're twice as silly as I ever was, even on my worst day!”

“Says who?”

“Says me!”

“Whatever a silly person says, it doesn’t matter!” George answered back.

“Well, I just bet we’ll find out which one of us is most silly one of these days,” the girl declared, her hands on her hips.

“I guess we will,” George said, grinning with effort. With that, the youth went outside.

He descended from the loft balcony by way of a short ladder and entered the ground floor of the barn. The hay he had thrown down formed a pile of hay under the chute and this he spread around among the managers using a hay fork. That wrapped up his morning chores and he decided to settle his mind by taking a walk until the dinner bell rang.

While strolling across the adjacent pasture, Myra came to mind again. The girl had been around for only two weeks, but he felt as though he’d known her much longer. George had been thinking that there could be a good reason for that.

His theory would have aroused most folks to laughter. Or at least they would have laughed if they had been living in any other town except Eerie, Arizona.

The first time he’d laid eyes on the Myra Olcott, she’d spoken up and named him. How had she done that? And wasn’t it funny that Miss Olcott had shown up on the very day that Thorn Caldwell had gotten himself shot dead at the Gap?

And there were other details that didn't sit right. Not only Myra, but a horse had suddenly appeared at the Fanning place. Its saddle wasn’t the old one that was stored in the Fanning barn, so where had it come from? If a saddled horse had wandered in, it must have run away from somebody. So why hadn’t anyone reported a missing horse? He also thought it strange that Myra had ignored the idea that the bay could very well have belonged to her cousin. On top of that, Myra was able to ride danged well for a gal who’d supposedly just arrived from out East.

And why did Myra sometimes refer to Myron as Thorn? She had said that Thorn hadn’t written to her and George himself had never heard Mrs. Fanning use that nickname. So why did the girl use it? Moreover, the cousins had to be close to the same age and both had been named after the same maternal grandmother. A coincidence? And, to carry the coincidence farther, both apparently liked the same sort of reading material.

And why did Mrs. Fanning start behaving strangely from the very day that Myra showed up? Why would a proper church lady all at once become chummy with Molly O'Toole, the wife of a whiskey peddler? What had brought the farmer and the saloon-keeper together? Thorn’s death? Myra’s arrival? It didn’t follow.

And there were other odd details abut her arrival. Why had Myra come to town with only one dress to her name, without even a winter coat? Her aunt had claimed that she‘d lost her luggage in a stage accident. But if that had happened, why had every witness he talked to swear that no one of her description had ridden the stage that day? And if the girl hadn’t actually come in by coach, why were both she and Irene trying to make people think that she had? Mrs. Fanning seldom joked, and she never joked so pointlessly.

Even Deputy Grant had behaved strangely when he met Abigail Myra Olcott. Why had Grant allowed a grass-green gal from New Jersey to ride with him up into the Gap while he was out looking for outlaw loot? Of what earthly use could she have been to his job?

Then, too, why hadn’t Thorn Caldwell's body been located? The outlaws could have hidden it, sure, but why did they take the trouble to hide it so blamed well?

George had also been thinking about something else. What if there was a bigger secret at the Fanning farm? What if Thorn Caldwell was still alive and his kin were hiding him? Why, even Myra had let out a theory that he was alive.

Myra came across like a puzzle whose pieces didn’t fit together. For one, why had Mrs. Fanning, speaking at the memorial, supposed that an unrepentant sinner like Myron could be getting another chance at Heaven? Was she talking about Purgatory? He didn’t think so. Methodists didn’t believe in any such place. If Irene didn’t believe in Purgatory, where did she expect Myron’s second chance to come from?

And why had Myra been seen speaking to the sheriff, a man she could have only just met. Dan was an affable gent, but why would he have to lead her outside to talk at a private spot? What could Sheriff Talbot have wanted to say to a young newcomer? Or had it been Myra who'd needed to talk to the lawman? About what? And, a little later, George had seen the girl talking to Lydon Kelsey. George knew that Kelsey and Caldwell had been as thick as thieves, up until the latter left town. Why, he wondered, would a girl new to the community push away a neighbor while willingly speaking to a roughneck like Kelsey?

Every time George tried to talk himself out of his theory, he ended up right back at it. By the time of the party he had gotten so suspicious that Myra knew more about Eerie than she was letting on, he had tested her by mentioning Indian Head, a local landmark where a lot of young locals went to spoon. Myra had replied, “If you hang around up there, I'll have to keep shy of the place.”

It sure had sounded as if she already knew that there was a place called Indian Head. Neither she nor Mrs. Fanning had ever mentioned Myra taking any sight-seeing jaunts. And if she had learned of the local spot by conversation, when did she have a chance to do that? George had a good idea that Myra had stayed pretty close to the farm the whole week before.

And then there was the Christmas Day visit to his home. To George’s mind, Myra had looked bored when Dale was showing off the girlish things she was so proud of. Myra’s interests surely weren't typical of the everyday sort of girl.

But young Severin had a theory that seemed to string most of these oddities together. Unfortunately, it was a theory that he didn’t personally care for.

What if Myron Thornton Caldwell had robbed that stage and gotten shot, just like Mrs. Deeters had witnessed? Then, what if he’d stayed conscious while the outlaws were hiding the gold? Could Myron have still been left fit enough to ride his saddled horse down to his aunt’s nearby place?

If Thorn had arrived at the farm badly wounded, Mrs. Fanning would naturally have hurried him to Doc Upshaw. As a good friend of the O'Tooles, the doctor might have thought that the badly injured Thorn wasn’t going to make it, not unless he took the magic potion that only Shamus O’Toole could provide. It was, after all, the same potion that had saved the life of Elmer O’Hanlan. Would Mrs. Fanning have had any other choice but to go along with the idea, no matter how shocking the idea must have seemed to her?

If Myron had really become Myra, she probably wouldn’t have wanted the whole town to know about it. The aunt and her nephew – now a niece – would likely have concocted a story about Myra having just come to Eerie. But by then Shamus O’Toole was involved and Molly would probably have willingly pitched in to help Irene and Myra.

That would explain why Molly had gone to Phoenix to do shopping for Myra. In Phoenix she’d be less well known and fewer people would have wondered why a childless woman needed to buy clothes for a young person.

Pretty soon, Deputy Grant and Judge Humphreys – who would have known about the magical transformation – would have visited the farm to ask Myra about the robbery. As Myron, Miss Olcott would had been a witness with a lot of information about the gang. The deputy would surely have asked the girl to help him find the lost gold shipment, and Myra wouldn’t have had much choice but to agree.

The youth’s theory, if true, would also explain why Myra disliked him. Myron had hated all of his aunt’s hired men. The more he thought about it, the more sure George became that he was on to the truth. If Myra really was Thorn, she would be having a rough time of it learning how to live a very different sort of life. The thought of Thorn dealing with corsets and pantaloons for the rest of his life was an idea that should have been funny -- except that the whole idea was so powerfully strange.

The whole thing should have been amusing, but the youth didn’t want his idea to be true. Myra was attractive girl he wanted her to start reacting to him in the way that a regular girl would. Knowing what he thought he knew, he still wanted that. The fact that he wanted a relationship with her bothered him considerably.

As things stood, young Severin had inadvertently fallen into the role of co-conspirator with Mrs. Fanning in the keeping of Myra’s secret. If everyone found out about it, she’d be humiliated, a turn of events that George wouldn't want to be responsible for.

Young Severin, now at the end of the field, gazed away in the direction of the Fanning farm. He was thinking that every time he was going to be going over there from now on he would be part of Myra’s daft story. And it was one hell of a story!

Part of him didn't want to be involved in it. He had already considered ducking out and quitting his job. But that would make things harder for Mrs. Fanning. He liked the young widow and it made him feel good to be helping a person make a success of a hard job. And, somehow he felt sorry for Myra, even though everything that had happened had been Myron's own fault.

He grinned to himself. Being around Myra Olcott never seemed to be boring. But he’d knew he'd have to stay on guard against the nasty side of Myra’s character. On the other hand, he'd heard folks talking about how the Hanks Gang at the saloon had actually become likable young ladies. Maybe improvement in character was part of the magic. He wondered what Myra might be like if she sweetened up a little herself.

But George going back to the Fanning place with what he knew made him uneasy. How should he behave? He supposed that he should should step back a little from Myra, until she started to show signs of becoming more friendly.

He suddenly sighed. Was any of his thinking true? He actually hoped that none of it was true. Regardless, he pretty firmly believed that he'd have a lot to think about during the long winter nights ahead.

THE END

The Big Switch by Christopher Leeson on Kindle

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Organizational:

DopplerPress

Audience Rating:

Mature Subjects (pg15)

Private eyes, politicians, bimbos and body-swapping aliens in a wild send-up of pulpy fun!

The Big Switch
by Christopher Leeson
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D.C. Callahan and his partner Martin Dewitt are private eyes of the old school. Or, at least Callahan is. It's tough trying to live the life of Sam Spade in the 21st Century, but Callahan gives it the college try. It's also tough being the only two gumshoes of your political party in Washington, D.C., but the partners would rather fight than switch. Even so, there's plenty of fighting and switching when a gang of body-exchanging aliens hits town.

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TG Themes:

TG Elements:

The Crusader and the Slave Girl by Chris Leeson on Amazon

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Organizational:

atEros Books

Audience Rating:

Adult Oriented (r21/a)

The Crusader and the Slave Girl
by Christoper Leeson
Buy or Read on Amazon

Baron Simon Saint-Mihiel has just plundered a castle when he is talked into saving a poor slave girl, really an evil sorceress who traps him in her body. But is it still a curse when the victim begins to enjoy it?

Includes a second story: The Youth Who Became a Maiden. A young man is disguised by magic to enter the household of a princess he has fallen in love with.

This is our first publication in our new imprint, atEros, to help separate our adult-oriented books from our more general audience publications.

Please, if you read and enjoy, leave a review on Amazon.

TG Themes:

TG Elements:

Dominance & Submission / Bondage

The Stake War: A Tale of Zhor

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Caution:

CAUTION: Sex / Sexual Scenes

Audience Rating:

Restricted Audience (r)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Science Fiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Elements:

Dominance & Submission / Bondage

Other Keywords:

World of Zhor; A penalty for losing a contest

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Most Zhorians believe that the Overlords, superior beings, perhaps immortal, imagined to be just below the gods, serve the deities above them and guide those below them, i.e. humankind. Like the Olympians of ancient Greece, the Overlords are held to favor those who win glory through heroic deeds. Individual prowess is celebrated on Zhor. Some cities have even erected shrines to their departed champions and, from generation to generation, have regarded the conquerors of yore as virtual demigods.

Despite this, the Overlords do not favor ruinous wars. They limit the weapons of war to such things as swords and bows, and keep political power disseminated widely across the face of Zhor. In this way, their world does not follow the regrettable path of empire-building, a trend that has brought such woe to the planet Earth.

As in most heroic societies, wars on Zhor are frequent but small. It is ambitious warlords, seeking to aggrandize themselves and to rule many cities, that cause the most damage. These despots tend to have quick, violent ends, undoubtedly because the Overlords do not favor them. Nor do the cities that tolerate such reckless leadership seem to prosper.

The statesmen of Zhor have found ways to allow their males to prove themselves before their people, even while limiting the carnage of battle. It is for that reason that the "Stake War" tournament came to be. It is a trial by combat in which individual excellence is maximized, but the damage to the polity of Zhor is minor. The disputes between two cities are now commonly settled by a duel of heroes.

If the contention is over a tract of land, or an outrageous affront to the dignity of a city, the polis whose defender has been defeated is duty-bound to make good the fair demands of the victorious. Land is transferred and compensation is paid. The tournament does not created lasting animosities, unlike wars. City-states that have been infuriated enemies oftentimes become allies within a few years of a Stake War.

In time, the Stake War changed. It not only served to settle disputes, but also became a contest of honor. A duel, or several duels, came to be held in a day, often gracing grand festivals, like the meeting of sports teams on the planet Earth.

On Zhor, the cycle of these festivals might be once per decade, once per five years, once per every three years, or even once each year. No important issues need be settled. Even friendly cities may compete, to publicly display of the martial skill of their sons. A victor in the Stake War is well rewarded, usually out of a settlement paid to his city by the defeated polis. But Zhorians spurn the inglorious idea of chasing after gold. They are a lusty people and prefer the rewards of honor above crass gain. There is a saying, "A beautiful woman is better than an estate."

Before the synthesis of Ruk's Serum, a single woman of the town represented each duelist. The higher her rank, the higher was the honor of winning against her champion. Whereas in Earth's Medieval Europe, a noblewoman would merely grant her warrior-champion a token to wear into battle, the woman herself of Zhor becomes the token, or the stake of battle.

Typically, the maid allows herself to be shackled to a wooden post where the duel is fought, her face exposed to view. Sometimes she is adorned in trim garments; the manner of her display is intended to boast of how beautiful are the women of her city, and how glorious and fertile in culture is the city itself. If a champion of the woman's town loses the duel, she is stripped by the exultant victor and taken to his home to be his vaecwei – his slave. Should she escape and return to her own city, her clan would be honor-bound to return her to her legal master. Great indeed is the honor of the warrior whose home is graced by more than one stake-token, collared-and-branded wenches whom he has won amid the lists of champions.

Many maidens have gone to the stakes confident that they are defended by the best of their men and by their city's gods. "Against the will of the gods," the saying goes, "no woman can be enslaved." It is also said, "If the gods deem that one should serve on her knees, no effort can alter her fate." But, alas, history has shown that it is often the gods' will that a woman shall become a captured token. Ironically, the “children of shame” that she may bear in bondage will grow up to be proud defenders of the very polis that the lady's city had challenged.

But for some considerable time now, with the availability of Ruk's Serum, the prize of choice in many of these stake wars has become not a natural-born woman, but a serum girl. This change makes good sense and is widely popular. Serum girls are transformed males of Zhor, and many of them were formerly warriors. To take home, enslaved, one who, in times past, has been a dauntless opponent of one's city is considered to be a triumph of special sweetness. If, in the past, the serum girl has slain some of the city's warriors as a former warrior herself, is it not proper that she replace those fallen heroes through the rigors she endures on the child bed?

Then, too, Zhorians feel that a born woman is a citizen of glorious worth. A serum girl is held in lower esteem, as one whom the gods have spurned in some way. Even nobles, transformed by Ruk's serum, feel the stigma. It is fortunate, therefore, that the customs of the Stake War have allowed serum girls a special dignity, permitting them to volunteer to be tokens of war. The status of a serum girl whose champion vanquishes his opponent usually lives in dignity forever after.

For the women whose champions lose the test, their fate is slavery. Custom forbids ransoming, for that would corrupt the proceedings with the greed for gold. Also, it would also be unfair for the less wealthy classes who cannot pay princely ransoms. Zhorians do not believe that honor should be for sale.

It must be said, however, that in some cities, more cities every year, the Stake War has taken a fascinating turn. Under the newer customs, the defeated warrior is himself is placed in at the feet of his conquer. Before his on-looking countrymen, he is given an injection of Ruk's Serum. The winning warrior, oftentimes, comes to the games with the exact vintage of the serum that he wants his defeated opponent to receive. The injection vial typically displays a small picture of the girl that the genetic cocktail will bring into being. Most victors wish to receive serum girls of great beauty into their beds. Moreover, the lusty zeal with which a champion subjects his new pleasure slave to vaec-pelda (the – traditionally -- unwilling initiation of a new slave or captive female into sex) consummates his victory.

When the subdued warrior has become a beautiful woman, "he" is customarily taken to the winner's city and paraded as the centerpiece of a procession. Afterwards, the stake-token (so the girl is called) is publicly collared and branded, oftentimes by the very man who has vanquished "her." Once a combat-prize becomes a slave, she is a slave true. A master may sell her outright, either privately or on a public block. In fact, stake-war tokens bring high bids in local markets; sometimes, pleasure houses and expensive taverns will offer extravagant sums, knowing that patrons will flock to be entertained by mortified fallen enemies. But the prestige of a man who has won his token by skill at arms is so lofty that most stake-war victors prefer to keep their slaves as status symbols for so long they can afford such an expensive self-indulgence.

Obviously, there are cases in which a warrior has conquered and tamed a former opponent, only to be himself defeated later, becoming another man's lovely trophy. In such a case, “he” will probably undergo the same type of treatment that his vanquished enemy had earlier received at his hands. Zhorians will invariably say that all that occurs on the face of Zhor is the will of the gods and they do not ponder the right or wrong of it. Their society admires winners and does not for long remember the names of the fallen.

The ultimate fates of trophy girls are various. But one renowned story is so unusual that it bears repeating here. It is recorded that a warrior named Lial, of the city of Sharsina, was bested in the lists and taken to his conqueror's city, having first been injected with Ruk's Serum – an event witnessed by the dismayed eyes of his fellow citizens. But the victor, whose name was Valdam of Cromaar, did not force “her” to ride in the parade that celebrated the humiliation of Lial's city; he found a similar-looking girl to perform as a substitute. The former swordsman, Lial, was, however, bound and subjected to branding. Valdam additionally put a silver collar upon the blonde girl's throat, but required her to wear the silver collar of her status only as far as the city gates of Cromaar, Valdam's city.

Lial was expecting vaec-pelda and a life of confinement in Valdam's pleasure stable (as the harems of Zhor are called), but what she learned at the city gate astonished her.

Valdam was offering to immediately send Lial back home, to Sharsina via caravan. She would, he said, be permitted to dwell half the year in her own city, and half the year in the city of Valdam, as long as she wished. Most interestingly, when she was with Valdam, she would not be treated as a pleasure slave, but as a guest. That is, she would be allowed to dress as she chose, be attended by servants, and have an allowance for her own use. Her free time was hers to use as she saw fit.

"What trick is this?" demanded the branded, collared wench.

“It is no trick. I am a man of my word,” Valdam told her.

Well might the serum girl be suspicious, for she knew that had the fight gone differently, had the gods favored her in the lists, Lial had been already decided to be harsh in his victory. The warrior of Sharsina would have subjected Valdam to the degradation of vaec-pelda, and put her to demeaning domestic tasks when he wasn't demanding her attendance upon him.

"No trick," the man of Cromaar insisted. "I am my city's champion. I am not so desperate to find a bed-warmer that I need to endure the grudging company of one who denies that she is either a woman or a slave. I have better things to do. Go where you will, and play at being a free serum girl for as long as you wish."

“Where is the spider in the scrip?” Lial asked, using the old saying.

"It is this. When you tire of a miserable existence, unable to live as either man nor woman, you may, of your own volition, kneel with crossed wrists before me. Then you will begin living the life of a true pleasure slave. From that moment on, for as long as you are my possession, you will be treated as the commonest sort of brolling wench, one whose only value shall lie in her silken body and her beauty. You will be wearing pleasure silk, slave-face, and scent. You shall work at chores suitable for one who is a owned girl. Disobey a free person's order after you have made your submission and you shall know the sting of the girl-whip."

Lial certainly did not wish to be treated as a slave, and wanted nothing better than to leave the despicable city of Cromaar, so she accepted the offer. She returned home to Sharsina with the caravan, but found herself unwelcome. A girl who is legally enslaved is considered dead under the law. She is not regarded as a person, but a kind of livestock. By returning and presuming to claim familial connections, Lial had unwittingly mortified her family.

Her own brother said to Lial, "You were a fool, sister. What good does your homecoming do? We already held your funeral. Words of praise were spoken over your grave for your patriotism and courage. By coming back as you are, all who pronounced your eulogies must now be choking on their words. Open your eyes, Lial, you are not the person you were; you are nothing at all. You walk among us as a ghost. No one is comfortable with a a ghost. Whenever you are seen, people either laugh or spurn you, and by spurning you, they also spurn our house.

"The gods willed your defeat and its consequences," he continued. “You should have thrown your master's leniency back into his face by kneeling and crossing your wrists at once. In that way, you would have done dignity to the man you once were and also to the unfree girl whom you shall be forevermore. What did you expect to find in Sharsina except ignominy? Don't you see what the rogue has done? He has used you as a weapon to twist the knife of his city's victory more deeply and cruelly into our own polis' guts."

Lial was amazed by this attitude, but soon realized that many of her relation shared the same opinion, though they seldom were so gentle in expressing it. Her parents soon sent their unwanted daughter to a secluded house that they owned, to live with but a few servants. She was instructed not to attend any family function. "Let our friends and kin remember you as the son who was slain in honorable combat. In time they will forget about you," they said.

Lial would have brooded for a long time over such treatment, but she was feeling sorely distracted, more so each day. Serum girls have sexual compulsions as strong as a man's, but the serum soon redirects their erotic orientation toward those of their own former sex. Also, the serum contains genes drawn from women for whom bondage was a inborn craving. Such women were known as "natural slaves." So Lial found herself experiencing "slave-need" and "man-need," instincts that were written into her very chromosomes.

It made her furious, but there was no cure. The physician Ruk had not merely wanted to create women from men, but also wanted to give them the qualities of both mind and body that would make pleasure slavery seem natural, even desireable. No serum existed to undo what had been done. This genetically-programmed outlook was impossible to ignore; the life of a free person often felt unnatural and unbearable to a serum girl.

Clutched in the grip of unnatural lust, Lial usually enjoyed only troubled sleep at night. To her mortification, she couldn't help fantasizing about being with a man, often doing scandalous things. To gain sexual relief, she tried to return to those places that had offered gratification to her as a young man. But the pursuit of a state of mind already lost was futile and the stress upon Lial was heavy. Sometimes her bodyguard had to carry her home, passed-out drunk. Indeed, the maid was wont to call for cup after cups while joylessly watching serving slaves move through this or that tavern, pouring wine and dancing. Sometimes she would even brol one of them using a false twyl, but such as much as she tried hard to pretend she was with a man, she was not able to.

To attain true release, Lial went to the source of relief. At first hired oernads, lewd men who sold their bodies to rich women for money. When they made love to her, she would imagine that she had been taken captive and was being subjected to vaec-pelda. That fantasy was often on her mind. Lial therefore found an oernad known for creating intense fantasies for his customers, such as his being a slaver who has stripped on bound them, one who would rape them well, to fire them up with man-need and slave-need, before he sold them for profit on a public block. She found such games enjoyably wicked,but even an experienced oernad was capable of only one release, while a serum girl needed to experience several in order to achieve equal satisfaction. That was the curse of being a woman who had been lusty as a male.

By now Lial had entirely lost her desire for women's flesh. She no longer hired girls in taverns. After three months in the city, she had become oriented toward males alone. "You are superb, my wench," casual lovers would tell her. "May Goddess Haliaka bless you with pleasure slavery, so that every man can experience the joy you have bestowed upon me." This complement pleased Lial, but it angered her, too. She blamed herself for enjoying those things that should have made her ashamed. Also, as a promiscuous young male, Lial's lusty exploits had been admired. The same admiration was not extended to girls; those who were aware of her sensuality called her a slut. She began to intensely dislike the town where she had grown up, feeling it had abandoned and betrayed her. But when she considered going back to Cromaar Lial's she wanted to curse and break things.

So the months in Sharsina brought her little peace or sense of self worth. Tired of men who would want to leave her after just one climax, Lial swallowed her pride and became a frequent visitor to slave clubs. In such a place, women were helped by staffers to pretend to be actual slaves, wearing bonds and slave garments if they wished to. Men of the town were allowed to come in, also, and it was possible for a free woman to be intimate with several men she didn't know in a single night. Sometimes, to her shock, a male would come in who knew her. How they laughed as they brolled her as if she were the most common type of slave. And there were others whom she'd known as a male, but who didn't know her face as a girl. Rolling in the silks with the latter type was difficult at first, but with passing time she hardened in her wantonness, and found herself able to brol almost any anyone with gusto.

For a while, her intense slave-club activity allowed her to feel needed relief, but her six months at Sharsina were almost up. She didn't trust Valdam and didn't want to return to him. What if he broke his word and immediately put her under the whip, only common, nude pleasure wench wearing slave-face and a collar? But she had no place to go flee to. Women alone in the world often fell slave, and her fate would could easily be worse than what Valdam held in store for her. When the time was up, her master's servants came to escort Lial back to the city that had ruined her life. It was not so terrible a day as it might have been, since her own city, once so beloved, now held nothing for her. And she could not have stayed for much longer under any circumstances. Under the law, the magistrates would have had no choice but to compel her to go back to her legal master.

When Lial again reached Cromaar, Valdam continued to be as good as his word. He treated his technical slave as he would a guest. However, Lial was expected to attend the social functions that were held by her patron. The other guests regarded her -- a stake-war token who was not living as a slave -- as an oddity, a thing neither fish nor fowl. In fact, her situation was unusual even on Zhor, where life is enjoyed all its endless variations without much note being taken. Lial knew that some persons at these fetes were betting on how long it would be before she knelt with servility before her lord, accepting the ritual binding of her wrists, by her own consent putting herself under the discipline of the whip. But out of respect for their host, they treated the girl with punctilious correctness.

One thing that Lial hated most of all was that Valdam would not give her funds enough to go to the slave clubs. He said that if she would dishonor herself by such activity, he would not pay for it. Her allowance was used up on oernads early each month, and she was left sexually frustrated for weeks at a time. She occasionally had liaisons with Cromaar citizens who found her beautiful, but such rakes never took an uncollared serum girls seriously, and she rarely many love to any of them twice.

Valdam appeared to enjoy Lial's company even though she avoided calling him master and lord, something that he didn't insist upon. Sometimes he took his "guest" carousing. She usually drank too much, just as she had done in Sharsina. One night, in a tavern served by several beautiful cup slaves, Lial realized how much she envied these girls -- their blatant sensuality, their sultry, seductive carriage and, especially, the ease with which they could attain sexual relief. If they hated their lives in bondage, they at least didn't show it. She hated her own life and her face in the mirror told her so. Not for the first time she thought seriously about suicide.

Suddenly, Valdam stroked Lial's knee under the table. She felt the heat of his flesh through her thick winter hose. She glanced at the face of her putative master and frowned. She read desire in his eyes, but this time she was seeing more. This handsome man, she realized, was a better warrior than she had herself been. That made her respect him. The old and bitter resentment that she had nursed seemed to have ebbed away. Also, he was her master, her literal, legal master. She contemplated that word “master.” What did it mean to have a master? What did it mean to be a slave? She had played at being a slave many times, but it had so far only been an erotic game.

Valdam may have sensed the opening of a door into her psyche. If that were the case, he decided to step through it at once, before Lial had a chance to seal her feelings away again. He took her hand. When his supernal stake-prize did not pull it away, the man smiled. "My friend," he said, "would you like to go to a room? The joy that I am more than prepared to give you shall surpass any that you have ever yet discovered in any sordid slave club."

The girl looked at him, perplexed.

"But I caution you. Once I have you naked in my arms, I vow that I shall to do all that I can to ignite you. I think you may know what changes that will bring to your life."

Lial regarded him gravely for a full minute, but the need welling inside of her, that every torments and motivates a serum girl, gnawed at her tortuously. She realized that she had been carrying on like a fool. This was a handsome and courteous man, and their past lives had given them much in common. Instead of rejecting him all this time, she should have been trying to make him her lover. Then, instead of searching the street for lechers and rakes, she would have had a comfortable and convenient bedroom where they both could have enjoyed sexual recreation. Yes, he would always have tried to ignite her if he could, but she had been with many men and hadn't been ignited. She didn't believe that she could be. But the theoretical possibility thrilled her more than frightened her. It was a faint possibility that she could become a slave in her heart and mind as well as under the law added spice to the idea of an assignation. Also, if his performance didn't measure up to his boast, she would have the satisfaction of telling him so with sly and subtle glances.

"I will dare it," she whispered hoarsely.

Valdam led Lial up the stairs. By now the former warrior had been with many different bravos, but something -- she didn't know what -- felt different, more dangerous, this time. It was like something warning her not to step through the door of this particular brolling room. The quandary flashed through her mind. If she went home without fulfillment, she would lay awake all night, gripped by restless sexual need. In a flash, she decided to take the chance instead of the alternative. When they were inside the room together, Valdam immediately left her alone and went downstairs again, leaving her there wondering. He had, in fact, gone to the office of the tavern master to pay the rent of the room for a full night. He also asked the master of the house to send maids up to the chamber to prepare his fetching companion for a night of passion. "She wishes to do it as if she were a slave," he told the man, “and that is what I want also. Have your women prepare her to look like one of the lowly cup girls who so diligently serve your own customers."

The wine-seller nodded thoughtfully. "So it shall be! Brol her well, my friend! Hopefully, some man will collar the fetching wench soon. How pleasing that one would look in pleasure silks!"

Valdam agreed. "All serum girls should become pleasure slaves," said the warrior, "particularly every one who is equally as beautiful."

The taverner went to fetch a pair of his girls and told them what they must do. When he rejoined Valdam, the two men discussed business. The warrior laid down a proposition, and the businessman reactly quite agreeably to it. They shook hands to seal the bargain.

Valdam lingered in the barroom downstairs until the maids informed him that Lial was ready. Upon returning to the brolling room, he saw her, on the floor pillows, nude and with her face painted, a true vision of delight. The warrior saw neither fear nor shame in his favorite's intense expression, only the gnawing hunger of wantonness barely constrained. When he stepped closer, Lial blushed, but when he did not touch her, she became impatient and herself reached out. Valdam was pleased to find Lial so eager to begin their second duel. Taking her by the shoulders, He brought her sweetly painted mouth against his. He took in the perfume of lilacs, and he felt like he was at the gate of paradise. He wished that he could inhale her whole body and make her goddess-like essence part of him.

Lial was gripping him like a famished woman seizing food. Her body, pressing against his, told Valdam that she would allow anything. Ruk's serum had remade Lial into a slut and a seductress, and he thanked Haliaka with all his being that it had done so. Deftly, the warrior lowered his companion down and pinned her against the red silk sheet. Making free play with his hands, he savored the feel of her soft body. He felt like he had just climbed the tallest mountain; he had had been waiting for this moment ever since the girl had returned to Cromaar. The merest sight of her since then, even in unsuitable page-boy-type garments, had punished him with the pangs of desire. He had been fighting down that desire almost every day. How he had wanted her! But he had wanted her his way and his way only.

Meanwhile, Lial had her arms locked around him, kissing his neck and shoulders. Then, with a sudden impulse, she shifted and wrapped her legs around him also. Valdam responded with delight and their love play gained in gusto. He used his one free hand to free his twyl from his hose. The girl gasped and paused to regard it. She was no stranger to the sight or feel of the male scepter, and so she braced herself. Valdam then penetrated her, applying a slow and steady pressure. The girl, made a plaything by her Ruk-inspired instincts, thrust her hips against his, desperate to take in as much of his masculine hardness as possible.

Valdam exulted. The one he held – this sublimely lovely girl -- was actually giving herself over to him as if she truly was a surrendered slave. After treating her as a guest for so long, it took an effort to remind himself that she actually was his legal chattel. He no longer wanted a guest, he wanted a pleasure slave -- and what a pleasure slave his stake-trophy would make! She had been with many other men, he knew, so he did not hold back from being vigorous with her, and bold. Her wild responses informed him that she had already already acquired the most talents that a brolling slave needed to know. Her techniques were those of a free women, but they were more than satisfying at the present moment.

As, truly, Lial was giving of herself without restraint. This was female-style lovemaking such as she had found with no other. It was like she was no longer on solid ground, but lost in the clouds. The maid of Sharsina was at last brought her back to earth by the feel of her master's copious release. His heated balm flooded her womanly cup; neither could Lial hold herself back and she, too, came uncontrollably in his arms, a dissolute woman yielding in absolute surrender to the primordial male.

At the instant of climax, her moaning rose almost to shouting. The wild sensations of their copulation made her think of fire. The rush of her orgasm was the most overwhelming experience she had ever known. In the madness of the moment, she didn't realize that she was surrendering to her slave nature; something was overwhelming her self-control on a genetic level. In that instant, Lial ceased to be whoever, whatever, she had been before, and seamlessly transformed into a mere female animal, a thing lost, body and soul, to the irresistible dictates of Ruk's serum.

As the ultimate change came upon her, the serum girl screamed and dug her nails into her master's back. Then all was still. Both had spent themselves, and magnificently. They still clutched one another, but neither of them moved; a euphoric calm had descended. Lial, the well-brolled wench, the conquered slave, found herself hovering somewhere on high, wafting on a volcanic cloud of caressing heat. This precious sensation, gradually dissipating, made the girl felt as if she was drifting down into a warm and soothing sea of gladness.

Bodies still tightly wrapped together, they slept the sleep of exhausted lovers. The small window eventually filled the room with a subdued light. Valdam blinked away his drowsiness first and sat up. When Lial felt his movement, she opened her eyes. Her master was looking down at her. Something in his stare chilled her. He whispered, "I felt you change last night, sweet one. Do you sense that something is different about yourself?"

Lial frowned thoughtfully. "Yes. But I -- I don't know what it may be, Lord."

He grinned broadly. She had called him lord without having been ordered to do so.

Valdam smiled and touched his captive between the thighs. Lial lurched at the contact. "What you have felt, precious one, is ignition," he told her. "I know, for I have brought other wenches into the glow of slave heat. The best of them reacted just as you have. You are now an ignited pleasure slave, and an ignited pleasure slave you shall remain for all the rest of days."

Lial squirmed away. "No! It's not ignition! I'm not a pleasure slave!" she exclaimed.

Her thoughts whirled. Though she had often fantasized about becoming an ignited vaecwei, one who was helpless in her needs, but the male part of her nature had always rejected the idea. She had told herself that she was too strong to ever succumb to ignition.

Then it dawned on her. What had happened couldn't have happened to a man or a free woman. Somehow, by a journey of tiny steps, she had become both a true woman and a true slave. When all her defenses had been overcome, her master had kindled a blaze of slave-fire inside her.

"You are most assuredly ignited, lovely pet,” Valdam laughed, “and there is no cure for it. The goddess Haliaka blesses her children when they are ready for blessing. She has remade you into the very image of the daughter that she has always intended for you to become." His smile became a broad grin. "You're eyes smolder even when you don't intend them to. You have become exactly the token-prize that I have asked Haliaka to give to me every night since your womanhood began."

Lial rolled over and stared at the wall. She knew about the ignition of serum girls; young men endlessly made jokes about the subject. Lial, as a wild youth and as a warrior, had brolled many of that despised kind -- all of them wanton, compliant creatures tamed by means of brolling and slave discipline. They were pretty animals in heat, unworthy of the slightest respect. They were fit for nothing except harlotry, and it was right that men should reduce them to harlotry. She refused see herself as one of that debased order. Not knowing what to say or do, she reached for her pageboy clothing on the floor.

Valdam nodded. "Go ahead, dress the way that pleases you. You have not knelt before me with crossed wrists, therefore, our agreement continues. Nothing need change between us, not unless you wish it to change. But, lovely one, it will be much harder for an ignited wench to carry on as she had carried on as a free woman – much less as a man. Will your slave fire not consume you if you do not feed it through endless submission to men? Why go back to that terrible place that you have just come from? Doesn't every atom of your spirit cry out for a new and different life? Is it not is high time that the warrior Lial puts away the dead past and become a fully awakened slave girl? Your name is Lial, but you may become my sweet Liala, my property and my delight. All you need to is give your consent by the crossing of your wrists."

She stared up at him. He had called her by a woman's name. As her legal master, he of course had the right to decide what she would be called, but he had never coined a name for her until this moment.

"You are one of the ignited sisterhood," the warrior continued. "No act of a slave's will, no medical treatment, can ever change that. But many new doors shall be opening ahead of you from this day forth. Will you not choose the one of them? Will you not be reborn and begin to live life to the fullest?"

Liala's mind reeled. Her loins were already aching with renewed need. It was so much more intense than ever before. She felt like she would scream; she wanted to leap upon him and -- what? Kill him? No, she yearned to demand that he should brol her all over again. Had she fallen so low? Could she have been so absolutely conquered. Think! She had to think. But how could she think while aching with the pangs of desire. An agony of yearning had her in its grips; the desire to once more please this male -- particularly this male – and also herself – was an almost physical pain. If she gave in to that yearning, how could she ever again pretend that she was anything but a slave. If she even once gave consent to be a slave, a she would be. Nothing she might ever do after that would restore the freedom that she yearned to throw away. What might her life as a stable girl of Valdam be like? Could it be as amazing as something inside her was telling her it could be?

At the Stake War, Liala recalled, Valdam had conquered her as a man. Now she had fallen into another of his traps. He had conquered her again, but this timeb as a woman. She had never anticipated that she could have been so deftly brought down, and so he had been able to take her unawares. Could she deny him what his wiles had won?

One moment she wished to undo the entire night, to make it so that it never had happened. But in the next she wanted to plunge back into the night before and make it happen all over again.

What should she do? The warrior of Cromaar seemed to be holding open before her the door to a new life. He obviously wanted her to enter it. But as tempting the lure was, Liala recognized the danger. Part of her -- intesely -- wanted to know what true slavery was like. But that was a door from which there would be no escape. She would be locking herself into a prison and giving the key to another. On this side of the door, she had some freedom of action. On the other side, that freedom would have been willfully cast away. Would he be merciful to a domestic pet who was so vulnerable, so helpless? Would he be kind?

Liala almost didn't care. She was utterly and absolutely sick of the way in which she had been living. She wanted a change, almost any kind of a change. Even if Valdam deigned to be severe in his mastery of her, it might be exciting. The girl wondered whether she dared to put her fate into the hands of a Zhorian master, like countless serum girls had done before. Like herself, Valdam would have been trained from boyhood how to be courteous to free women and dominating with slaves. She remembered how she -- how Lial -- had treated slaves, slaves whose beauty had inflamed his blood with uncontrollable lust? Would Valdam treat her that way?

She almost hoped so.

What was it that suddenly brought Liala up to her knees? Suddenly, without hardly any volition in on her part, her wrists were moving toward a crossed position. But at the last instant her courage failed.

The ignited girl cursed herself. She had never felt like a coward before, but fear was hot and cold inside her at the same time. Was it such a disgrace to surrender? Every cell of her body was screaming for her to do exactly that? Where was the disgrace? Did she not wear the brand? Did that brand not give her the liberty to express her the need and passion, need and passion that were written with beautiful artistry into her every chromosome, chromosomes that had translated her into a beauty that every man would long to have and to hold? Her own brother had rebuked her for not kneeling with crossed wrists the very day of her lost contest, and her kinfolk had rudely concurred. Did they understand something, some terrible truth, that had not at all been apparent to Liala herself? Why had it taken her so long to understand?

The slave's large eyes, now dewy, timorously met her lord's imperious gaze. She was seeing the stare of a master who understood that he absolutely owned the thing he was looking upon. If she did the right thing, she would pass under the reality of that absolute ownership. So far she had not crossed her wrists. Part of her was ruled by panic, a panic that told her to flee back into the world of yesterday. Why did she hesitate? Was it because she knew yesterday very well and it appalled her. But she did not know what tomorrow held if she found the courage to go in that direction. It might be better; it could hardly be worse.

Oh, why didn't he command her to cross her wrists, to make her say, "I am your slave"? Anything he ordered, she knew, she would instantly perform. Oh, yes, she had been well mastered. Ye gods! It was true; she had been mastered. Her Ruk genes had, at last, imposed the stamp of “slave” upon her mind, her heart, her soul. Resisting them had made her svelte, smooth body an envelope of torment, a container of lust that screamed for satisfaction. It was like an alien spirit had entered her being and it made her want to obey, to submit. What, even now, could Valdam demand for her to do that she would not perform instantly? She longed to hear him say, "Declare youself a pleasure slave!" But the infuriating man only stayed in place, kneeling across from her, exuding calmness He was too strong and too certain of his victory to doubt the outcome of his brazen challenge to a weak creature who was only a natural slave and nothing more. Lial, the girl knew only too well, had suffered his second defeat.

This man, she realized, need only wait in order to receive her abject surrender.

The dog! He could have ended her anguish by a few words, words she could not disobey. But he would not say them. He wanted her, as her last act of free will, to accept the age-old contract of the master and the slave.

Why could she not do that. Was it the tiny piece inside her that was still a man? 'Oh, fool!' she thought. 'That is not what you are!'

Was it a vestige of her pride?

To one side, Liala saw her reflection in the long mirror that hung upon the door. It shocked her. It reflected a slave girl, one who could have made Lial ache with physical need. The girl's face-paint, though, she now observed was smeared. Yet how beautiful and sexual that creature appeared, how sensuous and desirable. She looked like no man's lover, no man's wife. What she looked like was a whore -- and such a whore! What man would not wish to throw such a one down on her back and brol her frantically, filling her with virile balm until he had no more balm to give. She was in Valdam's power; her could treat her that way, but was waiting for something from her. Did he not want make her his branded she-beast and lock her in his stable? Was there something about her that disgusted him?

Liala sobbed. No, that was not it.

Valdam, she knew, wanted her surrender. He would not deign to glorify her by making her his slave unless she begged for the privilege.

But what did she want? She could put on those boyish clothes again and walk away. That was the sensible thing to do, wasn't it? Today could be like yesterday. Why had she not done that already?

It was like someone was whispering into her secret mind. It was saying that she was an ignited girl and that an ignited girl needed a lover. It was saying that yesterday had been no great day. It was saying that all her yesterdays had been, in fact, terrible. Behind her was -- nothing. It was saying that there was only the bare chance of a better future in the possibility of a totally new life, a life that was hers to choose.

Valdam read turmoil in the girl's face, the face that had for so long filled his thoughts and obsessed him. He stood up, went to his pack, and drew a silver slave collar from it. He said over his shoulder, "I had this neckband inscribed while you were in still the throes of your transformation. You wore it once. It names you Liala and declares you my property. From that first day I knew that you would be Liala, and that we two would share a moment like this one. I've kept near at hand, hoping for the day when you would finally understand what is destiny truly was, and that you would consent for me to place it around your throat."

Liala regarded the gleaming object. The invading spirit inside her, that slave girl spirit, had suddenly become riotously powerful. Her stronger self was telling her that she should beg to wear that collar.

Then Valdam placed the silver choker at her knees and took a pair black leather submission cuffs from his gear. These, too, he offered to the pretty wench. She closed her eyes. Liala's body language conveyed her consent so profoundly that it could have echoed from the walls just like an audible shout. The slave insider her was yearning for him to do his will. He read her desires only too well and, accordingly, placed one pair on her wrists, and then brought out another pair, with which to encircle her ankles. Liala was keeping her eyes closed as he adorned her, afraid to see what she wore, lest they make her wavering resolution weaker still. This moment seemed familiar, because she had fantasized exactly this many times before. Were all her fantasies about to come true? Oh, what a wretch she would be if she let that happen.

Save me, Lial!

Where was Lial? Liala couldn't feel him. Instead she felt the slave spirit, that lascivious little minx that had caused her to lift her cuffed wrists and had tried to make her cross them. She was trying to make her do that again. But once more the lovely nude girl hesitated.

“Master, please. Force me. Don't make me accept slavery by my own will.”

He shook his head. "No. Slavery must be your own heart's desire. So, how is it? Does my slave cross her wrists?"

A blonde wench sobbed. This man so well understood the natural slavery that had taken possession of her, that lived in every fiber of her being. He knew she was striving against the clawing need of a pleasure slave, a compulsion so intense that she wanted to cry out under the press of it. Suddenly, with a burst of courage, like one who will dare sea to escape the fire comsuming her vessel, Liala, called forward the irresistable spirit of the slave inside her and let her say the fateful words: "She -- she does -- cross her wrists."

And so Liala, slave of Cromaar, once a warrior of Sharsina, granted her master permission to enslave her. The moment that she did so, she saw her master's face change. The change was so profound that she gasped. His face was no longer that of a man she knew, but the face of an absolute monarch.

She shivered, for the words could not be taken back. She was a domestic beast because she had declared it so herself. She, Liala, was Valdam's self-declared pleasure slave. There would be no more choices for her. Her master would make the choices for her from this point forward.

And, despite all her feel about her transformation, if she could have taken her words back, she didn't want to.

Valdam calmly took a cord from his pocket and bound her crossed wrists together; he didn't draw tight the knot; it wasn't necessary for the ritual. Then he picked up the collar, opened it by its hinge, and placed it about her slender throat. Liala heard as well as felt, the snap of its lock. She felt faint; slavery, true slavery, had become her undeniable reality.

"Say it, pretty wench," the male commanded.

"I...I am a slave girl -- and y-you are my master!" she stammered.

Valdam stood there, savoring – or perhaps marveling at – the attainment of his most fondly-held dream. He now held absolute mastery -- possession, ownership -- of this beautiful, beautiful woman.

Liala trembled, trying to appreciate the thing that she had done to herself. She was no longer a legal human being. Society would regard her as no more than a pretty animal, a pet, livestock. She was no longer a male warrior, but a female object of sensual desire. She looked again at the mirror. What she saw now was a slave girl who had a master. What she saw was a pleasure slave who was named Liala.

The slave girl touched her neckband like a free woman might touch a diamond necklace, continuing to watch her reflection as she did so. What was it about the object on her throat that made her appear so much prettier than she had a few moments before? On impulse, she glanced down at her left flank, at her brand. It was not like a livestock brand; her flesh had been prepared to receive the iron by an ointment that would allow no scarring. The iron had placed a clean mark, like a very shallow stamp into sealing wax. If men liked this precious brand so very much, how could she herself dislike it? This mark declared to the world what she was. Some of the garments she would be wearing from now on would be so brief that men would be able to see her defining mark as she walked by them, as they smelled the sweetness of her perfume, as they admired her face, made striking with delicately-applied paint. Such thoughts, as she stared at the perfectly-made slave-brand, brought a smile to her lips.

You are such a hopeless slut, she thought.

A wanton little pleasure slave exhaled and then filled her lungs again. Hers was like the deep breath that one takes before launching on a new adventure. Lial had always owned an adventurous spirit, but where did this new adventure begin for Liala? The answer now seemed so simple. Forward! Always forward. No longer would she have to find the way herself. Her master would find it for her. One door had closed behind her, but she would not, could not, trace her steps. Her master would not allow it.

The slave from Sharsina settled forward onto her belly, sighed, and tried to place into order all that had happen, tried to reason out who and what she was, and how she would fit into a new and unknown way of life.

Her own family didn't want her, that was painfully true. They had told her that her old life was over, that she was dead to them.

Her brother had told her she should cross her wrists and submit. Now she had done so.

Already the memory of the family of her old life seemed to grow faint and distant.

But with Valdam it was different. He was here, as solid as a mighty statue of bronze. He looked down on her as one who was more than merely human. Her adoration of him lifted him beyond the bounds of mere humanity. In her mind she asked, Haliaka, grant me a satisfying life kneeling at his feet.

The champion of Cromaar could not miss that small smile on his wench's lips. At this moment, their whole world consisted only of the two of them. No witness had been required to make Liala his pleasure slave. She had been publicly marked with his brand long before this moment. To make her his chattel in the most satisfying way possible, he had waited. He had waited, although at any time he could have reduced the slim and light-bodied creature to obedience by force. That had always been unacceptable, because she had been like a goddess to him, not a mere woman. His dream had been to be wanted by her as much as he had wanted her. So, instead, he had waited until her femaleness and her slave nature had overwhelmed her. Now his joy was complete.
It had been important to him that his girl should make the right choice -- right not so much for him as for herself. What he saw in her eyes he recognized as the look a freed prisoner, of one who was stepping out of a dark cell and into a life renewed.

The warrior knelt by his stake prize, took her satiny cheeks between his palms, and kissed her mouth, hard. For Liala, being kissed as a slave for the first time by her acknowledged master was as profound has having been her branding -- but the kiss carried the heat of passion, not the heat of a charcoal burner. Liala, like a puppet moved her slave-girl spirit, fell in against him. Her murmurs of pleasure turned into mews and into sobs as joy surged through her. She threw her slender arms around his shoulders and wept breathlessly.

Valdam let her weep out of herself all the tears she had. Then, at length, when Liala quieted, the warrior smiled the smile of one who had attained his heart's desire. It had only been one girl's folly that had delayed this moment for so long. For this moment, at lealst, Liala was wise.

But folly was not a thing a person could easily put away for long, he knew. It would return again, if he allowed it. He must not allow anything of the kind. It could ruin what could be a shared life of joy.

His voice, gentle up to now, grew stern. "You must learn to be a good thrall."

His blunt statement startled Liala, but she responded quickly. "I shall be the best of thralls -- master!"

"Your name is now Liala. Lial is dead," Valdam told her.

"I thank my master. Liala is a fine name for a...slave."

The warrior chuckled. "It is an especially fine name for a pleasure slave."

She blushed, charmed. "Yes, master, especially for a pleasure slave!"

"You attitude to life must change. It must change absolutely."

The girl in his arms nodded. "A slave wishes to change, absolutely."

He suddenly released her and stood up. She started to rise likewise, but he held her down with a hand on her shoulder. "No, sit where you are," he said. "I cannot yet take you home with me."

"Lord?" she asked.

"It will take time and hard work for one who has lived a misguided life to become a person who deserves to be loved."

She frowned. What was he saying?

"You have been proud, my pretty Liala. You have been contrary in almost every particular. Though you have pleased me greatly since last night, you are by nature willful and your defiant ways will certainly steal back upon you.”

“No, master!”

He shook his head. “You so little understand yourself. You are a raw slave with history of bad behavior.”

“It's true. Forgive me master!”

“I could say 'I forgive you,' but lenience would only encourage a wench to misbehave. What then? I do not wish to punish one who means my whole life to me, or tell any servant of mine to do the cruel task for me. A trainer, a stranger, should be the guiding hand that teaches a slave that she is truly a slave. You shall be trained, and training will be good for you. It will make you pleasant company and teach you well how to please a man. Once you are refined as a pleasure slave, we may be happy together. Not before.”

Liala was looking up into his face, aghast, wondering what he intended. Who would train her?

"I have arranged matters with the master of this tavern,” he said. “He is a friend of mine; he will board you. You shall perform under his sway as a cup girl. Your work shall pay for your food and lodging while you learn obedience, etiquette, and useful skills. I have asked him to treat you like a common wench, as if you were purchased raw at some public marketplace. In six months, when you know yourself to be a slave in every particle of your lovely body, I shall come back for you.

Liala knelt there speechless. Her master loomed, regarding her. At last he said, "I am not jealous of your virginity, because you have none. You have been shameless, carrying on like a harlot for months. So be it! If harlotry is congenial with the sort of girl you are, you shall learn harlotry well. In fact, ex-harlots make the most treasured of pleasure slaves. You will learn about cooking, cleaning, mending, housekeeping. You will be trained in dance, and learn how to dress, to move sensuously, and how to beautify a body as perfect as yours. Your natural wantonness shall serve you well, for every cup girl is required to be absolutely shameless. Does my pet understand all that I have said?"

Liala's head swam at the horrifying thought of all that lay in store for her. But as terrible as her fate was to be, she couldn't refuse, couldn't defy her master in any way. If she did, he might stop loving her. Dazed, the blonde wench nodded slowly. "Y-Yes, Master."

Valdam kissed the girl on the top of her head and then left the room. He was determined not to return for many a day. It would help his stake-prize learn more easily if she lived as a cup slave in every way, with no one to complain to. Many slave girls, many of them serum girls, were so trained in taverns and pleasure houses. They almost always came out as excellent and strongly motivated slaves.

Liala did not remain alone for very long; a lash-slave of the house came for her. She was a tall, strong, attractive woman, but her expression was severe. The new cup girl's instruction was to begin immediately. At first, the wench from Sharsina was willing to cooperate in order to please Valdam, but the mortifying way she was treated soon turned Liala's mood to defiance. Despite her good sense, there were too many things to be revolted at. The staffers took her rebellion in stride. They had trained many Ruk wenches before, even those who had been hardened soldiers previously. Though not professional slavers, tavern staffs knew well how to create the best of cup girls out of even the most unpromising material.

The first real lesson Liala learned was about how punishment came quickly to any slave girl who was not pleasing. The commonest discipline was switching. For more grave offenses, there was the strap. For a wench who continued to be troublesome, there was the girl-whip. The tool was amazingly painful, even though it was crafted as to not break the skin and create scars. The earliest weeks of a cup girl's training were always the harshest, and this was certainly true with Liala. To avoid more punishment, the raw cup girl learned to put away her free-citizen ideas about rights and respect. She had to discipline her mind to not only act like a slave, but to internalize the fact that she actually was one. "Breaking a girl to the collar," was what slavers called this initial process.

The punishment that the tavern slave came to dread the most was being "chaste bound." In constraint, a wench was given a strong dose of the aphrodisiac vaid and put into chains, to languish in chastity for hours, or even days. In the grip of the herb, suffering an induced arousal that made even worse her already extreme libido, Liala would lay sleepless, so much in in man-need that it could drive her to tears. Once released, Liala would swear to herself that she would never again do anything that could lead more chaste binding. Alas, Liala was by nature hot tempered and an impulsive bit of sass would result in more punishment.

All the cup girls in this particular tavern were Ruk-maids. Other establishments used all born-women. In general, homogeneity worked best, for the two varieties of women tended to not get along. All the lash slaves were women born because tavern masters wanted the trainers to be emotionally estranged from the serum girl they taught to be cup slaves. Most bon-women slaves had entered bondage by dangerous men, and when they punished a serum girl, remade her into a creature of perfect manners and obedience, it made t hem feel like they were getting revenge.

The usual term of a training contract was three months, but Valdam had arranged for Liala to stay a cup girl for six. He had wanted her thoroughly and expertly trained in every particular. He wanted her mind to become the mind of a true slave girl. But there was no such thing as a typical pleasure slave. As the months passed, Liala discovered within herself a strength and self-discipline that went beyond even that required by a warrior. Her desire to be back with Valdam and to see nothing but satisfaction in his eyes became the anchor that allowed her to remain a person of her own. Liala was punished more and more seldom as she became more even-tempered and obedient. After only three months, there was a blonde wench who would have seemed to almost any customer to be absolutely indistinguishable from any of the other girls pouring wine. But Laila was required to stay for another three months beyond that.

After a while it became hard for Liala to remember that she had ever lived any other type of life, or that she could ever hope to be anything other than a harlot and a cup girl. By she had progressively been integrating with the other cup girls, becoming one of them in every particular. Her thoughts were like theirs and she acquired similar instincts. Her hopes and dreams were like theirs – except that she still held on to the idea that Valdam would truly come back for her. Sometimes she worried that becoming no more than an ordinary cup girl would make Valdam love her less.

There were days when she realized that she no longer knew herself. Where once Liala had once dreaded the entire idea of giving teur, Liala the cup girl came prefer offering the pleasure of her lips and tongue to full-on brolling. The latter was very taxing, for it was usual for a cup girl to entertain in private over two dozen different men each day. Rather than be taxed to hard physically, Liala found herself offering teur in preference to any other delight.

Valdam had wanted his stable girl to learn to dance, and so had seen to it that she would be taught to do so, including the Dance of Slow Revealing. Liala showed a talent that surprised even herself, drawing in larger crowds than the other dancers. So acclimated had the supernally beautiful wench come to dancing and seduction that it pleased her to draw attention as she passed through the serving room followed by so many hot, lustful eyes. The sensuous, swaying walk that had become instinctive was exceptionally alluring.

Liala was counting the days, but when Valdam finally returned his arrival was a surprise, because he had come a full week before he had promised to. The man's glance fell upon an astonishingly lovely blonde, a half-clad wench with long, alluring legs and undulating hips. He went to her, took the tray from her hands, set it on a table, and crushed her lips against his. They were home an hour later. That night, wrapped in her master's warm arms, Liala, like her master, had much to rejoice about.

In time, Lial's family in Sharsina only remembered a son who had died honorably. They did not care to see again Valdam's slave girl again. Nor would Liala think about them. She had had no family since the day that she had received Ruk's Serum. Alas, Zhorians are not a sentimental people and their way of life requires the emotional discipline they needed to deal with loss. Such inner strength helps sufferers rise above their pain, and by rising above it with strong minds and courageous hearts, they spare themselves much sorrow.

Meanwhile, Liala, became one of three girls who made up the stable of Valdam. The other two had been there before, but as Lial she had paid them little attention and treated them merely as servants. But now they were her equals and she had to compete with them for their master's favor. As it turned out, she competed very well. Valdam had ceased to fight in the stake wars and for this Liala was grateful, so much did she fear losing him. And, she feared just as much his victory, for Valdam's favorite certainly did not want him to bring home some new stake-trophy, one who might potentially win him away from her.

Liala enjoyed a good life in Cromaar. As Valdam's favorite, she often danced for her master. Valdam did not make exuberant avowals of love for his pretty wench, for slaves are easily made vain by praise, and he had no use for vanity. In his heart, though, Liala surpassed his every imagining of what he prized in a love-slave. He remembered to honor the goddess Haliaki, as much as a free male might do in a seemly manner. She had worked her magic very well on the lovely, but unpromising, captive he had taken from Sharsina. It was like she was his every treasure rolled up into one. He intended to never sell the wench, and for her part, Liala served her lord with a zeal. It thrilled her that Valdam allowed her to call him her love-master, and she sought to anticipate all his wishes. She learned to polish his manly pride in his absolute ownership of her until it beamed like the sun. She never tired of recounting to him his many wonderful qualities, and a man never tires in basking in the admiration of a perfect woman, one he would not want to live without. In such moment, he would especially please Liala by referring to her as his love slave. When he did, the joy of his vaecwei seemed to know no bounds.

Life continued like this with Liala for a long while, until the day when --

But we should say no more. That is another story.

End

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra Chapter 1

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

The Malibu Ultraverse

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Chapter 1

"The Man on the Doorstep"

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

But suddenly my anger grows,
A mighty spirit fills my nose.
My inward feelings all revolt.
A creature such as thou! A dolt!
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The two of us stood faced off on the doorstep of my Canoga Park home. The stranger looked neither formidable nor frightening at about five feet tall with light red-brown hair. I’d rate him as looking soft-bodied and overweight. His features were West European features and his dark tan suit was unassuming. The only curious thing about him was his old-fashioned shoestring tie. What was giving me the willies was the fact that I had brushed with this man before—at the mall only hours earlier. It's never good when a stranger follows a person home, it’s never good.

"I saw you at the restaurant," I said through gritted teeth. "What are you doing here?"

He returned an awkward smile. "I urgently need to confer with you, Mrs. Blake. Something happened to you today, something that has mystified you. I want to help you understand it."

His accent sounded like American English, but it had a rhythm that struck me as foreign somehow. He was right about something weird happening to me a couple of hours ago. I was suddenly wondering whether he had been the one who had caused it. If that was true, I had a good excuse to do some mayhem. The only reason that I wasn’t already beating on him was that the little man wasn't making threats, only asking for a parley.

With my arms crossed, I sternly stated, "I asked you, what are you doing here?"

"I ask your pardon for the means I used to contact you,” he jabbered. “I’ve only done so because a very great crisis is impending. Without help, I have no dependable means to deal with it."

"Deal with what?" I asked with a snarl.

"The menace. I stand in great need of an ultra hero, the most powerful hero that I can locate on short notice."

“Well, good luck in finding one,” I said.

"Please, Mrs. Blake. I know almost everything about you. You are my best choice for an assistant. Believe me when I say that the world stands in unparalleled danger. But even danger is too weak a word to convey the overwhelming proportions of the oncoming catastrophe."

"How overwhelming?"

"The Multiverse will cease to exist, and trillions of inhabitants in every part of Creation will blink out of existence.”

That sounded like raving. “The only multiverse I’ve ever heard of comes out of my son’s comic books.”

“Oh, the Multiverse is genuine. There are nearly infinite universes, and these are collectively called the Multiverse.”

“Sorry, but it doesn’t sound like that has anything to do with me?”

“It involves everyone in the Multiverse! What a god makes, a god can unmake, and a very malignant god is making its way to Earth!”

I grimaced. Was the stranger a “the world is doomed” type?

"May we go inside?" he inquired.

"Look, let’s take this a step at a time,” I said. “Who are you and where do you come from?"

The corners of his mouth tightened into a smile. "I come from a place that you have visited more than once. The Godwheel."

Yikes! I had visited the Godwheel and nothing had ever come out of the Godwheel except trouble! I didn't want to involve myself with the Godwheel ever again. I glanced over my shoulder toward the children's bedrooms. "It's not a good time for me to be entertaining beings from outer space," I said. "I've got children to watch out for."

"Of that I am aware, Mrs.... ah, Sir Lukasz. But I could suggest that we conduct our conversation in some alternate spot."

I blanched. If this little man knew that I had been Sir Lukasz, an entirely different person from the one I was now, he knew something he shouldn’t have been able to know. I was desperate to keep my past a closely held secret. "Decent parents don’t go out at night and leave their children alone in an empty house," I said in a way of evasion.

He smiled again. "I was not suggesting you should be neglectful. If you don’t mind, may I ask whether the youngsters are secure and well – at just at this instant?"

His emphasis made me wary. "As far as I know."

"Excellent. Then we shall remain in this exact instant for as long as necessary. If we do that, the little ones will not be the least disturbed while we parley."

"Can you be less foggy about what you’re saying?"

"Foggy?" He paused as if mentally peeking into a phrase book for foreign visitors. Then the red-haired man exclaimed: "Oh, you're saying that my words have been somewhat unclear. I can explain things best by a demonstration. Is that acceptable to you?”

“As long as you don’t touch me or destroy anything.”

The man reached into his pocket, an unexpected movement that caused an instinctive flare-up of my protective force field. When I sense danger, it rises to a power level so intense that it sets my aura aglow so brightly that it casts a verdant light upon his innocuous face.

The stranger barely reacted to the visible light while casually taking a small foil-wrapped item from his coat pocket.

"What's that?" I asked. I’ve been around the block and know that some very terrible things can come in small packages.

"It's a piece of candy–a chocolate kiss, actually," he said. The little man held the milk chocolate between his right thumb and forefinger. Then he took his fingers away.

And the candy didn't drop.

It had stopped in mid-air, hanging there, levitated.

But my surprise was brief. "What is this game? If I wanted to, I could pull tricks like that, too.”

"What you are seeing is a very elementary demonstration of the effects of the two of us occupying a field of zero time."

"What’s zero time?"

“It is a state in which time passes exceedingly slowly. We’re in zero time now. In and around your house no significant time is passing.”

"I don’t feel anything strange. If you have anything to say, it’s time you said it.”

"To say what’s on my mind succinctly, I've come to recruit you as an ally."

"You seem to know everything about me. I suppose that you’ve been using some sort of super technology to spy on me.

"That's exactly the case! I have virtually all your memories downloaded into my VIGOPS and can draw upon them at will!"

"What's a VIGOPS?"

"It's an anagram in my home language. In your speech, a VIGOPS is, oh, ahh -- a memory bank! "When I introduced my nanotechnology into your bloodstream, it was able to monitor your brain activity and convert your stored memories into a retrievable data stream. I can tap into it remotely wherever -- and whenever -- I am."

I looked at him incredulously. "You've put something into my bloodstream? Was that the reason you poked back at the restaurant? You did it so you could steal the whole contents of my mind? And now you're saying you can read the juiciest parts of my life story anytime you want to?"

"Why, yes. But that is only the most elementary function of the VIGOPS. It is useful in so many different ways."

I was so steamed that I could have whistled. "I usually kill people who shoot me full of high-tech crap without asking!"

He nodded contritely. "That was discourteous, I grant, but I’m functioning under immense pressure because the time is short and the stakes are huge. Be assured that these nanites do not adversely affect the human physiology. Their purpose is to allow a controller to maintain contact with his subject. While you carry those nanobytes, the control relationship can be carried out across multiple planes of reality and through extreme degrees of temporal displacement."

"Get this, Bud! I don't care for being controlled. You'd better hope that you've got me controlled like a roped calf at a rodeo, or else I'm going to do something to you that’s painful and very long-lasting."

"I sincerely hope not, madam -- sir. Once you understand what the situation is, I'm certain that you will come to judge my methods of operation less critically."

If this character was actually in control of me, could he make me do anything he wanted? Could he make me drop dead with a single thought? I took another gander at that damned chocolate kiss of his, still hanging in space.

"Perhaps I should clarify a few more details about zero time," he said.

“Yes, do that,” I said guardedly.

"Because we both have the appropriate nanites in our bodies, we can operate normally while in the same time-dilation field created by my technology. This field places us into a temporal sub-dimension. In such a state, our chronological progression becomes so attenuated that a single second of real time may be perceived by us to be as long as a year."

It sounded like he was claiming to have stopped time, using nanobots that were connected to some sort of alien gizmo. But had time actually stopped? I looked around, trying to find some evidence that would prove that he was talking nonsense. The second hand was stopped and the leaves across the street did not sway with the breeze. Everything in sight was paused like images in a photo. On the other hand, my face, clothes, and hair all felt perfectly natural.

"Anything that contacts our bodies becomes part of the zero-time environment," the stranger explained as if reading my mind.

Damn it! My ultra friend Pinnacle also reads minds, and it always annoyed me.

"The field affords us the illusion that Time is passing normally for ourselves, though that is not so. Feel free to experiment with the concept all you like."

My glance went to the small table beside the doorpost. Upon it rested one of Gus's model autos. I reached back through the door and pushed the latter over the edge. The toy started to fall, but the instant my finger lost contact with it, it stopped dead in space -- just like the candy.

I rounded on my visitor. "Did you stop the kids, too?"

"Of course!"

He had said that bombshell as if it were a good thing! I was very close to flying off the handle.

"Preserving the cherubs in perfect safety was the whole point of suspending Time, was it not?" the stranger asked.

"Maybe we should sit down," I said.

I went into the living room and let the little man follow me inside. I sank into the couch next to Mr. Paws, Evie's teddy bear, and told him, “Please, take a chair." This was all a forced play on my part and I was not feeling the least hospitable.

He laid claim to an upholstered chair. I had expected the stranger to start chattering again, but he seemed to be at a loss for words all of a sudden.

"You're a very strange man," I remarked. "How can you do the things you do?"

He gave a modest shrug. "I have had an excellent technological education."

"Education has its value," I agreed, "but there must be more to it than that. By the way, if it turns out I have to murder you, I'd like to know your name!"

He flashed a grin. "I have been remiss. On Earth, I usually go by the name of Gabriel."

"All right, Gabriel, you have some explaining to do. Are you actually able to play tricks with time?"

"I'm afraid so," he admitted apologetically. The man's mildness didn't exactly reassure me. Some of the most notorious serial killers in history were innocuous-seeming men. "A full explanation would take a long while. It is difficult to adequately explain the basic laws of multi-dimensional mechanics to one from a civilization unversed in that discipline."

"If you're saying I'm too dumb to understand your explanations, maybe you should be recruiting a different person."

"Oh, I'm sure you are by no means...dumb. You have lived for centuries and solved thousands of difficult puzzles, and that requires profound intelligence."

"Well, I’ve had my failures, too," I said. "If you'd prefer working with a big-brained scientist type, you ought to be interviewing my friend Pinnacle."

"Oh, I have analyzed Penelope Lammers' suitability. Alas, she lacks your amazing ultra powers and is sorely deficient in diplomatic flair."

"I don't see myself as being anything special," I told him. "I've made plenty of mistakes and they’ve gotten me killed more times than I can remember."

"But yet, for all those past miscalculations, you once were fated to live in the life of Eden Blake for centuries.”

“Were once fated?” I replied.

Was he saying the prophecy that I had about living for centuries was no longer to be counted on? If I had really lost all those years, I wanted to know the reason why!

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 2

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

The Malibu Ultraverse

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Eden Chap 2.jpg

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

A stranger has arrived at Eden's suburban home, and he seems to know everything about her, including her identities as Mantra and Lukasz. She could either kill him or listen to him, so she listens. The story he tells her is unbelievable. He might be a crank, but does she dare risk disbelieving him? If what he tells her is true, the universe is going to end in 24 hours, and saving it will depend a lot on the decision she makes in the next few minutes.

Chapter 2

The Tree of Eternity

Be void of feeling!
A heart that soon is stirred
Is a possession sad
Upon this changing earth.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
.

"Why do you say that?" I asked. "My old master saw the future and said I'd live and active for centuries to come."

"Unfortunately," Gabriel said, "that prediction is not true any longer."

I blinked.

"I do not doubt that Archimage's had a talent for precognition," he continued, "but the looming disaster will negate everything previously pre-ordained. Archimage foresaw a stable Main Bough, but events have occurred that endanger that stability."

"Okay, I'll bite. How long do we have left?"

"If you and I do not act to circumvent it, reality will end on September 15 at 7:11 p.m. That's Pacific Time, of course."

That was tomorrow! I had just visited an altered reality where the world had gone mad following a cosmic energy discharge that came upon the Earth a little after 7:00. The little man now had earned my undivided attention.

But he still had not won my trust.

"Why do you think that?" I asked.

"Anti-Creation is the enemy we face. My people call it the Nemesis Effect. I have traveled up to the last microsecond before it breaks free to observe all the various playing pieces of the disaster. I naturally had to flee from that onrushing future before I would perforce be made a part of that anomalous event."

I frowned. "That's very interesting. But you sound like you're leaving a lot out. Can you be a little less eager to cut to the chase?"

"I'll try. My people, the Ysgorans, travel in time, and also in space. Even one like myself, a person not really involved with exploring duty, has seen this universe billions of years in the future and also gazed upon its primordial beginnings – up to the instant of the Null Place itself."

"What's that? The Big Bang?"

He shook his head. "The Big Bang never happened. The idea is totally illogical and unsubstantiated by scientific data. Those who believe in such a wild hypothesis, are not true scientists at all. The term Null Place denotes the time before Time itself began. Past that point, not even the Ysgorans can time travel into it."

"That's a relief. Up to now, it sounded like your people could do anything."

"We do have our limits. The technology of Ysgor was, in fact, not founded upon any miraculous discovery made by our own people. We were chosen to fulfill a certain required role because we were technically inclined. Those we call the Creators passed their secrets on to us."

"Are you talking about gods of some kind?"

He shook his head. "I refer to the Creators of the Godwheel, not of the Multiverse."

"Weren't the Vahdalans the Creators?"

"No," he said. "The Creators surpassed the Vahdalans in every way conceivable. The Creators established the Vahdalans at the Godwheel, assigning them the humble task of being its caretakers. After many millennia, that stormy race succumbed to a civil war that all but destroyed itself. But you already know something about that."

I nodded. If these alleged Creators were much more potent than the Vahdalans – one of whom I'd personally met – they were not a gang I would like to meet in a dark alley. Or even in the light of the Godwheel's two suns.

"Are these Creators still around?" I asked. I wasn't buying into any of this. I was only hoping that he'd trip himself up and put me in a place to refute his con game, whatever it was.

Gabriel's eyebrows arched thoughtfully. "Whether the Creators have gone beyond recall or remain with us undetected, no one may say."

"Well, then, are the Ysgorans something like the Vahdalans?"

"We are not so impressive as the stormy and exciting Vahdalans. We served in a role analogous to that of a royal watchmaker. Just as an earthly ruling family needed people of special expertise to operate their societies, the Vahdalans depended on the Ysgorans to care for vital temporal matters, especially those which concerned the Tree of Eternity."

"What's that?"

"It's the living diagram that rationalizes the operation of time over the entirety of the Multiverse."

"It's only a diagram?" I asked.

"By no means! Forgive me; it is hard to convey concise meanings in English."

"If you don't like English, I've learned dozens of different languages over the last fifteen hundred years," I said.

"I do fear that no Earth language can express the science behind the structure of the Multiverse. Though I call the Tree of Eternity a diagram, it is something much greater. The Tree comprises the reality that it describes. In your world, a change in reality changes the diagram made for it. But with the Tree of Eternity, any change in the diagram changes the existing reality."

"This is entirely over my head, I'm afraid."

"Basically, the Tree of Eternity is self-operating, but irregularities can occur. The Timekeepers monitor these anomalies and dispatch agents to correct them. I am a Timekeeper myself, even if only a minor one."

I frowned. No such system could be operated – or even maintained -- by mortal beings. So, was Gabriel a liar, or was he more than a mortal being? His appearance, if it wasn't an illusion, made him look like a short, redheaded man who had eaten too many donuts.

"Timekeepers are like gardeners," my visitor hurried on. "We figuratively pull weeds and make sure that Time's course is cultivated and pruned. Typically, when a chaotic event confounds us, we reduplicate it under laboratory conditions and study its longer-term effects. If the effects are positive or harmless, we might allow it to occur in Real Time. If they are destructive, we seek to intervene and prevent it from affecting Real Time."

"What kind of 'laboratory conditions' are you talking about?" I asked.

"A timeline can be created to examine the anomaly. Before you ask what a timeline is, you should know that the concept is foundational to our mission. One reason I have come to you in preference to contacting any other ultra is that you are one of the few who knows firsthand about the existence of alternate timelines."

Yeah, that was for sure! In August, I'd fallen into an alternate timeline where I had never become Mantra. Unfortunately, what Lukasz had become there was appalling! But I had an even worse time of it in a different alternate world when I'd taken the kids out shopping earlier in the evening.

"Each Main Bough of the Tree," Gabriel continued, "has many timelines."

Another incomprehensible term. "Main Bough?"

"It's easiest if you think of a natural tree. It has limbs, branches, and twigs directly or indirectly anchored to the tree trunk. In the Twenty-first Century, science has finally been forced to accept the theoretical existence of alternate worlds. But the human race understands little about the concept and uses flawed terminology when describing it."

"But you haven't said what a 'main bough' is."

"Think of that tree that I mentioned. Imagine that its trunk supports a few great limbs. The trunk is called the Bole, but the limbs issuing directly from the Bole are referred to as the Main Boughs. Each Main Bough exists as a universe of its own. Each has limbs, branches, and twigs, but all Main Boughs depend on the Bole for support. As in a forest, if the trunk is cut, the limbs all fall to earth and die."

"Okay," I said, "I'm nowhere close to understanding where you're going. But I think you're claiming that the world is in trouble!"

"Yes, that is what I'm saying. Think of Argus, the enemy you battled. He threw open a gate into an alien Main Bough and snatched from it the god Thor, who inhabits a Main Bough other than our own. On has to give credit to Argus. It took a god who knew what he was doing to open a passage between separate universes."

"Out of this entire universe, why have you shown up on the planet Earth to try to fix it?"

"Because this is the planet where the Nemesis Effect will soon be released.

"Yeah, that really explains a lot!" I said sarcastically.

"I can see that you are still skeptical! The Nemesis Effect is a force from Outside. It didn't arise out of this Main Bough. Destructive elements have intruded into the universe you know by way of the portal that Argus made. But if destruction befalls this keystone Main Bough, the whole Multiverse is irrevocably doomed."

"And that's the worst possible case, huh?"

"Indeed! If any Main Boughs other than this one were lopped off the Tree, the results would be vast and tragic, but the Tree as a whole could survive it. But this Main Bough is the very keystone of the Tree of Eternity. If the Keystone is destroyed, the Bole is compromised and everything it supports collapses. There is only one Tree of Eternity, and all Creation from the beginning of Time is maintained by it. The fall of the Tree is literally the undoing of Creation."

"What you're telling me is something too big to put my mind around it. Don't you think you can find a better time agent than I am?" I was hoping that he'd say "yes."

"Your perceived shortcomings shouldn't amount to a serious obstacle. The tasks you need to carry out are those you are best suited for. I will use my advanced knowledge to direct your activities toward our focused ends." Here, he paused thoughtfully. "Mantra, if we're going to become colleagues, I cannot emphasize the extent to which you and I will have to depend on one another."

"I don't know yet if I want to be your colleague. I have a life to live here, and this cosmic thing you're talking about must come packed with about a million ways to get me killed." I still didn't believe a word he was saying but I hoped he'd go away and become someone else's problem.

Gabriel wagged his finger at me. "You will not be made safer by remaining at home. So very soon, all that you know will pass away. A sudden rewriting of past, present, and future will occur. In less than twenty-four hours, your entire universe will end. It will not be merely destroyed, but it will mean the erasure of any existence this universe ever had, alone with all its contents.

"So you say! But nothing I've heard or seen tells me I can trust a single word that comes out of your mouth."

"That is true. But haven't you just returned from an alternate reality where the Nemesis Effect has already had its initial effect? If this event manifests here, it will place a false Main Bough where the natural one used to be. The old universe will be blinked out of existence, and a flawed copy will take its place. Then, as your people say, 'It will be all downhill from there.'"

"Well, the world I visited was pretty lousy, but it wasn't a null void."

"That is because of the Tree's self-preservation system. It can perform emergency repairs. Think of a damaged automobile. One may do roadside repairs, but these are insufficient, and a little farther along the road, it will stop again. Then it is repaired again, but that allows for only a short trip before more adjustment is needed. This jury-rigging process cannot continue indefinitely. The Bole collapses when the Main Bough can no longer create a workable keystone. Should the Bole collapse, it will collapse the rest of the Multiverse."

"Oh, come on! You sound like one of those 'the sky is falling' guys," I said.

"Then why not give me a chance to prove myself? If I cannot win your trust, I will try to recruit a less accomplished time agent. But to give you fair warning, your idyllic life will end in less than 24 hours
unless my mission is successful."

I looked him straight in the eye. "If the disaster is so near, why have you waited this long before starting your mission?" I asked.

"As I've said, the Timekeeper leadership was against preventing the catastrophe about to occur."

I decided to keep on humoring the little man. "What reason would the big-cheese Timekeepers have for wanting the Multiverse to collapse?"

"My people share some traits with yours. The scientific mind, wherever it manifests itself in the Multiverse, tends to be very inflexible. If it chooses not to believe something that has not been previously accepted as truth, it seldom reevaluates its long-held beliefs. Instead, it reflexively deems the perceived anomaly to be untrue. When scientific minds deem something to be false, their reaction is to protect the prevailing belief system by obstructing the research of anyone holding a contrary opinion."

"But willfully perpetuating false theories betrays the truth-seeking mission of science," I protested.

"It truly does. But consider the many submerged cities that are being discovered in your world, dating from tens of thousands of years ago. Have any serious expeditions been sent to investigate them? I dare say they have not!"

I sighed. "If super scientists can be so stupid, what, exactly, do you expect
from me?"

"As I have said, I seek your help stopping the annihilation of – well – all Creation."

Well, I'll give the little man a one point: he was nothing if not dramatic.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 3

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 3

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Eden Chap 3.jpg

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Chapter 3

The Dark Shoppe

A young fig tree its form lifts high
Within a beauteous garden;
And see, a goat is sitting by,
As if he were its warden.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

.

"Thanks for clearing that up," I said sarcastically. "But you still haven't told me what you had to do with those crazy things that happened to me today."

Gabriel sighed and nodded. "All that will take a bit of telling."

"Then start talking, or get out of my life!" I said.

"I'll try to explain, but listen carefully. The concepts will sound very unfamiliar to you."

"Telling me that I'm ignorant is not going to win you many Brownie points."

He pursed his lips. "To say it simply, by an assiduous exploration of minus time, one discovers causation."

"Minus time?"

"Yes. Minus-time is the time that has already passed by in a timeline. There is also Plus-time, which is the future that results from the accumulation of events in the past. Plus-time allows us to anticipate probable outcomes. Because of the looming catastrophe, we must move swiftly to scout out Plus-time to discover the future hazards that will beset us. When I recruited you to be a scout, I learned a great deal."

"I didn't volunteer for anything! Why don't you do your own scouting and leave innocent people in peace?"

"Because utilizing a time agent is not a one-man or one-woman job. The active agent needs a support team, and no one else was available to support you while you were in alternate time. I had to remain behind in natural time and monitor you so I could anticipate the dangers you were facing. That way, I could help you avoid them."

"You did a lousy job. Danger socked me in the jaw about a hundred times when I was in that messed up world!" I stated.

He shook his head. "Those were mere inconveniences which you were able to handle very effectively on your own. My eyes were set on much graver matters.

"I wish you to understand that your life – the life you're living here and now -- was never at risk. You were never more than a virtual participant in that other world. I used my nanites to digitalize a copy of your conscientiousness and place it into host bodies living in that other time-reality. While you were in that realm, I gathered a great deal of information, while you simultaneously getting an education in the subtleties of alternate time.

"Everything that happened to me seemed damned real!"

"You only believed you had traveled to a strange place and time. In reality, the three Mantras whose memories you now share were never you; your real body remained at the restaurant where I found you."

"If that was so, why are these memories so damned vivid?" I asked.

"That is because the nanites allowed me to record all their thoughts and memories. I took the new memories they acquired and downloaded them into your mind through the interface of the nanites you carry. Their memories became your memories. Do you understand?"

I balled my fists. "Why pick on me? Why not use an AI probe that you could sacrifice without causing grief to a stranger?"

"Because I needed to introduce a living scout into a situation to gain information where an AI probe could not go."

"What happened to those three Mantras after I left them?"

"Alas, they ceased to exist only seconds after I downloaded their memories into my VIGOPS."

"Died? How?" I asked. "I didn't see that they were in any danger when I left! What was the danger?"

"Those realities they were in were unnatural universes that the Tree of Eternity created by its frequent reboots. A reboot reestablishes a new universe that is very like the old, but there will be imperfections that make the two worlds somewhat different. For example, a reboot may cause certain people to vanish from existence. And some new people will be created that the history of the new world remembers, even though they never existed before.

"So, a person could vanish like Contrary did, and appear out of nothing like Thorn Boy?"

"Exactly," the little man affirmed.

"What else did your high tech do to me? Was I brainwashed so I'd become your enthusiastic lackey?"

"Not at all, my dear fel – Mantra. I want to keep you just the way you are – with clarity of thought, lightning reflexes, and battle readiness."

"Are all Timekeepers like you? Do you all take incredible liberties with other people's lives?"

"Regrettably, sometimes one has to be cruel to achieve beneficial ends. Think of a doctor. His scalpel is a wicked instrument, but it is a necessary tool for achieving a healing treatment. "

"Maybe you're so alien you can't understand simple right and wrong. I'd be crazy to get involved with a person like you."

"I can understand your point of view, but I have a way to persuade you of the importance of my mission. Would you be willing to take a journey with me?"

"No journeys," I said. "I've got sleeping kids! I have to watch over them."

"What if I help you find a babysitter?"

"I'd rather pick a babysitter I can personally trust."

"Tonight I arrived here in the company of a person with excellent credentials in childcare. She is waiting outside at this moment." He looked over his shoulder at the front door.

"She's there now?" I asked.

He nodded.

"I'm pretty sure that whatever loonie you've got lined up won't be acceptable to me."

"Oh, I believe the person I found will meet your standards very acceptably."

No sooner had he said that than the doorbell rang.

I used my mystic scene and confirmed that there was a life-form standing outside on the welcome mat. "You let her in," I told Gabriel. "I don't want to get into a crossfire between a pair of Godwheel scoundrels."

Gabriel obligingly rose and went to the door. When it opened, I saw a woman standing there. It was Eden Blake.

Eden Blake?

My doppelganger stepped past the Timekeeper and fixed an unhappy glance on me.

"It's like looking into a mirror," my double remarked to Gabriel.

The little man stepped between us. "Lukasz -- this is, ah, Lukasz. She's a temporal clone of yours originating in a future timeline."

"She's from the future?" I muttered. My double was dressed in "suburban casual" and seemed my age. I glowered at the Timekeeper. "I don't like the idea that you've had a copy of me riding in your hip pocket all this time!"

"Is that a bad thing?" he asked.

"It's a bad thing if you plan to deep-six me and put a ringer in my place."

"I have no such plan. I recruited Mrs. Blake just today -- as your people reckon calendar dates. For a long while, the two of you were living a single life. But at one point, the Main Bough timeline bifurcated and she began a separate existence of her own."

"If you already have a pet Mantra, why do you need me?"

"Because the coming disaster is aimed at this Main Bough and it can be most effectively defended by one who is a natural resident of this universe. I'm of this time and universe, and so are you."

The other Lukasz shook her head and said, "Look, bro, the little guy is weird, but he's made me a believer. I only wish I could do the job he wants you to do since my life is a wreck, and I don't have a whole lot to lose."

"What does she mean her life's a wreck?" I asked Gabriel.

"Don't talk over my head as if I'm not here!" my double growled. "My kids -- my own Evie and Gus -- are dead. There! You made me say it. Are you happy?"

That set me back on my heels. "Dead? How?"

"Rune!" she said with a bitter grate. "He wanted the Sword of Fangs and took Gus and Evie hostage to coerce me into making a trade. I didn't trust his word, so I gathered a gang of ultras to help me take him on. But he saw us coming and killed the children before we could lower the boom."

I knew about Rune – an alien creature with incredible power and vampiric habits. I'd met him more than once and had barely survived the encounters.

"I'm sorry," I said. "But you have to realize that Rune would have killed the kids no matter what you did. He relishes killing."

She looked away. "I know that's true. I've been telling myself the same thing every day since the murders happened."

I knew how she felt. I'd seen a Time-clone version of my son Gus die right before my eyes. That, too, happened because I had made a wrong choice.

"When does Rune strike?" I asked through a tight throat.

"For me, it was October 17, next month," she said. "But I've already lived two years since then. It happened because of a stupid mistake I'd made on the Godwheel. I called Eden Blake by her own name in front of some 'friends.' But one of them was Rune in disguise. That bit of information allowed him to track down the Blake family in my universe and take me surprise."

A shiver ran through me. I had made that exact same mistake. But in my reality, Rune had flown through a gate into another universe – to hopefully never return.

I clenched my fists. "Well, I'm going to make sure that it won't happen in this world's future. One way or another, I'm going to kill that blood-sucking bastard if he shows up in this universe again!"

"I hope you can do that," the other Lukasz said. "But Gabriel tells me that you're going to die tomorrow. If you want to save yourself and your family, I suggest you take seriously what the gentleman is trying to tell you."

This was too absurd! Now I was being browbeaten by myself! This conversation was giving me a headache.

I tossed a frown to Gabriel. "What, exactly, is this journey you were talking about?" I demanded.

Suddenly, the world spun.

Out of blankness, a scene quickly rematerialized around me. When I could see again, I wasn't in Canoga Park anymore.

I was in a medieval-style alehouse built from sturdy timber and stone. The tart smoke filling the air was already laden with the bouquet of fermented beverages and other repulsive odors reminiscent of the Middle Ages. My daze now wearing off, I noticed that the people filling the tavern stools were wearing costumes unfashionable since the Tenth Century.

Incredible! I knew this wasn't just any alehouse; I recognized it as an establishment I knew. It was the Dark Shoppe! Centuries ago, that fabled place had served as a clearing house for arcane information. In those days, it had been run by a prophetess.

What had been her name? Diana.

Just then, a raucous male voice sounded off:

"'God's Blood, wench! From whence hast thou appeared in the wink of an eye? If I did not know this place, I would be damning myself for a drunken sot. But the Dark Shoppe e'er hath been a place of miracles. Tell me, lass, hail ye from Faery, or art thou of mortal kind?"

I turned to behold a large knight seated at a table and clutching a tankard in his oversized fist.

"Your name, sir knight?" I asked cautiously, addressing him in the same dialect of Old French that he'd used.

"Sir Lukasz at thy service," he said cheerily. Nudging the youth seated next to him, he added, "And this callow good-for-nothing is my squire, Thanasi."

I was staggered. Yet, why should it surprise me to be confronting Lukasz and Thanasi centuries in the past? Hadn't I just come from interviewing Eden Blake about a babysitting job?

"Cry mercy! What costume be'eth that, milady?" my mail-clad alter-ego inquired. "Art thou pursued by villains and compelled to travel in male attire? Faith, madam! Not e'en the most cracked-brained varlet couldst e'er mistake thee for a boy."

When I looked away, he persisted: "Fair one, tarriest a while. I would fain know thee better."

I was seriously thinking about speaking to him. By pretending to be a prophet friend of Diana, I could alert my counterpart to bad things coming down the chute. I could even have warned him about Thanasi.

But should I do such a thing? Wasn't it dangerous to meddle with history? By trying to help Lukasz, I might get him killed before his time. After all, when I intervened to help a time-clone of my babysitter, Lauren Sherwood, she was attacked and slain. On the other hand, if I let the knight go his own way, I could count on him surviving for another thousand years.

As I vacillated, Gabriel took me by the arm. "Come," he whispered.

"Lady!" the knight called after us -- but I didn't look back. The Lukasz of this era had concerns of his own. Those concerns meant little to me now that I was neck deep in the issues of the Twenty-first century.

"Gabriel," I said to the little man, "this is nuts. Why did you bring me here? I'm impressed, but all this has to be an illusion. Take me home – now!"

"Not yet. You are here to gain vital information. The person whom I most wish you to meet in the Dark Shoppe is not Sir Lukasz. You remember Diana the Mystic, I presume?"

"Of course. Is Diana here?"

I glanced from side to side. Through the smoky air, I saw the raven-haired Mystic standing by a plank table watching us.

As we approached the Mystic, she addressed Gabriel. "I had no alert that you were coming. Who's your attractive friend?"

"You should soon be getting a VIGOPS download; that will explain everything."

She sighed. "I can't wait. But the bull-in-the-china-shop way that you've come barging into my timeline tells me I've just been cloned again."

The little man smiled. "It's all for a good cause, Diana. Creating a new copy of you will start to make up for the casualties that two of your clones have unfortunately suffered."

She blinked with surprise. "I hope they didn't suffer too much, at least not like some of the others have."

I looked askance. How could she be so cold as not to show more reaction to learning of the deaths of persons who were, essentially, her identical sisters?

The Timekeeper clicked his tongue commiseratively. "Their attacker was a possessed demigoddess. Such power! Their suffering must have lasted less than a second. On the other hand, your original self is still well and thriving."

Diana shook her head. "Wonderful! A few minutes ago, I was the original, and now I've gotten a downgrade. I sometimes wonder why I agreed to live like this!" Then, with a grim smile, she looked at me and asked, "Can I offer you two a platter with a tankard?"

I demurred. "I don't think my Twentieth Century body could survive the microbes that swarm all over the Tenth Century. Anyway, I just ate at the mall."

"You'd probably be safe. I've trained my cook staff to prepare food according to Twentieth Century standards."

I suddenly had to wonder whether Diana had been originally a medieval or a Twenty-First-Century human. Of course! Her accent, which I had always found so unplaceable, was actually Old French spoken with the cadence of American English.

Before I could ask her to verify that, the Mystic froze, her glance fixed and staring through me. I looked bemusedly toward Gabriel.

"She's fine," said the man. "Diana is merely receiving the VIGOPS update I mentioned. I arranged for it just before bringing us here. All Timekeeper agents need to be kept well informed concerning unfolding events."

"This is as strange as hell," I told him, "but so far nothing here makes me believe in gods and doomsdays."

The scientist shook his head. "I think you will change your mind. Maybe Diana can help convince you."

"It wasn't like the two of us used to be close or anything," I said.

He grinned slightly. "My information tells me that the two of you were closer than you may have supposed, especially on her side."

Admittedly, I'd always thought that Diana was a looker. Also, I liked her personality. But my wife Marinna had been murdered on a sacrificial altar before my eyes, and my memory of her had always prevented me from getting serious about any other woman.

I changed the subject. "You said before that there's a god in this woodpile," I replied. "Why do you think I can handle him alone? Why not bring in another hundred ultras to improve the odds?"

"I assure you, if we had a hundred gods who were the equals of Loki and Thor, they could not prevail against such an adversary as Nemesis."

I threw up my hands. "Are you kidding? The horned god by himself was strong enough to have me for supper. And I don't think Thor would have been any pushover either."

The Timekeeper grimaced. "Do not underestimate yourself, Eden. You have vital skills; an army traveling with you would only get in your way."

"Whew!" Diana suddenly spoke up. "The download I just got was certainly informative! As if I didn't have enough problems, I've found out the Multiverse is about to end."

Then she glanced my way. "Is it true that you are, in spirit at least, the same person as that knight who's presently sitting across the room?"

I looked back at Sir Lukasz. He was still staring at me. I wondered if I could cool his ardor for my body by reminding him of his deceased wife Marinna.

"Yeah, that's me. Don't ask me to explain," I said.

She shook her head resignedly. "I've been living with time paradoxes for so long that I don't find much that can still surprise me. I've learned that you've become an ultra and have a family. How are you holding up?"

"It's not so great being an ultra." In that alternate world that Gabriel sent me to, I discovered that the only thing worse than being an ultra is not being one.

"How is it being a mother?"

"If you play your cards right, you can find out for yourself," I said.

"I've always let my professional life get in the way of my personal life. I think you've been living in that trap for a long time, too."

"Di, there's something I always wondered," I said. "You always seem the same age every time I've met you over the centuries. How does that work?"

She shrugged. "Advanced science. I receive age-retardant treatments, though I still age very slowly. When age becomes a problem, there's a technology to rejuvenate me, cell by cell. If you decide to work with the Timekeepers, you can receive the same perk." Then she added with a smirk. "With a body like yours, you really should preserve it!"

"I hope that's not necessary. My old master Archimage never aged as long as I knew him, and he told me that my magic would keep me young, too. But my question right now is whether I can believe what Gabriel is telling me. What do you say about that?"

"I could give you an opinion, but the question has many ramifications. It's hard to decide where to begin."

"A person seldom goes wrong if he starts at the beginning," I advised her.

"When you're a time traveler," Diana said, "it's hard to tell the end from the beginning."

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 4

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 4

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Eden Chap 4.jpg

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Chapter 4

A Guillotine for a God

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I saw amusement in Diana's eyes. "When you ask about beginnings, you don't know what you're asking," she said.

"Oh, come on! Everything, even insanity, has a beginning somewhere," I replied.

"Let me say it this way: In the beginning, there was darkness...."

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"Maybe you actually don't want to hear the story from the beginning. In that case, I'll cut to the chase. How much do you know about the old Gnostics?"

To tell the truth, I didn't know a lot about that cult. The Gnostics were a persecuted Christian sect attacked by every other religion in their world. After 450 AD, the year in which I was born, only one sect of Gnostics remained, lingering on in western Asia. They were called the Manicheans. But even they were destroyed by persecution before the end of the Middle Ages.

"The Gnostics," continued Diana, "somehow knew that the god who had created the universe had himself been a created being. His creator, the supreme god, was incomprehensible and unknowable. It was this flawed, created god called the Demiurge who created all the universes. He lived, did amazing things, and then died."

"The Creator God died?" I asked.

"One would say to, but the Demiurge did not die in the ordinary sense."

"He made a close escape?"

"No, he committed suicide."

"What for? Like, if a god doesn't have everything going for him, who does?" I asked.

"One of his flaws was that he could become lonely. For eons, the Demiurge sought to create others who were as brilliant as he was and worthy to be his companions. But every sentient race he called into being proved to be inferior. Due to his own innate flaws, the Demiurge could do naught but create beings even more flawed than he himself was.

"So he got so lonely he checked himself out?" I asked.

Gabriel spoke up. "That's woefully correct, Eden. By applying his immense intellect to the problem of his own self-destruction, he found a way to end his immortality – or at least he thought he did."

"What did the idiot finally do?"

Diana chimed in again. "He created a – a suicide platform -- a sort of hangman's scaffold. The platform was a rudimentary universe created only for that purpose. Standing in that universe, the Demiurge opened a portal to an already existing universe and placed his head into it. His disastrous mistake was to place his head into the Main Bough of the Tree of Eternity."

"Do you mean our Main Bough?"

"I'm afraid so."

I sighed. "It sounds like this story is heading for a bad ending."

"Very astute! Unfortunately, we're living that ending now," said Gabriel.

"So, he chopped off his own head. Is the head in our universe now and causing all this trouble?"

"I'm afraid so," our hostess affirmed.

"Why did that cosmic nutcase pick our universe to bother?" I asked.

"Because ours was the pride of his creation work," Gabriel interjected. "Nothing else he had created ever equaled it. It was not perfect, but because it was near perfection, he wanted it to be his resting place."

Diana continued the story. "When he activated his guillotine, the dimensional door closed, shearing off his head and letting it fall into the Main Bough. His body remained in the 'Scaffold Universe.'"

"So what's the catch in all this? I'm pretty sure that there's a catch and that it's a doozy."

"The body he left behind in the Scaffold Universe decayed and became toxic. It became six individual gems called the Infinity Gems. Each Gem preserved a different attribute of the dead god -- control of Reality, Mind, Space, Power, Soul, and Time. They comprised the Creator god's power only lacking his unifying intelligence."

"Are you talking about his head -- the head that fell into our world?" I asked.

"Yes," said Diana. The head that fell to Earth congealed into a seventh Gem – the Ego Gem. It was the repository of what was left of the god's self-awareness.

"The six Infinity Gems repeatedly threatened to destroy the the Scaffold Universe, but the destruction of that inferior universe would not have harmed the Tree of Eternity, any more than would pulling a rotten tooth. But the Ego Gem still lived, waiting for the day it could reunite with the lesser Gems that had been derived from its dead body. Unfortunately, the Ego Gem was completely insane, because it held only the intellect of the Demiurge, not his spirit. Intellect without a moral, living spirit is a psychotic personality. However, the Ego Gem lacked meaningful power while it existed alone.

"So, what is this comedy of errors adding up to?" I asked.

Diana swallowed hard. "Eventually, the seal between the Scaffold Universe and the Main Branch of the Tree of Eternity has been gradually diminishing with time. On rare occasions, powerful beings have found ways to cross through the seal, and each time they did so, it weakened the seal further."

I frowned. "And I suppose that Thor and Rune, traipsing back and forth, did a lot of harm."

"They certainly did! And don't forget Loki's nefarious crossing also," said Gabriel. "But the blackest part of the comedy is this: When Rune returned to our reality, he brought with him terrible booty."

Rune had returned? The thought both frightened and angered me. Now my family had been made sitting ducks for that fiend's malice.

"What booty did he take?" I asked.

Diana shuddered: "He bought into our universe the six forbidden Infinity Gems. If they are ever united with the Ego Gem, the seven will merge into the Infinity Array. When that happens, it will create a mad monster that will be the veritable rebirth of the Demiurge. But this incarnation of the Demiurge will be a soulless, mechanistic reconstitution, lacking the redeeming qualities that the living Demiurge possessed."

"Wait a minute! You two expect me to go up against the totally evil and all-powerful zombie of a mad god! Don't I get any say in that?''

I had hardly been able to fight Rune to a draw due to having help from other ultras. How in hell was I supposed to go it alone against the much more terrible supernatural menace that Gabriel called Nemesis?

"Mantra, your fears are reasonable," said Gabriel. "But hear us out.

"The Mind Gem that Loki took from you was one of the seven Infinity Gems. Despite the cosmic power he commands now, he has done nothing meaningful with it except practical jokes. But the Ego Gem seeks to unite with the Six and has possessed Sersi, a goddess from the Scaffold Universe. The Ego Gem intends to use her power to wrest the Infinity Array from Loki and recreate itself as Nemesis!"

"Are you saying that by losing to Loki, I set the universe -- the Multiverse – on the road to destruction?"

"Do not fault yourself, Eden. You were never a match for the Asgardian trickster. It would have taken a team of ultras assisting you to fend off such a being as Loki."

Did I dare believe him? Archimage had lied to me for many centuries. How could I trust what these strangers were telling me? They might be trying to dupe me into doing something nefarious. How could I know what was real and what was not?

"So," I said stiffly, "if the six Gems fall into the orbit of the Ego Gem, will it be worse than if Loki keeps them?"

"Infinitely so," averred Gabriel.

"Can't you time travel into the future and take a peek at what happens?"

"The Timekeepers have already done that. They have learned that Loki will lose the Gems to the Ego Gem."

"That sucks, but let me understand. You're saying that the Ego Gem intends to destroy the entire Multiverse? What for?" I asked.

Gabriel clenched his fists. "The Ego Gem carries the bitter memories of the Demiurge, and the Demiurge hated imperfection. Everything that Nemesis sees will remind her of her imperfection, and she will want to destroy everything and start over again!"

"She? You've been calling the Demiurge a 'he' up to now."

The little man shrugged. "When Nemesis is recreated, it will take on a female persona. This may be for no better reason than that the Ego Gem will take on a female persona after acclimating to the body of Sersi, a demi-goddess."

"If you say so. But if this -- Nemesis -- rises, what exactly will happen?"

"She will use the power of a major god to let loose the forces of anti-Creation. But our reports say that she will fail, due to an attack by an audacious warrior. His blow will strike the Seven and cause the Nemesis Array to break into the seven individual Gems."

"That's good, isn't it?" I asked.

"It's good, but not good enough to save the Main Bough. Nemesis will be given time to release a micro-erg of energy, and the leaked energy will attack the Tree of Eternity like cancer. The Tree will fight for its life, but in the long term, it will be unable to cope.

"The toxicity of Change will eventually exhaust and collapse the Main Bough, and its breakup will bring about the collapse of the entire Multiverse. In the broader perspective, the eons of growth and accomplishment seen since Creation will vanish as if they had never been."

"What warrior gets to conk the bitch? Is it supposed to be me?"

"No. The warrior is one whom you've never met, Eden. But, even so, you've heard of him. The Black Knight."

I took that in. I had read about the Black Knight in Aladdin's reports. They said he was a run-of-the-mill adventurer, showing up seemingly from nowhere. There apparently wasn't much to the man except pluck and a glowing sword. For some unknown reason, this third-stringer had been inducted into the UltraForce.

"The Black Knight is, in fact, an intruder from the Scaffold Universe," Diana explained. "He came to your universe to find and reclaim his exiled lover, Sersi."

"Are you kidding?!" I said. "Some dude with nothing much going for him manages to shack up with a goddess and then goes on to smash what's left of the god who created the Multiverse?"

Gabriel smiled woefully. "Our best hope is to rewrite future events so that Sersi does not claim the Gems. The menace will vanish, and the Knight will never have to fight that failed battle."

"How much do you know about this upcoming disaster?" I asked.

"Not everything is clear as yet. From the information I extracted from the central VIGOPS, we know that even a tiny particle of the god-energy escaping from Nemesis will be enough to send the Multiverse careering to its doom. Once the process has begun, there will be no saving the Multiverse."

"Do you have any idea how to change the future?"

"As long as the events do not yet occur in Zero Time on the Main Bough, we still may intervene usefully," said the Timekeeper. "While we still have time, we must have a detailed reappraisal of the Black Knight's battle with Nemesis before a workable plan can be formulated."

"While all this is coming down," I asked, "what are the other Timekeepers going to be doing?"

Gabriel winced. "They will do...nothing," he said.

"Nothing?"

"They are planning a withdrawal aimed at maintaining their personal safety only -- supposing that the catastrophe will unleash local destruction only. By now, the Timekeepers will have finished evacuating the Main Bough," he said with disdain, "leaving our time agents with no specific orders."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Presuming you've been telling me the truth, nobody can be as dumb as your Timekeepers. Aren't their own hides on the flaying table, too?"

"Yes, they are. But because of their preconceived and incorrect ideas of how Fate works, they could not cope with reality and so have opted to flee."

"Where are your people evacuating to?" I asked. "Can it be used as a refuge for others, too?"

He gritted his teeth. "In the long term, there are no permanent refuges. When the collapse begins, it will not affect every location at once. The Timekeeper leadership intends to occupy these remote locations but their hiding places will outlast the central collapse by no more than a few centuries."

"I can't put my mind around this. I can only hope you've been lying to me all this time."

"I've been telling the truth, and the truth is that my people have behaved shamefully. I am even more exasperated with them than you are."

"I doubt that," I said.

The little man suddenly perked up. "All is not lost, Mantra. Michael, the former leader of the Timekeepers' field division, created new technological aids that I still possess."

"Former leader?"

He was arrested and evacuated by force with the Timekeeper leadership. Fortunately, Michael took extraordinary measures to conceal my membership in his group. I hid myself until our race departed from this universe. Only then did I gain freedom of action."

"Where does that leave us?"

I thought I saw optimism in Gabriel's glance -- forced optimism, I supposed.

"Though the Timekeepers have refused to act," he said, "I was able to appropriate their secret files concerning the looming disaster. There may be something in the data that will suggest a way to circumvent future events."

"You mean all you have to hope for is a 'maybe'?"

"Not at all. We have our own minds and imaginations. Michael did a great deal of preparatory work using his inborn assets."

"So, your leader was called Michael? Do all you Timekeepers name yourselves after Archangels?"

"Of course not. There are only seven Archangels."

I shook my head. "Okay, I get it. You're basically all alone and a renegade. I don't scorn you for that; I've done some of my best work with the help of renegades. But I'd feel a lot better if we had a super-civilization backing us up."

Gabriel's optimism was looking rather sheepish just then. "I know I'm expecting a great deal from you. In fact, I was tempted to lie to you lest the immensity of our task discourage you, but I ultimately decided that truth is the best policy."

I turned toward Diane. "How much do you know about this fiasco?"

She sighed. "I've gotten the full briefing only lately. It's grim, I admit, but I'm hopeful that Gabriel is on the right path. Getting your help will surely improve his chances."

"Don't you dare put this on me!" I snared. Oh, brother! These diehards were expecting me to straighten out a messed up situation that had been going wrong for millions of years!

"We will have two opportunities to avoid disaster," said the small man. "If we can prevent Sersi from taking the Infinity Gems from Loki the future is saved. If we fail in that, we must discover whether there are any exploitable variables in the Black Knight's clash with Nemesis. In either case, we may discover some opportunity we may exploit to avoid the collapse of the Multiverse."

I scowled. "You make it sound so easy, Gabe. What if your hopes are cockeyed?"

"Give Gabriel a break!" exclaimed Diana. "He's already accomplished a lot on his own. What Gabriel lacks is in the resource department. Are you willing to become a resource for him or not?"

"Why me? How about you becoming his ride-along assistant?" I asked.

Diana threw up her hands. "If I could do more, I would." She glanced across the room. "Lukasz -- the other Lukasz – has been waiting to speak to me. On the off-chance that Creation survives, I still have a job to do."

I looked toward the middle of the tavern room and observed that Lukasz and Thanasi were still quaffing ale. "Say, Di," I called after her, "would it mess up history if I warned my old self about some of the crap that's coming down the chute over the next thousand years?"

The time agent paused and looked back at me. "Any interference you do will only affect this timeline, not the Main Bough."

I guess that answered my question.

"Eden," said Gabriel from over my shoulder, "the time for action is now. You have to make a leap of faith -- perhaps the greatest you have ever made. You must also believe success is possible."

"I'm keeping an open mind," I said.

He shook his head. "I will do nothing to coerce you, warrior. But you must understand that if you undertake this task, much will be asked of you."

"What, precisely, do you expect from me? And if I agree to do this crazy job and get killed, what happens to the kids back home?"

"The alternate Mantra has vowed to keep your death secret from them and to rear them as her own. She will even take over your identity in Canoga Park."

"But if we fail, Holy Hell is going to come down on Canoga Park, right?'

"True. All I can say is that if we fail and you are slain, I promise to take the children and their new mother into a remote timeline, one that should not collapse until well after the end of the youngsters' natural lifespans."

"Well, that's something. But before I agree to anything you'd better tell me everything you know. And don't leave out the details; I hate missing details!"

Why had I just said that? Was I starting to believe this nut stuff?

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 5

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 5

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Eden Blake Chapter 5.jpg

Posted 06-18-24

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Chapter 5

The Third Force

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Let me specify," Gabriel said to me. "To accomplish what we must, we must journey together beyond the boundaries that you never imagined could be crossed. You will find yourself addressing an entirely new perspective involving the secrets of Creation."

"I see. So, what's the downside?"

"To function efficiently, you must acquire the same enhancements received by our official time agents, such as Diana."

"Enhancements? Screw that! If I let your tech into my body, you could turn me into a controlled shell of myself!"

"I assure you, Mantra, your persona will not be overwritten. You must remain the capable person you are. The enhancements I speak of are necessary to accomplish the task ahead of us."

"So you say, but how can I trust a person with powers like yours? I once trusted a man I shouldn't have, and look where I ended up!"

"You are alluding to Archimage and that is, of course, true. But for all his faults, Archimage set you on a course leading to your becoming a consummate ultra-hero."

"I think you mean ultra-heroine! I didn't ask for this! My life was complex enough the way it was!"

"I seem to recall that when you lost your ultra-powers, you very much missed them."

I tossed my head. "Why wouldn't I? My powers have been the only good thing I've gotten out of this deal!"

"Haven't you gained comfort in being part of a family?"

"Don't bring the kids into this! I'm willing to play along with you for a while unless I decide you're not playing straight with me. If you're using me for a dupe, I may have to introduce you to my Sword of Fangs!"

"It's a bargain!" he said, offering me his hand. This time, I decided to take it.

"What happens next?" I asked.

"It's already happened."

I frowned. "Nothing's happened."

"Something has happened, but it played out in attenuated time while you were in suspended animation."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying you have undergone an extensive modification process while we've been standing here."

"I didn't agree to anything like that!"

"Oh, excuse me. I thought you did. We shook on it, as your people say. It is lamentable that language is such an inefficient mode of communication."

I might have done something violent had I not then been distracted by strange feelings. Nothing around me looked quite the same. My perceptions were sharpened. My mind had become keener, like radio a souped-up to receive new wavelengths.

"Your nanobots have been tied into the same VIGOPS feed as the rest of our time-agent corps. You will learn how to draw upon the information it provides, but it must be done slowly. Too much information at once overwhelms a human mind."

"I don't like the sound of this!"

"The new configuration you've received is harmless! Think of yourself as a computer that has gotten an extensive upgrade. The programming will operate for your benefit without you needing to think about it."

I thought he was describing a cyborg! Damn! I should have killed the fat little rat before letting him touch me!

I was taken off guard by Gabriel's next question. "Mantra, what do you think we should do next?"

"You're asking me?"

"This is a test of your VIGOPS access. How should we address the obstacles ahead of us?"

"How do I answer that? What do I know about the obstacles we're facing?"

"You do know about them because the VIGOPS knows. Contemplate the question, and our options will manifest in your mind."

I thought for a moment. "The one thing coming through loud and clear is that we should be aggressive. We should kill that bitch Sersi before she hooks up with the Ego Gem. Wouldn't that be the logical step?"

"It certainly would be, but the Gem already controls Sersi in zero time. As you might say, we are forced to play the cards we've been dealt."

"If you want better answers, why don't you ask them yourself?"

"I do, constantly. But we can accomplish so much more as a team. Now, tell me, what other inspirations do you have?"

Deciding to play along, I said, "We need more information. Getting it should be our priority. I'm one of those people who doesn't like to have grass growing under his feet."

"Very well, we commence an intense investigation," the Timekeeper affirmed.

In a flash, we were out of the Dark Shoppe and occupying a region with an imprecise and unreal look. The only distinct in sight was an object -- a vehicle, I thought -- parked ahead of us. I somehow knew that the object was Gabriel's "Time Capsule," a metal thing structured like a piece of tubing. The little man crossed to it, opened a hatch, and invited me inside. When I entered, I saw that the Time Capsule was larger on the inside than it was on the outside!

Gabriel began a spiel about "Inter-dimensional engineering" while leading me on a tour of the Time Capsule. I couldn't believe its size! It was like exploring a city. No person was going to get claustrophobic while occupying the thing!

On the other hand, that uninhabited place made me feel as lonely as all hell!

After my awe had worn off, I asked the Timekeeper, "If nothing that happens in zero-time can be changed, what is the situation? What's going on in zero time at this exact microsecond?"

Gabriel answered with a twinkle in his eyes and I began to get a feed from the VIGOPS. The gist of the tale it told was that several other heroes, ultra types hailing from the Scaffold Universe, had arrived on the Main Bough. They represented a group called "the Avengers" that had come searching for their ally Sersi, who was missing from their home world. These beings included the god Thor, whom I had already met.

The VIGOPS further informed me that upon entering this timeline, the Avengers had fallen into the power of Loki, who had been super-charged by his control of the Infinity Array. The nut-case god forced them into a kind of gladiatorial competition against ultras abducted from my own Earth. These ultras happened to be the UltraForce, most of whom I knew slightly. Furthermore, I was informed that Sersi had not yet gained possession of the Infinity Array.

"Can we intervene and stop her?" I asked my companion.

"Possibly," Gabriel replied. "Are you ready to embark on an adventure?"

"Where are we going?"

"To a place that the VIGOPS tells me is very primitive and dangerous. You have heard of it."

"Heard of what?"

"New York City."

The Time Capsule we occupied started making noises like musical instruments being badly played. The next thing I knew, the monitors let us know we were hovering over the Bad Apple.

I suddenly understood that this scene was about to become a battlefield between an alliance of the Avengers and the UltraForce against the zombie god Nemesis. We had entered a timeline recently cloned from the Main Bough, looking at events that had not occurred in my world as yet. Gabriel intended to run a controlled experiment in this place. He wanted to see what would happen if we failed in our effort to interrupt the march of events.

My informational download told me Nemesis had successfully snatched the six gems from Loki. The God of Mischief, who had defeated me so handily the month before, had proved to be no match for the resurrected Nemesis and had slunk away, leaving the saving of the Multiverse to the Avengers and the UltraForce.

I thought I was about to watch a rousing good battle, but my monitor had not been configured for a viewer's entertainment. All I could see were flying figures in the distance.

Then it all went dark.

"What happened?" I asked Gabriel.

"Eureka!" he exclaimed.

"Eureka? Is that good?"

"It's very good," he replied.

"Why did the screen go dark?"

"That was caused by the self-defense system of the Time Capsule. It's programmed to avoid destruction. If we had remained in that timeline, released Nemesis Energy would have obliterated us along with the entire timeline.”

“That’s it? That’s how a universe dies?”

"Unfortunately, yes. But before we left, the VIGOPS recorded a secret. Something hitherto unexpected occurred there. It seems to be a mystery wrapped in an enigma."

"Tell me straight, Winston Churchill, what did you find out?"

"We have discovered an overlooked event that defies the Law of Conservation of Energy."

"So what? I thought Timekeeper science was way more sophisticated than the scientific notions of the planet Earth."

"That is true, but Émilie du Châtelet's basic concept of his law was not wrong. The problem is that Earth's physicists have understood that basic concept. "

"I didn't see anything noteworthy on my monitor. What did you see?"

"Not a great deal more than that. Even my trained eyes and expanded mind failed to notice all the action. But the subtext of the event has been recorded by the VIGOPS."

"Don't hold me in suspense. Have we learned how to save the Multiverse in zero time?"

"No, it is still doomed."

"Oh, bugger!"

"But we have learned that a third force was engaged in the conflict we just witnessed."

"On whose side was it?"

"It was on our side, definitely!"

"So some hidden party was secretly helping us?"

"Yes! In truth, we now know that the Black Knight played only a small part in Nemesis' defeat. It was this third factor that delivered the destroying blow. And the blow, I must say, was infinitely more sophisticated than the knight’s sword blow."

"But this secret flanking maneuver was still ineffective, you say?"

"Lamentably, yes. The intervention was not one hundred percent effective. The particle of Nemesis Energy that escaped from the god’s directed will cause the entire timeline to blink out of existence."

"That timeline is missing now?"

"Not exactly. I advise you to ask consult the VIGOPS. Time is pressing and you need practice in mastering your assets."

I did as he asked and realized that the clone world's original timeline had been replaced with an imperfect copy, a phenomenon I had witnessed on that wacky timeline I had been trapped in for a few days.

"If we can properly interpret the information we now have,” said Gabriel, "we may return to the Main Bough with knowledge enough to defeat Nemesis!"

"How easy will that be?" I asked.

"It will not be easy, but at least we have discovered a new road to success."

"What about killing Sersi? Wasting her still sounds like a good idea to me."

"We shall leave that possibility open. But if we discover and identify the third force, we may have an easier time of it."

"So, what do we know for certain?" I asked.

"By the current analysis, some force that we do not yet know about intervened in the battle and intercepted the great majority of the energy released by Nemesis. In a strange application of the Law of Conservation of Energy, it was converted into harmless electromagnetic wave energy."

"How harmless?"

"As harmless as visible light."

"Wait a minute! Nemesis is supposed to command energy powerful enough to destroy the Multiverse. Are you saying it was changed into a few megawatts of visible light? Shouldn't there have been enough energy to fuel a supernova?"

"Far more than that, one would think. The VIGOPS is still trying to understand the actual physics of the phenomenon."

"Where does that leave us?" I asked.

The little man looked elated. "If a force, or a being, can do a thing so incredible, we need to bring that phenomenon into our own Main Bough. If the Main Bough can be saved, the entire Multiverse will be saved with it. Our task is to discover how that energy-conversion field came to be applied against Nemesis and how it can be made even more effective."

"Effective enough to save the Multiverse?"

"Yes, that is my hope!"

The monitors came on just then, displaying us in a completely different location.

"Where have we just ended up?" I asked.

He frowned down at his monitor. "We're back on the Main Bough. We have already begun our pursuit of the third force as it exists in zero time. The VIGOPS is currently creating a broad search pattern to discover the phenomenon. When it is found, we shall go after it!"

"Do we have time to carry out any long search?"

"No, we do not, but the search is being carried out in attenuated time. We have been sensible of a few passing minutes. That means tracing the third force must be an extraordinarily difficult task for the VIGOPS. I've never seen it take so long as this."

"So, what can we usefully do while we're waiting?" I asked.

"We can greatly profit from reordering our thinking. One cannot solve a problem until first he knows the proper questions."

"What are the proper questions?"

And so he told me.

Wow! It now appeared that we would have quite a day ahead of us!

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 6

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 6

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Posted 07-16-24
Revised 07-19-24

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Chapter 6

The Hellscape

“By seeking and blundering we learn.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
.

Gabriel suddenly shouted from behind me. “Mantra! I found it!”

I came into the control room. The little man had changed his clothes while I’d been away and was now wearing a quilted white suit. I thought it made him look fat. “Aren’t you going to say eureka?” I asked.

“I dare say I should!”

"Time is wasting. What did you spy with your little eye?"

"I spied -- I saw – what the Third Force is”

“So what is it?”

“It’s a woman."

"A woman? A human woman?" I asked.

"She’s distinctly human, but her power ratings are astonishing! She must be an ultra – an ultra of almost unimaginable potency. But she wasn't at the battle alone; she had the Time Gem and Reality Gem on her person.”

“But Nemesis had the seven gems. How did she get her hands on two of them – or are they time-clones?”

“No, the readings say that they’re the originals! It’s a paradox, I grant.”

“If something is impossible, maybe it isn’t true. What’s going on?”

“I’ll have to put the VIGOPS to work resolving the problem. But now it's vital to find out the identity of this woman."

The mystery woman appearing on his screen appeared to be young and attractive.

He exclaimed: "Now!"

"Now, what?"

“Now is the time to run our recognition software,” the Timekeeper said.

"Don’t bother," I sighed.

Gabriel glanced up. “Why not?”

"Because I know her.”

“Who is she?”

“That's Amber Hunt."

Again I had to ask myself, what did Amber Hunt have to do with all this? When I was in the alternate world that Gabriel sent me to, Hunt's name kept turning up, like a bad penny. She had been identified as part of an ultra gang suspected of destroying twenty-five percent of New York City.

I'd seen her from a distance before, but my best information came from my perusal of the Aladdin files. About two years before, Hunt had been an unremarkable college girl. Unfortunately, she had inherited a rare disease called the Theta Virus and had only narrowly avoided dying from it.

I already knew a little about the Theta Virus. Just months before, Warstrike and I had learned that Aladdin was involved in a treasonous project that involved the Virus.

The Theta Virus had come to Earth inside a UFO that had crashed in Germany in the 1920’s. The Weimar Germans had experimented with the virus culture that they had salvaged, but when the Nazis took over, Hitler saw the amazing possibilities in weaponizing the Virus. By using the Theta Virus, it seemed possible to create an unlimited number of ultras, enough to defeat all the major powers arrayed against Germany. He called his plan the "Übermensch project" and gave it as much priority as he was giving to the rocket and A-bomb programs.

The German scientists ran the core of the Übermensch project out of one of their prisoner-of-war camps that included many captured Americans, mostly airmen. The SS hoped that the Allied air command would not bomb a facility housing their servicemen but the President overwrote all advice to the contrary and ordered a hard bombing, regardless. The destroyed lab released the Theta Virus into the open air, causing widespread infection among the Allied and Axis personnel.

While the Virus had no direct effect on healthy people, it made subtle changes to their DNA, so that their future children were born infected with altered DNA. When these reached early adulthood, they would die. Often, these unfortunates sometimes left behind children, to whom they had passed down the legacy of their Theta infection.

However, German research had developed a vaccine to preserve the lives of the infected people, allowing them to live and develop ultra powers. The most promising of these had come of age when the war was at its height, and they were formed into "blitzkrieg squads" that became bad news for the enemy alliance. By early 1945, however, the overwhelming Allied air power managed to destroy the German facilities making the serum needed to keep the supermen alive. Even the longest-lived of the Nazi ultras did not endure much beyond the war's end. The Allies were avid to create super-soldiers of their own and did all they could to capture the Third Reich’s Übermensch project documentation, but acquired only some incomplete material. Using what they had, the Americans began black ops projects to create Theta-based ultras, all of them under the control of the American Deep State.

Decades later, an American research scientist named Dr. Rachel Deming was recruited into one such project whicih fortuitously gave her access to information concerning the Übermensch project. She realized that the most rotten parts of the government intended to create a super secret police force to take over the American nation and rule despotically. Her goal was to create a counter force of patriotic ultras to oppose the plot and, to achieve this aim, she absconded with the most vital documentation.

Deming stayed undercover for years, setting up a laboratory on a private island and advancing the work started by the Third Reich and by the American security services. She found infected people, saved their lives, and recruited them into an ultra team dubbed “the Exiles.”

Dr. Deming created a better Virus treatment than had the Nazis. The last Theta victim brought into her project had been Amber Hunt. According to Aladdin, Hunt had an infected POW for a great-grandfather. Due to the virus, all family members of Amber’s direct bloodline had died in early adulthood, but Dr. Deming intervened in time to save her life.

But an accidental explosion suddenly wiped out the laboratory, killing or crippling most of the Exiles team. Amber Hunt survived, but when she reappeared in public, she was super powerful and behaved as if violently insane.

But as powerful as she was, would it be enough to confront the zombie god Nemesis?

“Gabriel,” I asked, “how could a human body -- even an ultra-human’s body -- absorb the immense god-power of Nemesis?"

"I can’t really say," the Timekeeper replied thoughtfully. "Possibly she was helped by the Time and Reality Gems.”

"I just wonder…” I muttered out loud.

"What do you wonder?"

"It seems like too much of a coincidence that the planet Earth should have on hand an ultra at exactly the right time and possessing the right powers to handle a crisis like this. I have to wonder whether Amber Hunt’s empowerment wasn’t planned by design."

“Planned by whom?” Gabriel asked.

“Planned by someone a lot bigger than Nemesis."

The Timekeeper sent me a bright smile. “You must be speaking about the One who was the maker of the Demiurge. For all our efforts, we Timekeepers have discovered very little about that entity. If your hypothesis should turn out to be true, it would be wonderful, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t have supposed that super scientists like the Time-Keepers would believe in a supreme god," I said.

“Why not? We know that the Demiurge existed. Isn't the Supreme One only a single step above him?"

"I suppose. But why would the supreme power of the Multiverse work so indirectly? Why would he offer his help indirectly through fallible people like us and the Theta Virus? Why not just point at Nemesis and say, "You don't exist anymore!"

“That is a question I cannot answer,” Gabriel sighed.

“Can you answer another question: How can we find that missing kid before it’s too late?"

Gabriel pointed to his main instrument panel. "We'll follow Miss Hunt’s energy signature.”

“How do we get her energy signature?”

“We already have it! The VIGOPS recorded it when we were near her during the battle above New York.”

“But that happened on an alternate timeline! I thought we couldn’t use people who don’t come from the Main Bough!”

“The lucky fact is that time-clones tend to have the same energy signature as do their Main Bough originals. Now that we’ve returned to the Main Bough, we will seek that energy signature’s match on this timeline.”

"So, our next step has to be a manhunt? A woman hunt?"

"Exactly," Gabriel affirmed. “When we locate Miss Hunt, we’ll ask her to help us do what she is predestined to do anyway. But this time, we’ll help her do it better, thereby saving the Multiverse."

"I get it,” I said. “But how exactly are we supposed to make it better?”

“I’m not certain. Hopefully, the events of this journey will show us the proper way,” he said.

That wasn’t much of a pep talk, but something was bothering me, something that I hadn’t thought about before. Namely, Amber Hunt wasn’t just a soulless killing machine. She had been an ordinary girl born with a tragic illness. It didn't seem right that Gabriel might sacrifice her ruthlessly for the cause of the greater good.

But, of course, he had to! And, Hell, I’d do the same thing if it were left to me! I’d hate it, but I’d still do it.

By then I'd been up a long time and had gone through some powerful emotional stuff. I needed serious rest. I dropped off too sleep in one of the passenger cabins and, when I woke up, Gabriel was standing by my cot. “I hope you had a good slumber,” he said. “By the way, we’re at the location where we will soon be able to rendezvous with Amber Hunt,” the Timekeeper said.

“How long have we been here?” I asked.

“About five hours.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up sooner?” I demanded.

"You need to be in top form. The road ahead may be very taxing. Besides, we haven't been appreciably delayed. You were sleeping in an attenuated time field.”

I threw off the covers and stood up. “Where are we?”

“Take a look for yourself!”

I went back to the control center and took a gander through the viewing port. What I saw below wasn’t anything like I expected.

I wasn't looking at any Planet Z in the Sagittarian Arm of the Galaxy. Instead, I was staring down at my hometown -- Los Angeles, California.

What? Had Amber Hunt been hiding in Los Angeles all this time?

If she had, that could be the reason why the megalopolis looked mostly destroyed. The vista below us looked like a version of Los Angeles from Hell.

To be more exact, it looked like a cityscape that had escaped from a drug addict's apocalyptic nightmare.

This city by the sea was ash-gray and barely lit under a dim and dirty-looking sky. “Is that the Los Angeles on the Main Bough? It looks like it’s been through a war!” I was suddenly afraid for everyone I knew down there!

"Something terrible has occurred."

"Well, duh, I can see that much!"

"The good news is that we are no longer on the Main Bough. The energy traces we followed portaled us into a different timeline. We have arrived here a little before Amber Hunt is due to show up.”

“What’s the bad news?” I asked.

“The bad news is that this solar system we've entered is under siege by the Nemesis energy."

"How did that come about?"

"According to the analysis, Amber Hunt’s trail took us about a decade into the future. Rather appallingly, this is only solar system in this universe that our scanners can locate. The amazing thing is that this system has survived only because it is inside a field of attenuated time. Something must have placed this sun-and-planet system into such a field to prevent its destruction by the Nemesis Energy. Unfortunately, it is not any permanent fix."

“Does this throw a monkey wrench into our plan?”I asked.

“Not as long as Amber Hunt appears down there as expected."

"This is too crazy. Why don't we get serious about finishing the job so we can get back where we belong?"

“The VIGOPS is working on a plan that will allow us to do that.”

“I thought we already have a workable plan,” I said.

“We have one plan, but we'd run a high risk by using it. I’m hoping that if we discover a different route to the same end, we may achieve a better result. I only know this much: Our sensors reveal that the time field protecting this solar system is progressively weakening. A powerful force is controlling the flow of natural time, but it is not strong enough to maintain its control for much longer. My VIGOPS estimates that the protective field will collapse in a day – a day in attenuated time, I mean! But that’s only a rough guess. The VIGOPS is at work establishing a more accurate measurement."

"If the dam breaks, do we go under with everything else?" I asked.

“Our self-defense systems are very efficient, but unless we accomplish what we have come here to do, the entire Multiverse will eventually meet the end that this universe is about to, and nothing can survive that."

“Tell me, what power is strong enough to protect an entire solar system, even temporarily?"

"The VIGOPS knows of only one such source with that much power: the Infinity Gems. We already know that Amber Hunt fought the New York battle in possession of the Time Gem and the Reality Gem. The Time Gem is capable of protecting an entire solar system for a while. If I had to guess, I'd say that this is the planet where our version of Amber Hunt will acquire the Time Gem before taking it away to help her do battle with Nemesis.”

“But wouldn’t this Time Gem be no more than a temporal clone of the real one?”

“Not necessarily. The Time Gem can go where it wishes.”

While he was talking, I remained stunned by the sorry aspect of the wrecked and ruined Los Angeles below us. It was never a good place to live, not by a long shot, but it had become my home. It chilled my blood to see it reduced to little more than a cinder of its old self!

Gabriel continued excitedly. "I see indications of the Time Gem below, but not Amber Hunt or the Reality Gem. This provides empirical evidence that neither Amber Hunt nor the Reality Gem has arrived as yet. If we seize the Time Gem, Amber Hunt has to come to us! Unfortunately, our sensors can’t tell us more than that the Time Gem is somewhere in this vicinity. It must be deliberately hiding its whereabouts. The VIGOPS is seeking to narrow down its location, but that will take some time."

"If Hunt takes away the Time Gem, won't this solar system be destroyed immediately?" I asked.

"Yes, inevitably! But remember, this universe has only hours to live, regardless of what we do."

This apocalyptic puzzle box was making a nervous wreck of me! "So, when can we expect Amber Hunt to arrive?"

“The VIGOPS is working on an accurate estimate. If she’s hostile, it will be to our advantage to have the element of surprise.”

I laid another question on him. "Was it the Nemesis Energy that made a wreck of Los Angeles? Or was it the Time Gem? Or was it a nuclear attack?"

He shook his head. "None of those. The VIGOPS has detected a concentration of volcanic ash covering the face of this planet."

"Come again?"

"This planet has suffered from a super volcanic explosion affecting every continent. You may know that your Earth has been living in fear of such an eruption for decades.”

"This looks like there's been more happening here than just an ash fall. It looks as if there's been arson, rioting, rioting, and street-fighting. The Los Angeles I know has about nineteen million people, but this wreck of a city couldn’t support more than a few thousand. Do you suppose that the population has been wiped out?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. I suspect that the inhabitants here must be starving! When people battle to survive, they usually battle against other human beings. Alas, human violence often compounds the destructive effects of natural catastrophes."

Another look through the view screen didn’t make me feel any better. Would it be of use trying to help the survivors? The Nemesis energy would be breaking through soon and would blink out the entire solar system no matter what I did. The stakes were too high for us to be scattering our resources. In this crisis, we had to think with our heads, not our hearts. Capturing Amber Hunt was the only goal that mattered. As soon as we accomplished that feat, we would have to take her away so she could do what she had to do to save the entire Multiverse from annihilation!

“What do we do if Hunt doesn’t show up?” I asked.

"In that case, we would have to fall back to a less promising plan. But the odds that she will not arrive are tiny!" Gabriel at least sounded like he believed in what he was saying.

I waited for the little man to elaborate, but he instead stepped away to check his monitors.

What an annoying moment for the usually garrulous Timekeeper to become a man of few words!

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 7.

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 7

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted Aug. 2, 2024
.

Chapter 7

THE IMPOSTOR

The way you see people is the way you treat them,
And the way you treat them is what they become.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
.

"Shouldn't we decide how to subdue someone as powerful as Amber Hunt when she drops in?" I asked Gabriel.

"I’ve been giving that a good deal of thought. Do you have any suggestions, Eden?"

"No. I was hoping that you did."

"I can assure you that the VIGOPS is now reviewing all options."

"Any civilization that leaves all its thinking and planning to machinery is heading for trouble. I hope your contraption can think faster than you seem able to do!"

"Before we commit ourselves to any definite plan," said the Timekeeper, "we need to take the measure of this world by treating with its inhabitants because living minds are always wildcards. Our sensors cannot probe people's thoughts and motivations – not unless they carry our nanobots, which give us access to their innermost thoughts."

"They're not my nanobots, they're yours! And don't think that I'm going to forgive you for cramming so much weird techno junk into my body!"

“I think you will be grateful to have that ‘techno junk' backing you up once you step into this version of Los Angeles."

"You're sending me out into No Man's Land? This is not exactly the sort of resort vacation I would have picked from a brochure."

“It's an unlovely place, I grant, but to secure the intelligence we require, we need boots on the ground."

"Isn't it convenient that they have to be my boots?"

"Yes, your boots, alas. But in all fairness, you've become used to walking into danger for over a millennium and a half."

"I'm also the one who's gotten killed hundreds of times because I've walked into danger. What exactly is the problem with this world? I know they've had an issue with a super volcano, but I'm betting there is more going than we know about."

“That remains to be seen.”

"Can't your VIGOPS tell you? It seems to be able to do just about everything else."

“It can do very much, but not everything.”

“So, I'm supposed to find the Time Gem. But first I'd like to know if it's operating independently, or is someone controlling it?"

"I believe it's being controlled, but the standard procedure for Infinity Gems to choose their own masters. The gem probably knows that Amber Hunt is coming here, and it is waiting for her arrival."

"Why?"

"Because this plan was fashioned by the Time and Reality Gems. They are the true enemies of Nemesis. They are involving Amber Hunt in this because she is the ultra powerful enough to stop Nemesis from destroying the Multiverse."

“I can't make sense of the timeline you're feeding me! I thought the Time Gem rebelled against Nemesis and then came here. You're making it sound like the battle hasn't occurred yet.

"There was a time gap between the nanosecond when Time Gem abandoned Nemesis and the nano-second when it is yet to help Amber Hunt break the Infinity Array. To realize how important that gap is requires one to understand how the Time Gem conceives of time's flow."

“I can't follow you, and I don't think I want to," I said.

“Don’t feel discouraged. You are a skilled mystery-solver, but your world does not understand multi-dimensional physics. But because this whole world exists in a field of attenuated time, we cannot properly manipulate time to our advantage here. That means we have to work with speed to capture Amber Hunt and find the Time Gem.”

“Thanks a lot for putting the whole burden on my shoulders!"

"I assure you, Eden, I'm already doing everything possible to lighten your load."

"I can only take your word for that!" I said while surveying the grim landscape outside the Time Capsule. "If I have to traipse into a rat's nest like that, I'd feel safer toting a heavy gauge machine gun."

"You are right to anticipate violence, but even in your short lifetime of fifteen centuries, you've learned that force alone does not solve every problem. Sometimes diplomacy yields better results than does a powerful arm. We have different specialties, and this city needs a warrior's attention."

"But you just said that we need diplomacy here. Which is it? A blitzkrieg or a charm offensive? The faith you put in my versatility is touching."

Although I was being sarcastic, I actually didn't want Gabriel exposing himself to danger. What could the soft little fellow do if faced with a hard physical attack? If something nasty happened to him, I could never get home again, not even if I were still alive. I can travel through cosmic portals to the Godwheel, or cross between the Moon and the Earth, but I can't cross time. Also, I depended on Gabriel's know-how to save the Multiverse. I didn't have a clue!"

"But what happens if I’m killed?” I asked. “Do you already have my replacement in mind?" I couldn't forget that he had put a time clone of the Eden Blake into my home to care for the kids if I never returned.

"I don't wish to risk your safety if I can avoid it. But this city presents us with a challenge and you have superior instincts when reacting to unpredictable situations. So please, move with speed to scout out this city. Make every second count and take good care of yourself!"

"If I have to step into the fiery furnace, I'll need a suit of armor. I'd better switch into my Mantra costume."

Gabriel seemed to sense my ambivalence about doing that. "Is that a problem?" he asked.

“Maybe yes, maybe no.”

I didn't care to explain. In fact, since he knew everything else about me, he probably knew what the problem was. In August, I clashed with Loki on the Godwheel and after our skirmish, my magical armor started acting screwy. However, it still works how it did before its morphing ability became unstable.

The magic armor could tailor itself to reflect the character of the specific person wearing it. That meant it looked different on different people. When my friend Pinnacle transferred my life essence – my soul as I call it – into the body of a cloned male, it left the soul of Eden Blake in command of her own body. Unfortunately, the disembodied spirit of my enemy, Necromantra, had been following us around and took that opportunity to enter Eden's body to possess it. Whenever I wore it, it looked like a metallic version of a Miss America swimsuit. But when Thanasi's rotten spirit took control of it, it started looking like a costume out of some super-heroine porn fick.

I got the armor back after a few days and everything was fine until my encounter with Loki. Its morphing powers went bonkers then, and it started taking a new shape every little while. And some of those shapes have been even less tasteful than Necromantra's outfit.

"All right," I said to Gabriel. "I'll change inside that little room you gave me since it has a mirror."

I went to my cabin and flashed into my Mystic Closet by mental command. My reflected outfit was something I'd never seen before. I didn't find it unsuitable for public viewing, though it differed from my regular attire in unimportant details. A person who saw me wearing it might even mistake me for Mantra. My only major gripe was that the cape was overly long and capes were always catching on things.

Dressed to the nines, I hastened to rejoin Gabriel in the control room. He had already settled the Time Capsule down to earth. I rechecked the viewing port and saw that we were parked inside a dim back alley. I was ready to set out, but when I looked around the control room I couldn't see an exit to the outdoors.

"Did the exit door disappear?" I asked.

“Morphing is an automatic function of the vehicle," he said. "Because unneeded doors create structural weaknesses in an emergency, the Time Capsule eliminates them.

"If you say so, but I couldn't stay sane living in a place that was continually changing shape."

A hatch materialized before my eyes, probably at the Timekeeper's mental command. I tried the latch, and it opened. With a small leap, I made my exit.

The little man called after me, "We'll stay in communication through our nano-technological link. I’ll do my best to intervene to help you…if something goes awry."

"Thanks," I said with little enthusiasm.

The ground crunched when my feet struck it. I was standing on a bed of volcanic ash. That didn't disconcert me much; I'd had to stride across ash beds before this. There are few situations I haven't dealt with over the last fifteen hundred years -- except for one thing. I've never successfully healed a broken heart.

I magically scanned the area, wary of hidden surprises. I sensed human lifeforms located nearby and directed my steps toward the strongest source of them.

The surrounding buildings were utterly lifeless. This version of L.A. was nothing but an almost empty shell of itself.

I saw some light at the end of the alleyway. This turned out to be crudely lit fires in metal drums, apparently the apocalyptic version of streetlights. On the horizon were towering buildings, with all their hundreds of windows unlit. I was trying not to imagine doubles of Gus and Evie existing in this awful place. I winced at the thought of Gus and Evie living in such a place. Of course, maybe they weren't living. Most of the world's population must have died because of the catastrophe.

But I couldn't let myself think about such things. I needed to hold steady. If I let personal feelings distract me, my mission could become a fiasco, and I didn't dare let that happen. The stakes were way, way too high.

I made my way toward the human life traces that I’d detected. They originated behind the piles of wreckage ahead. To avoid getting bushwhacked on the ground, I took to the air and wrapped myself in a protective force field.

From aloft, the city looked like an unfixable wreck. I spotted a squad of thuggish shapes beyond a ridge of piled junk. They didn't look like anyone I'd like to meet, but I had a job to perform. While slowly descending, I maintained my force field. I wasn't expecting to find anything down there except trouble.

My boots sank into a deep bed of volcanic dust. The light was poor, and the shadows were heavy. I glimpsed movement between the mounds of wreckage. "Hello," I called out. "I'm a visitor from another town. I've dropped in to visit the local boss."

A shaggy-haired hulk of a man stepped into view. "Stay where you are, impostor!" he shouted.

My brow furrowed. I’d never been called an impostor before. Why would he think I was an imposter? Was there a clone copy of Mantra in this city? If so, how did he know that I wasn't her? Did she have a stable costume that he was used to?

"I don't like people pointing guns at me," I told the guy. "Who' s your commander?"

"Watch out; she may be an ultra," someone still hiding shouted. "If she's got half the power of the real Mantra, we'll need backup. I'll connect with His Majesty's master-at-arms."

I heard a walky-talky conversation and could only suppose that no cell service existed where were were. The survivors would be using whatever old tech they were lucky enough to unearth.

"If you guys don't like my looks, I can scram out of here," I suggested.

Just then, a telepathic communique came to me from Gabriel. "Eden, I'm pleased you are already in contact with the authorities."

"I don't have very high expectations about these 'authorities,'" I said. "Things probably won't get any better even if I meet with their boss. Petty dictators are hard people to deal with."

"No doubt you are well versed in handling such situations."

"I am, unfortunately."

The tough guys had been quiet for the last couple of minutes, so I called out: "Is everything okay, or do you gents want me to beat it?"

"Stay where you are or we'll open fire," yelled some out-of-sight person.

"I wouldn’t want that to happen," I replied.

Just then a man-mountain came stomping into view and I recognized him from my Aladdin data-processing job.

"Is your name Rubble?" I asked. "Are you in command around here, or do you report to someone else?"

Rubble, a bad ultra who liked to break things, gave me a scowl.

"Watch out; she may be an ultra," the hyper-cautious walky-talky man shouted again.

"Get His Majesty online!" Rubble barked.

Majesty? Their Fearless Leader must have had visions of grandeur! Well, why not talk to the pack's big dog? Going back and forth with these snapping puppies promised to get me nowhere.

That's when everything went black.

I woke up with a pounding headache. Had I been hit? If so, what had hit me – and why hadn’t my force field kept me safe?

"She's already waking up," said a woman. "I should have hit her harder."

With my vision clearing, I made out a female wearing dusty, threadbare togs. She was someone else I recognized from Aladdin's files – a cut-and-dried villainess known as Neuronne. She'd been a member of TNTNT – an ultra-outlaw gang. The maid of mayhem had the power to let fly with mental whammies. I'd been lucky. By rep, she could scramble a person's thinking power for the long term.

I cussed myself! While I allowed the toughs to keep me busy, Neuronne had come out of nowhere using a psionic attack. I been supposing that these Dead End Kids had no brain power behind them.

It was time to let Gabriel know that I was in trouble, but my telepathic call was answered by silence. Now that I wanted a little company, I was on my own!

"Back off!” barked someone in the shadow of a refuse pile. “I’ll interrogate the imposter personally."

"Yes, sir, King Warstrike," replied Rubble.

Had I heard him say, King Warstrike? A tall, wide, body-builder shape dressed in red and blue spandex stepped into the yellow light of a garbage fire.

"B-Brandon?" I muttered.

"The spy has disrespected you, my liege," said someone in his entourage. “Should I strike her?"

"If she needs to be hit, I’ll do the hitting," Tark rumbled.

This was loopy. How had the billionaire I'd known from back home become a bogus king running a mostly dead city? This clown surely did look like Brandon Tark, though. Had he been friends with Mantra? I hoped so.

Otherwise, the odds of me living through the next few minutes were about nil.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 8

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 8

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Twilight of the Gods -- a Story of Mantra

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 8

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted 08-27-24

Eden Chapter 8 c.jpg

KING WARSTRIKE

He is happiest, be he king or peasant,
Who finds peace in his own home.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The gang of thuggish ultras took me into a large and barren room in a stone building. It wasn’t easy keeping up with them, since that glitchy costume of mine had put me into high-heeled show boots. They bullied me into a building that I recognized as the Los Angeles National Guard Armory and pushed me into a bleak room. Disconcertingly, the windows were barred, which seemed to put me into the category being of a high-security threat.

I tried to reach Gabriel telepathically again, but I still couldn’t reach him. I’m used to computerized systems glitching, but I had a right to expect his advanced systems to behave better than a Walmart desktop!

"King" Warstrike had entered the room behind the rest of us and now stood there studying me. I decided to take off my silver mask. I thought that if looked more like the Mantra he presumably knew, it would scale back his suspicious hostility.

"I would have sold my soul to have Mantra returned to me," he said, "but you can't be her."

My mind was still hazy from Neuron’s blast, so I tried hard to focus. "T-This is an authentic Mantra costume," I said. "It looks different from what you must be used to because it got shaken when I battled with a super-wizard. Now it wants to slip into a different morph every little while.” I didn’t want to tell him that the wizard had been a god from Norse mythology. That much truth would probably convince him that I was lying.

“I happened to know where Mantra's authentic costume is. I took it off her dead body. That means that you’re not Mantra, and that's not her outfit you're wearing!” said Brandon Tark. “Who in hell are you?”

I was stunned by what he said. “I’m a different Eden Blake, Mantra, and Lukasz from the one you know," I told him. "I come from an alternate dimension. I’m sorry about your Mantra; I would have liked to meet her. But I’m a new visitor to this world,” I said.

“That sounds like a load of crap!”

“If you think that's bad, wait until I tell you the rest – Majesty. Maybe we should speak in private. Once you’ve had the full story, you decide who you want to share it with."

"Majesty," a guard said, "she wants to be alone with you. She must be an assassin."

"I bet he talks that way about all the girls,” I said, weakly chuckling.

"You sound so much like Mantra it's uncanny," said the big man.

“You sound like the Warstrike I know, too.” I took a gander at his peculiar outfit. He was wearing a chest-baring, black leather vest with epaulets – a weird combination of formality and informality. He came off looking more like a rock star than a monarch. What happened, bro? Did your old spandex wear out?” I asked.

But he didn’t give me back talk for my flippancy. The man’s face had gone into a thousand-mile stare. I knew Warstrike, and I’d seen that look before. His psychic powers sometimes allowed him to see visions of the future. When that happened, a person had to wait calmly until he came out of it.

Tark abruptly shook himself and glanced around at his guards. “I’ve had a vision,” he said. “This woman doesn’t mean to harm us! I don’t want anyone hurting her!"

"Are you so sure, Handsome One?" said some out-of-sight female.

Out of sight but not out of mind. I recognized the voice. I always hated being tied up when one of my old enemies popped in!

"Queen Necromantra," said Warstrike irritably. "Save the pet names for when we're alone."

Queen Necromantra? King Warstrike?

This setup was getting crazier and crazier!

Warstrike’s gun-toting lackeys made way for the so-called queen. Now I was squared off with one of my most lethal personal enemies.

"You do really make a convincing Mantra,” she said, “except that your costume is a clumsy knock-off. Highness, have you asked her why she’s appeared deliberately dressed to provoke you?"

“He doesn’t have to ask,” I said. “I want to give him the straight skinny.”

"Help her stand up," the king told his guardsmen. Apparently, they liked that order and they came in a cluster to put their hands all over me. Boys will be boys.

"Who are you, really?" Warstrike asked.

I took a deep breath, trying to keep my balance on unsteady,igh-heeled feet. "I'm the Mantra from another reality. I've come because you and I have sensitive information to discuss – Your Majesty."

Tark stood cross-armed regarding me. I wondered whether this version of Warstrike had a heart of gold, or if he had been born bad in this world.

"This impostor isn’t Mantra, so who is she?" Necromantra asked.

"Follow me into the next room," he said to me. "The rest of you, clear out and attend to the queen by the entryway."

I wondered what his psychic vision had told him. He didn’t seem to be quite so hostile as before.

The self-appointed monarch strode back out into the room we had entered by, with me trailing behind on unsteady legs. I kept one eye on Necromantra, in case she decided to toss a back-shot my way. In all fairness, the Thanasi I was consistently straightforward about killing. So far, I hadn't seen her off someone by a snake assassination.

"Shut the door," Tark said, and one of his guards complied. Then he motioned me to an old sofa. I was glad enough to sit down. At least the windows of this room weren't barred.

"You move like Eden Blake, I'll give you that."

"Like I said, I’m another version of Eden Blake, but not the version that you're familiar with"

He glowered. "Why do you keep going on about alternate dimensions?"

“Maybe you remember that old TV series, Sliders? The real universe is a lot like that."

“You’re serious?” To my surprise, he sat down on the sofa next to me. He apparently really didn't believe that I'd come to kill him.

"As serious as I can be,” I said.

“If you come from another world, what are you doing here now?” he asked.

“It’s the usual thing. I'm trying to save the universe. Otherwise, I’d much rather be at home with the kids."

“What kids?”

“Evie and Gus.”

He winced. "You say their names with the same twang that the real Mantra used.”

“I think that your Mantra and I must have had a lot in common.

“Give me the whole story. If I like it, I might help you. If you go on talking crazy, I may have to kill you.” Then he added, “I hope we can work together again, like we used to.”

I nodded and began my spiel, without going into excessive. When I finished, I said, "That's all she wrote. Any questions?"

“How do you like our city?” he inquired.

That question was off the wall. “At best, it's a fixer-upper. That guy I mentioned, Gabriel, said you’ve had trouble with a volcano. Is that right?”

I could tell from his expression that he didn’t want to discuss that subject. “I take it that Yellowstone didn’t go up on your world?”

"No, it didn't," I said. "So, the Yellowstone super-volcano wrecked Los Angeles?"

"It sure did, and the rest of the world, too. But volcanic damage was only the start of this city’s problems."

“It never rains but it pours,” I observed. But I didn’t want to tell him the whole story, that this world only had about one day more to exist.

“Please explain something,” I said. “If every city has a king now, does that mean that the USA doesn't have a working central government?"

“The US? Definitely not. It's hard to find out what's happening in the rest of the world, but everything coming at us here is bad.”

I looked around the room, lit only by homemade lanterns. It gave off a real survivalist feel. I would have thought a king's palace would have been stocked up on the best picks from Los Angeles’s refuse heaps.

“I see what you mean,” I said. “Did people have any warning before the volcano blew?”

"No. And it wasn't a natural eruption," he said bitterly.

“What do you mean it wasn’t natural?”

“The people had gotten behind the army and the new president and the Deep State found that its choke-hold on power was breaking down. That’s when they decided to destroy the whole country and take the resources they still had to take over and rule some other continent.”

I wondered if he was talking about the sick-minded and morally rotten Deep State that we’d been dealing with at home. "Who were the bad guys in this world?”

He looked damned angry. “Billionaires, trillionaires, the international banks. China was backing them all the way. When the US Army cut off their control of the American nuclear stockpile, the CCP provided them with the nuke they needed to set off the Yellowstone blast.”

That certainly sounded like the Deep State I knew. “What happened then?”

“Look around. That’s what happened.”

“What are the prospects for getting back on your feet?”

“They’re going from bad to worse.

“How many Americans survived?”

“I can’t say. Many millions died from having to breathe in volcanic ash. The climate is all screwed up and starvation is everywhere. The Southern Hemisphere wasn't hit so hard as we were, but things aren't great there either. There was no reverse illegal immigration allowed. The federales used heavy ordinance to kill any going south over the border. Most of the rejected northern refugees died by the border, without enough food or strength to get back home.”

“That sounds grim."

"It was no surprise that ultras were the fittest for survival. We worked together for a while. But suddenly about half of the ultras decided to band together and start a revolution.”

“What are people rebelling against?”

“To get rid of me mostly They've never spelled out what they want to do differently, other than to have kangaroo trials and lots of executions, I mean.”

“When did the volcano blow?” I asked.

“About nine years ago. But that’s not even the craziest thing that happened.”

"What can be worse?"

"Every star in the sky went out, except our sun Sol, and the planets around it."

That figured. According to Gabriel, the Time Gem could only protect a limited area, no more than a single solar system. Everything outside of the protected space would have been transformed into nothingness by the Nemesis Energy.

“Prime told us that there had been an attack by a goddess from outer space. But if that’s so, we can’t do anything about it. Fighting for our lives takes up all of our attention.”

"Your people keep calling me an impostor. How did the Mantra of your world...die?"

He looked away.

“The rebels kill her?”

"No. Back then, we were constantly being attacked by armed bands from outside, looting food and clean water. Mostly, they were violent illegals. The most dangerous were the hardcore military deserter units packing heavy weapons. Our ultras fought back and we stood them off. But the day came when Prime, Mantra, and some other good people got the worst of up against a military gang. The deserters were beaten off, but our people turned against one another.”

“When did Necromantra show up?” I asked suspiciously.

“It was a few weeks after Mantra died.”

"That doesn't smell right! I said.

He nodded. "If one scrap of legitimate proof had come up against Marinna, I would have killed her myself.”

“I’m only surprised she hasn’t already killed you and taken over. Did you actually marry here? What did you gain from that?”

"It’s hard to explain. But she’s one of the most powerful people in the city and she decided to fight on my side.”

“Why do you trust her? My Warstrike knew what a rat she was. Even if you didn’t, you had to have figured it out eventually. By the way, Necromantra started out as a guy, another knight of Archimage like I was. Did you know that?”

“Yes, I knew that much about her. But remember. I was the guy that married Mantra."

“What? Mantra and you got married?”

“Why? Didn't you and your version of Brandon Tark get married?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Maybe because we didn't have a super-volcano to drive us out of our minds! But you said that happened nine years ago. Two years ago Archimage and his knights were still alive and nothing big had happened yet. Did I mention that the space scientist brought me into the future?"

“What year do you come from?” Tark asked.

I told him, and he shook his head. "If that's true, you probably don’t know that Evie is sixteen now!"

“Hell!” I said.

"Anyway," he pressed, "things fell apart here when Eden died. Mantra was the real leader, and I supplied the muscle. She had a way of getting people to work together and be better people than they naturally were. Necromantra is as powerful as Mantra, but every time she opens her mouth, she divides the people more. It doesn’t help that we lost some of our steadiest people, like Hardcase and Prime."

I felt sorry, but there was nothing I could do to save this universe. If I understood him, the whole universe was empty except for the Sol solar system.

“Brandon,” I asked, “you say Evie is sixteen. Is Gus still alive?”

“They’re both well. They’re with me here in this armory.

That was a load off my mind. Though full of questions, I didn’t want to get involved in the problems of this dying universe. It was best if I didn’t get to know the version of my kids living here. The very thought of their imminent deaths felt like an attack of acid reflux.

I changed the subject. “This place is an armed camp,” I said. “What is everyone fighting about?"

"As far as I can see, everyone's fighting because they're desperate for a win, even though they're foggy about what sort of prize they're seeking. Trying to govern ultras is like trying to herd cats. After Eden died, one of my political enemies decided to form a coalition to unite the less stable people against me. I tried to beat the people back into order and the killing started. Somewhere along the way, people started calling me their king, but we haven't been able to stamp out the violent people. Lately, they've been making gains against our side.”

I definitely didn’t want to have anything to do with this world. "I'm an outsider, and what goes on here isn't my business,” I said. “But why do the people on your side all seem to be ex-criminals? Can it be that your side has been mistreating the people?"

The big man gritted his teeth. “I wish things were different, but I want this city to be a civilized place and have no choice but to use the support I have. Selfish people often turn out to be the easiest sort to work with. You know what they say, thieves hang together. You know a lot of history, Luke. Doesn't history tell you that it's the impractical idealists that use government to do the really crazy things when they take power? Look at France, Russia, and China."

"Even if that's so, what needs to be done to bring order out of all this chaos?”

“What I’d like to do is stop the fighting so we can work together to produce enough food to feed everyone."

“If you could, would you be willing to feed even your enemies?”

“That’s a tricky question. For a long time, there won't be enough to go around. We can't share with people unwilling to work with us.”

“So, how is the ‘friends only' approach working out?”

"Not well. But we don't hear anything except nuttiness coming from the other side. If we stopped fighting, I'd think they'd give us the Czar Nicolas treatment.”

I was getting only one side of the argument and couldn’t offer a valid judgment. Warstrike had made some bad mistakes, no doubt. Brandon Tark had impressed me as a good fighter but not a good leader. I knew him as a rambunctious loose cannon whose bull-in-the-china-shop methods for handling problems were too direct and heavy-handed. But what did I know? Maybe a world as crazy as this one needed a crazy man to run it. What I wanted above all was to finish the job and leave this nightmare version of my world behind.

“Would you like to see Gus and Evie?" Brandon asked suddenly.

I swallowed hard. “T-That might not be a good idea,” I stammered. “I can't stay for very long. How would it help the kids if their mother suddenly drops in and leaves again tomorrow? And seeing them living miserably in a messed up place like this is going to slam me emotionally, too. I have to stay focused. If I haven't already told you, my mission is to keep the alien goddess you heard of from annihilating all the alternate dimensions, including my home universe.”

Tark sighed. “Do what you have to do, Eden. But the kids are already hurting. It hurt them terribly not having had a chance to say goodbye to their mom. They never got the closure that the human heart needs."

This discussion was pointless. The kids would only have to bear their grief for a few hours longer. Death isn’t a happy solution, but death was coming and it was going to put an end to all the heartache going on in this world.

"Hey," Tark suddenly said, "I was just thinking. If you never married your version of me in your timeline, does that mean my Jamie was never born?"

I looked askance. “Your daughter Jamie died years before I met you. She was killed by gangsters who came gunning for you. I'm hoping that that that tragedy didn't happen in this world."

He winced as if I’d torn open an old wound.

“Oh, that happened here,” he sighed. “But when our Jamie was born, Mantra suggested we name her after the child I'd loved and lost."

My mouth dropped open. “Mantra’s Jamie? Are you saying that Mantra and you had a daughter?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I guess that didn't happen in your reality.”

“It sure as hell didn’t happen!” I said.

“That’s sort of too bad. Mantra was always a great adoptive mother for Evie and Gus. But after she had Jamie, Eden became an absolutely incredible parent.”

This news wasn’t easy to wrap my mind around.

Most of all, I was staggered to think that I – sort of – had a daughter that I never met living on this planet?

Was she living in this very building?

I definitely didn’t want to meet her!

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 9

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 9

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Mantra Malibu Comics Ultraverse

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Eden Chapter 9.jpg

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 9

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted 09-16-24

You can easily judge the character of a man
By how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Just what do you expect to accomplish by coming here?" Tark asked suddenly.

"I came to find someone," I said. "We have good reason to think that a powerful ultra will soon be stopping here."

"Is there a lot of this dimension-jumping going on?"

"More than you'd guess."

"Who's the 'we' you're referring to?"

I didn't want "King Warstrike" to know too much and especially didn't want to start a manhunt for Gabriel. I still didn’t know if this version of Brandon Tark could be trusted, and tyrants are notoriously double-dealing.

"I'm helping a group from the Godwheel – a race of super-scientific geniuses. They’re trying to catch up with a female ultra who they think can help us, but up to now, she's been a loose cannon. We have to convince her to join the team and take our advice.”

He thought briefly and said, "Okay, you just do that. I'm more concerned with the mess that's going on right here. But somehow I get the idea that things aren't going so well in your universe, either."

"That’s for sure!”

“Do you suppose that your Deep State is going to do your world in, too?"

"It's possible; those bastards are capable of anything. But our biggest problem right now doesn’t have anything to do with the Deep State. If we survive the catastrophe we’re currently dealing with, maybe I can turn my attention to that gang of psychotics, mass murderers, and traitors."

There came a tapping at the door.

"It's open!" Warstrike yelled.

A uniformed man stepped over the threshold followed by a girl who wasn’t Evie.

"Daddy?" she said to Warstrike.

"Shut the door behind you, Maverick," he told the guard. Then, to the child, he said, “Come here, Jamie.”

This was Jamie, the daughter of Warstrike and Mantra! She was looking at me with her eyes wide and her mouth open.

"This lady," the child said, "she's dressed like pictures of ..."

This is your aunt, Jennifer," her father lied. "She's your mother's twin sister."

Jennifer? That was my least favorite name for a woman -- and Warstrike knew it!

“I didn’t know Mommy had a twin,” she said.

“Ah, yes she did,” Brandon answered. “Your mom and I thought Aunt Jennifer died years ago. That was sad, and we didn’t want to tell you about things that would make you sad. Why don’t you give your auntie a nice big hug?”

She looked at me uncertainly and then came my way. I knelt so that I could look into her eyes. They were just as blue as her father’s.

And her mother’s.

Jamie put her arms around my neck and gave me a long, strong hug.

“You look just like Mommy! And you look like my sister Evie, too!”

“I look like Evie?” I said. “What a surprise!”

I was wondering about my specific relationship with this child? If her mother was a clone she would have the same genetics as I. If I looked at that clone as being my twin sister, that would make me Jamie's aunt. I liked that idea; it made the two of us close, but not so close as to create a messy situation.

I looked up at Warstrike. "Brandon, we have to talk about grownup things. Maybe Jamie shouldn’t have to listen to all that."

He nodded and said, "Jamie, your aunt is right. You should go back to your room with the guard."

"Can I tell Evie and Gus about seeing Aunt Jennifer?" she asked.

Tark sent me a questioning look.

I said, "Maybe you shouldn’t tell your brother and sister about me until suppertime tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to meet them at a super-secret surprise party!”

Jamie smiled, liking the idea.

I was trying to delay the meeting until I was gone from this world and everyone in it would be….dead.

Also, if the kids knew I was here, they’d tell Jamie I was lying. Eden never had a sister, much less a twin sister.

Laughing, Jamie said, “Okay!” Then her dad took her by the hand and led her to the door.

When Tark and I were alone again, I asked, "Why did your version of Mantra marry you? I never would have.”

“Why? Am I so bad a catch?”

“Maybe it's just that your Mantra lived as a woman longer than I have. So far, you haven't started looking like my type.”

"The main reason we got married was because we had a baby on the way."

"Perfect," I said sarcastically.

"Those were terrible times,” he said. “We found ourselves avoiding close ties with everyone because frightened people need to think of their leadership as strong. If we leveled with them, they would have realized that we were just as messed up as everybody else. Eden and I needed each other because we didn’t have anyone else to turn to."

"I get the picture," I said, wanting to drop the subject. “I'm just glad Mantra wasn't to blame for starting this civil war!"

"Exactly how different are the two of?" he asked.

"Plenty different. I haven't gone through the same hell that she did. Back home, you and I were just good friends, and that's the way we wanted it."

“Mantra and I started as good friends, too,” Tark replied.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

He suddenly changed the subject. "Jamie isn’t good at keeping secrets. What will you say to the kids when they show up wanting a look at you?"

"I hope I can avoid that. My job is crucial. If it fails, things are going to get soooo bad. It will be like the whole Big Bang never happened."

"You come from the Dark Ages, Luke. Since when did a half-Polish Visigothic barbarian like Lukasz Theordoricson start believing in the Big Bang?"

“Not until the Twentieth Century, actually."

“Do you think Twentieth Century people were smarter than people living before them?"

“Well, no,” I had to admit.

“Okay, skip the subject,” Warstrike said. “What about that woman you’re looking for? Who is she? Anyone I’ve heard of?"

"Oh, yes, you certainly know her. She’s called Amber Hunt."

"Whoa! Amber Hunt?! That nut case almost cauterized the entire planet with gamma radiation. How can you depend on someone like her to save the multiverse you believe in?”

"I’m working with people who think she’s salvageable. Amber was just an ordinary college girl before the Exiles got her involved in some risky science that went out of control."

“Even if that's so, is it smart to trust her? A mad dog isn't responsible for getting sick, but it still has to be put down,” he said.

Then his expression changed.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I saw Amber Hunt in the skies over Los Angeles. She was glowing. Is it possible that a child might see the same thing and describe her as a 'Flaming Woman'?"

"I suppose it’s possible. Why?"

"My daughter keeps dreaming about somebody she calls the Flaming Woman."

My brow furrowed. "Tell me more."

"Jamie’s been saying things that make me think she’s inherited my power of precognition."

"If she’s predicting the arrival of a 'Flaming Woman,' why haven’t you?”

“You know how quirky my power can be. Or is your Tark different?"

"No, he’s no different."

Warstrike shrugged. "Anyway, Jamie has been dreaming that a Flaming Woman is coming to do away with me."

"That’s pretty specific. What does Amber Hunt have against you?"

"I don't know. Did she have a bad relationship with your Brandon Tark?"

"Not as far as I know."

“If she’s after me, maybe I should kill her before she kills me."

I shook my head. "No, don’t think that way! We need Amber Hunt. Otherwise, the whole universe is going to be lost.”

“And you know this because you’ve seen it while time-traveling?”

“I’ve actually seen that final battle. If things play out the same way in my time-dimension, we’re all doomed.”

"I don't know if I should listen to you, Luke. I've survived as long as I have because I've been taking out my enemies as soon as they show their hand."

"Look at it this way. My friends and I want to escort the girl out of this universe as quickly as possible. She can't hurt you then."

Tark clenched his teeth. "You're tackling a big job, but you don't seem to have any ideas about fixing the much smaller problems we have here."

I didn't dare tell him that his problems were much bigger than he knew. Instead, I said, "I wish I could suggest something. Have you offered the opposition peace terms – along with the offer to relinquish your authority?”

"If I did that, my people would turn against me. I'd become everybody's fall guy. You've lived long enough to know what happens to ex-kings during violent times.”

"Well, I can’t argue with that,” I said. "Listen, I'll make you a deal.”

"What kind of deal?"

"I'll let the other side know about the Flaming Woman. I'll explain that we need a truce until we can get rid of her."

“Well, if they were sane, it might be worth trying."

"I can't just stand around doing nothing. I have to get into contact with the other side as soon as possible. Am I free to do that or am I a prisoner here?” If you want me to talk to your enemies, I’ll need freedom of movement."

"I see your point," he said. "Do what you can do.”

"I’ll be winging it, but I promise I'll do my damnest to be an honest broker. But remember, my focus has to remain on corralling Amber Hunt."

“She's powerful. Are you ready to take her on?"

"Like I said, I'll do my best. What's next?"

"You're free. Do you want a bodyguard detail for your truce talk?"

I wondered whether that would make things safer or less safe in a situation so volatile.

A tapping at the door interrupted me. I read the bio-signature on its other side and it turned out to be a familiar one. Very familiar. A shiver ran through me.

Warstrike walked to peer through the security slot before he lifted the latch.

The door opened upon a dark-haired girl in her middle teens.

It was Evie Blake.

Her eyes widened when she caught sight of me. My eyes must have been pretty wide, too. Jamie’s big sister was the image of Eden Blake at her age. I was seeing my second-grade daughter as a nearly grown woman.

I was glad to see that she wasn’t too shabbily dressed, and didn’t look underfed.

Behind Evie, stood an excited Jamie. Tark had been right; his daughter was not good at keeping secrets.

"Jamie – Evie, come in," Warstrike said. He took Jamie’s hand as she entered. "Sweetie," he said, "have you dreamed about the Flaming Woman since we last spoke about her?"

She nodded. "Yes, Daddy. I didn’t tell you because I got so excited when I met Auntie Jennifer."

"Mantra has seen the Flaming Woman, too. We have to find out as much about her as we can before she arrives."

The little girl veered my way. "Mantra, is the Flaming Woman coming to hurt us?"

I drew a deep breath. "I believe she's coming, but maybe it's not because she wants to hurt anybody. I hope she'll want to give us some help."

Jamie frowned. "How can she help us? She's bad, isn't she?"

I tried to smile. "I don't think she wants to be bad. Sometimes a person who gets confused and afraid will act like someone bad. I need to talk sense to the Flaming Woman, so she'll agree to help us save a lot of innocent people."

"Will she save Daddy and our friends?"

"Yes, and other good people, too." That wasn’t true, but why would anyone care to help me if they knew they were going to die tomorrow?

"You’re not any aunt of mine!" Evie suddenly shouted.

I glanced her way. I'd never be able to convince her that her mother had a sister. Unfortunately, I didn't think it would be easy to convince her of the truth either.

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 10

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 10

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Mantra and Evie ch 10.jpg

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 10

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted 09-16-24

“It's true that nothing in this world makes us so necessary to others as the affection we have for them.”

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
.

THE BIG SISTER

Chapter 10

"Brandon," said my adopted daughter, "our mother had no sister. Didn't you know that?"

"Of course, I knew, but it might have frightened Jamie if she learned the real story," her stepfather answered.

“What’s the truth!” Evie demanded.

“That's something for your...aunt to tell you," Warstrike replied.

At that, father and daughter left the room, with the guards trailing after. If ever there had been a time when two people needed privacy, this was it!

"What is the truth?” my daughter repeated, her jaw jutting defiantly, her expression bewildered.

“I truly am Eden Blake, but I’m not exactly your mother. I come from an alternate dimension.”

“What?!”

“I'm trying to say that I’m a version of your mother from an alternate world. It’s complex. Do you see why I didn't want to explain to your preschool sister where I come from?"

“Are you talking about alternate dimensions like in science fiction books?”

“Yes. Your stepfather believes me and it would be nice if you would, too.”

“If you're telling the truth, why are you here?”

“I have a job to do. 'Ultra stuff,' as you used to call it. I've not only had to travel here from another timeline, but I've also had to come about nine years into the future. When I left my own Evie and Gus, they were still in elementary school. Just by looking at you, I'll know what my little girl will look like when she’s almost grown up."

Her brow furrowed. “You look exactly the way I remember you – her."

The teen’s face suddenly filled with so much hurt that I felt like taking her into my arms.

Evie shook her head. "I dreamed a thousand times about you not being dead. But if you're not my real mom, the dream hasn't come true. I guess it never will."

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to meet you on this trip because I knew it would hurt you when I had to go away again.”

She pulled back and looked away from me. "Have you come to help us with the war and the hunger?” she asked.

"No. I came for another reason. Until today, I didn’t know this world existed, or how bad the situation would be here."

“So, why did you come at all?”

"I'm looking for the Flaming Woman, the one Jamie keeps dreaming about?"

“That’s just a dream.”

"No. Jamie has an ultra-power similar to Brandon's. If the Flaming Woman comes, she might be able to help us save untold billions of lives, not only on Earth but on other planets, too."

"Will she save our lives here?” Evie asked.

“I’m not sure.”

Sometimes I think that most lies are told to be kind. There was nothing anyone could do to save her world. The Nemesis power had already flooded this timeline and its destructive effects could no longer be staved off. The Time Gem had delayed the timeline’s annihilation, but its power was nearly exhausted. There was no hope for this world, but I still hoped to save millions of others.

“Was there a super-volcano in the world where you came from?” Evie asked.

“No, not yet. If there’s a chance to stop it, I'll do everything possible.”

“How can you help so many others, but not help us?”

“There's a big difference in preventing something from happening and changing something that's already happened. I have no power that can rebuild all the wreckage in this world.”

She looked away, depressed.

"How bad have things been for you here?"

She shook her head without looking back. "I think the rebels will attack the castle soon. They've wanted to kill Warstrike and Necromantra for years. Maybe they'll kill all the rest of us, too. I don't know."

"So you think that your – stepdad – is going to lose the fight?"

She nodded. "I think he will."

I stepped up behind her and placed my hands on her shoulders. I had been expecting my daughter to grow up in a happier world than this one and be in love with living. But this reality was a bizarre parody of my world. It had nothing to offer except wreckage, fear, violence, and death.

"I'm going to talk to the rebels. Maybe that will do some good," I said. "But I've been wondering, how has Warstrike been treating you?"

"He's been okay. I think he cares about us because he loved our mother. It must be torture for him to look at you knowing that she hasn't really come back."

"Have you been able to keep up with your studies?" I asked.

She turned suddenly and incredulously. "How can something like that matter to you?"

I forced a smile. “I don’t want any dimensional version of Evie Blake to grow up a dummy."

"I can read and write and do arithmetic. Brandon finds us tutors. Anyone with something worth teaching us can get better eating if he helps us rather than living in the streets."

"Knowing that makes me like my old friend even better than I already do. What kind of a king has he been?" I asked.

She glanced at the door nervously.

"Are you afraid that someone is listening?" I asked.

"I – I don't know," she replied haltingly. "Everybody’s always spying. If Dad doesn't do it, Necromantra will."

The sound of that bitch’s name spoiled my mood.

"I’ve been wondering about Necromantra. How has seen been treating you?"

Evie shuddered. "I hate her! She killed my mother."

It was true. Necromantra had murdered the real Eden Blake. "Yes," I said, "but has she tried to harm you?" In my timeline, the witch had tried to drain Evie's magical potential into herself. That was a dangerous operation, especially if carried out by the crude methods that came naturally to Necromantra.

"She keeps her distance," said Evie. "It's horrible having the murderer of your mother living in the same house with you!"

"I'd agree. Why does your stepdad put up with her?"

“I’m not sure. Maybe it's because Necromantra is so powerful. She likes to fight, and there is plenty of fighting to do. But I don’t know why they thought they had to get married.”

"How do they behave with each other?"

Looking perplexed, she said, “I don't think Brandon trusts her, but she fascinates him somehow." Evie lowered her voice. "It's crazy, especially since there's talk that she used to be a man."

"Does she act like a man?" I replied evasively.

"Not that I can see."

I smiled. "Well, maybe the rumors aren't true then."

But instead of smiling, Evie's expression intensified.

"Mom – Mantra, I mean, are you like my mother? She told me that she had the ghost of a man inside her, like people say Marinna does." She carefully watched my expression.

"I hoped that by the time you grew up, you'd have forgotten what I said," I told her gently.

"I almost did. I tried to. I couldn't understand how a stranger, especially a man, could talk and behave so much like my real mother and still not be her. After a while, I tried not to think about it at all. A lot of the time, I pretended that you really were my mother."

I knew the reason that Evie had come away so confused. I'd never explained that the two of us hadn't met for the first time on the day of her mother's murder. I'd already been in her mother’s body for more than a year. That was why she didn't see any abrupt change in my behavior and how, from the first day, I appeared to know so much about the everyday life of the Blake family.

“Are you exactly like the real Mantra?” Evie suddenly asked.

I smiled. “I’ve always thought of myself as the real Mantra. I never knew your mother existed until today. But I think I must be almost the same as your mother was ten years ago -- before the volcano happened.”

“You almost make me feel like my mother has come back. Do you have to leave?” she asked.

“Yes, I do. I don’t have any choice about that. Too many people on too many worlds need the help the Flaming Woman against a terrible enemy.”

"Then tell me something ugly about yourself, so I won't have to miss you when you go!”

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"If you're an awful person, tell me about it, so I won't be sorry that you're gone! Like, were you really a man? What kind of a man were you? An outlaw?"

In fact, I'd done plenty of things to be sorry for. It wouldn't be hard to make Evie hate and despise me.

But I couldn't bring myself to destroy my daughter's regard for me, even if it gave her closure. "Evie, I was a man in love with your mother and we both wanted to get married. I already loved you and your brother and I wanted to be your new father. I've made mistakes, but I always thought I was doing the right thing. I'm not perfect, but I'm not a deliberate monster, either. After I go, please remember that you're not alone. Your mother exists in millions of different timelines, and all of us love you."

Suddenly, she looked like she wanted to be held. I pulled her close and she hugged me back, sniffling. We held on to one another for a minute until I drew away. "I have to get ready for the Flaming Woman's arrival," I told her. "Be strong and be wise, Evie. And take care of the others. They need you much more than you realize."

Evie nodded, wiping her eyes. "I'll try. Goodbye...Mom."

I felt that parting as if it were a physical ache. I walked to the door, reached for the door....

But there are many a slip between the cup and the lip.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 11

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 11

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted 10-23-24, revised 10-24-24
.

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 11

A Story of Mantra and Black September
By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Mantra Chapter 11.jpg

The moment one definitely commits oneself,
Then Providence moves too.
Whatever you think you can do,
Or believe you can do, begin it.
Action has magic, power.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
.

I was suddenly in a misty, insubstantial place. I would have flipped, except I was becoming used to this.

I looked back and saw Gabriel, not Evie. "Where have you snatched me away to this time?" I asked the short and pudgy scientist.

"This is the best I can do for a private meeting place so long as we are already in a zone of attenuated time,” he explained.

"If you say so. Did you fix the problem we’ve been having with communications?"

"There wasn't much to fix. The psionic blast you were subjected to damaged your nano-receptors, but they're self-repairing. Though you couldn't hear me, I was able to monitor your progress."

"I'm afraid I messed up and involved myself with local people. It's hard to focus when surrounded by faces I think I know."

"You've been proceeding splendidly. Warstrike has already agreed to lend you aid, and you’re preparing to meet with the opposing political faction. I would say that you have a natural instinct for time agent work."

"Spare me the flattery. When is Hunt arriving?"

"From all indications, she will arrive within several hours. We must use our time to cement friendly relations with both sides."

"But this world is still doomed! Isn't there anything we can do to prevent that?"

Through glumly pursed lips, Gabriel said, "I don’t see what we can do. If Amber Hunt takes the Time Gem away from this world, as she must, the local reality is unsustainable. It will be obliterated by the Nemesis Energy."

"And that’s all she wrote?"

"I'm sorry. It is."

"Gabriel, I need to ask you something."

"And what is that?"

"Can't we at least take a few people away with us? I'm talking about Evie and her family."

"Such a thing is possible.”

“Well, great! Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“Because I wished to keep your thoughts focused on the mission.”

“Are time-clone people real or not?"

“They are. Most people in the Multiverse are time clones originating in other realities. ”

“So is there anything we can do to stop this catastrophe?"

“Saving an entire solar system is far beyond our capabilities."

“I'll keep that in mind," I said. "But what should we do about getting Evie's family out of here?"

“You should ask whether she's willing to exchange her universe for a new one."

“I need to go back and talk to her. Do you have any other advice?"

"I'm willing to leave all the details to you."

"Okay. So, what now?"

"I'd say it is a good idea for you to go talk to the rebel leaders."

"I'll get right on it.”

An instant later, Gabriel vanished along with the strange environment we had been occupying. I was back in that room with Evie. I heard her gasp.

"What's wrong, dear?" I asked.

"You blinked out of sight and now you've reappeared," she said incredulously.

"What happened to me was one of those crazy things that sometimes happen to ultras. They’re hard to explain, Button."

Evie startled. "N-Nobody's called me Button since – Mantra – died."

"Why should they? That was my special name for you."

"I know you’re not her, but you sound so much like my mother."

"And you're like my Evie, too. But I've come back with good news!" I said. "When I vanished, I met with that super-scientist who brought me here. He says you and your whole family are invited to come with us when we're ready to leave."

Her mouth gaped. "Are we all going to live together?"

"I can’t stay with you for very long. I have to go back to my own family. But I promise we won't part until I find you a safe and happy home."

She returned the cautious smile typical of children who have had their hopes shattered too many times to count.

"Can't we go now?"

"My job here isn’t finished. If I don’t do what I came to do, there won’t be a happy ending for anybody. In the meantime, ask Gus if he’d like to come with us. Do you want me to invite your stepdad to come with Jamie?"

"Yes, please!" she said.

I stepped up and kissed her cheek. I again said goodbye and repeated my attempt to exit the room. The door was locked, but my knock summoned a guard to open it for me.

Tark was waiting in the adjacent room. He gestured to a chair in front of him.

"What now? Shouldn't we be doing something?" I asked.

"We are. I sent my chamberlain, Nicolas Lone, into the neighborhood to make a truce with the rebels. I asked him to get their consent to meet with you. They knew the old Mantra when all of us were still working together. They should be curious enough about your reappearance to want to meet you.”

"Should I know this Nicolas Lone?" I asked.

"Maybe not. He used to have a public identity as that anti-mob avenger, Solitaire. He was the son of L.A.'s top mobster. He was injured and his life was saved by receiving some ultra wetware. Sometimes such operations bring about personality changes.

"In this case, it was a good change. Nick decided to use his new ultra abilities to become a nighttime avenger with a beef against mobsters -- especially his father."

I had read Solitaire's file at Aladdin. Their analysts had doubts about him, but on balance, he seemed to be a good guy. Of course, good guys are not what Aladdin is looking for. They keep their eye out for flawed types they can flip and makeover into Deep State agents -- spies, saboteurs, agent provocateurs, and traitors, mainly. "I'm glad to find that not all the people you're working with are ex-criminals," I told Brandon.

He shrugged. “It’s the luck of the draw.”

But I was less interested in Solitaire than in my adopted son, Gus. I asked Brandon about him, interested in finding out what sort of young man he had grown up to be.

"He's handy with computers, databases, and analysis," Warstrike replied. "We don't have much of a tech division here, but we have some tech people to tutor Gus."

"As a boy, he was handy at violent video games," I said.

"He has a lot on the ball, but you might not like the job I've given him."

"Have you made him a soldier?" I asked.

"You mean like you? No, he's the sort who enjoys delving into databases. He’s using the resources available to check people's personnel records. We're looking for the rebels we might win to our side, and what people on our side might be hiding troublesome red flags that make them untrustworthy."

"Are the red-flag people marked for execution?" I asked pointedly.

"Not always."

"Whatever you do, don’t make Gus a killer," I said firmly.

"Why? You thrived as a killer for a millennium and a half."

"I have, but I'm not proud of it. I want my son to have a clear conscience like I've never had."

"I want the same for Jamie. Just remember that most people who go bad choose that kind of life on their own. But I'm not going to encourage Gus to be violent."

A cloaked man stepped into the room. “This is Nicolas Lone,” Warstrike said.

This Lone guy had a face that some women might like, but he looked dangerous, as Sean Connery did as James Bond. Something about his eyes made me wonder whether his inexpressive face was a mask hiding something not so nice. Of course, the firearm he had slung over his shoulder reinforced that impression.

He looked at me and then at Warstrike: "One of our truce negotiators got through to the rebels. He's set up a parley with Mantra."

"That was fast work!" Brandon replied with a nod.

"The enemy was very interested to hear that Mantra was back!"

"When's the meeting?"

"The rebels said they’d have people at the Collab building at 1900. The deal is that Mantra and anyone with her will go to the building’s west side so they can be eyeballed from cover. If our people spot a threat, they’ll kill them all. If they look clean, their representatives will meet them."

"How far can we trust the other side?" Tark asked.

"They've been respecting truce flags up to now," Lone said.

"Do you know whether Mantra has any enemies on the other side that she should worry about?" Tark inquired.

"Not really," the chamberlain said. "Her worst enemy I know of is Necromantra, but she’s on our side."

"Leave that problem to me," Brandon said darkly.

"Who will I be negotiating with?" I asked Lone.

He shrugged. "The rebels didn't give out any names."

I wondered whether Nicolas Lone was reliable. It seemed illogical that the gang-busting ultra would choose to team up with a man who was being called a tyrant. Like, if he wouldn't follow his own father, why would he follow a hated king?

"Well," I said, rising, "I should get over to the Collab building. Tark grabbed my arm and shook his head. "You shouldn't show up there before 1900," he told me. "If you make yourself a sitting duck for too long, somebody might get the idea to take you out, truce or no truce."

“Do you want to take a bodyguard?" Lone asked me.

“How can they protect me if we're going to be deployed as sitting ducks?" I asked.

He shrugged.

I waited a little longer while Lone and Brandon conferred in private. When the time was nigh, they took me to a street door and I went outside. I at once ghosted myself, and also made the extra effort to shield my mind from the kind of psionic attacks that Neuronne had used to take me out. The rebels had a wide array of ultra abilities to choose from.

As a phantom, my footfalls made no sound crossing through ankle-deep volcanic ash. The ground outside the Collab headquarters building was wide open, except for the ever-present junk and detritus. I felt hidden eyes drilling into me as a prickle on my skin, but after a while, I heard footsteps.

Three persons advanced on me from behind a mound of rubble, like gunfighters slinking out of a livery stable.

I was surprised to see a short guy wearing ancient Greek-style battle attire. How did he end up in America when he was a European ultra. His main power was invulnerability and he went by the code name of Achilles. There was also a big blue guy who I’d never seen in Aladdin’s files. He looked like someone who’d be a powerhouse in a fight, but I wasn’t sure if he was a human being. Though curious, I thought it would be impolite to ask him about that.

The third negotiator was a woman and a real looker! I instantly knew her for Choice, an ultra who had done some good work in association with Hardcase. Aladdin’s analysis believed that her powers had been artificially created for her by the Choice Corporation, for whom she had worked as a public spokesperson. Supposedly, she could shoot force beams from her eyes, fly, project force shields, and was ultra strong. Oddly, though, she had to choose her power of the day, since not all of her abilities were at her beck and call simultaneously. That explained her code name, which was about the worst that I’d ever heard an ultra using. She had changed her costume over the last nine years but had held on to the white-and-pink idea.

"Hello, Choice," I said amiably. "Is Hardcase around here, too?" In my world, Hardcase had been a modern Hercules, one of the world's most admired ultras. I had had few contacts with the Hardcase of my own reality, but I had gotten to know one of his doubles on an alternate world.

The ultra woman looked at me crossly. "You really don't know?" she asked.

"I'm new to the neighborhood," I said lightly.

"Let's have your spiel," the slim brunette said. "And make it good, because we know damn well that the real Mantra has been dead for years."

"Didn't the chamberlain pass along the word that I'm the Mantra from a parallel universe? Both you and Hardcase have doubles there, too. They're be as sad as I am to see how devastated this world is. Where I come from, Yellowstone's never erupted."

"And so you're a tourist?" she asked skeptically, her arms crossed.

"No, I'm here to do an important job. I didn't know about the civil war until a few hours ago. I want to say that I don't want to choose sides."

"Since you're carrying messages for Warstrike, maybe you've chosen sides without even realizing it," she challenged.

"The message I'm carrying is my own. I think Tark is helping me because I look like his late wife. On principle, I'd like to see this civil war settled peacefully, but I'm not here to deal with that. What's important is that if my mission succeeds, very many lives are going to be saved in the Multiverse."

“Multiverse? Isn't that a concept that comes out of comic books?"

“Don't I wish! But I've discovered our universe exists in a neighborhood of universes, and it's a rough part of town!"

“The whole idea sounds silly, but I've had to deal with plenty of silly ideas since becoming an ultra. Tell me the rest of your story and then I'll decide what to do with you," said the woman in a white. I had to wonder how she managed to keep her clothes so clean in this wreck of a city.

“I hope we can make a deal to help me save lives.”

"Does helping you mean we're expected to make peace with tyranny?"

"No, that's too much to ask," I said, trying not to sound sarcastic. "But a daylong truce would be very helpful."

"None of us like the war, but those are the cards we’ve been dealt."

I was tempted to offer some common-sense advice on that score. But war hawks hated peace talks, and I didn't want to step into an argument at the worst possible time. Anyway, no matter what we decided to do, this war would only last a few more hours. Instead, I replied, "It sounds like a bad deal all around."

"Why are you here?" Choice asked sharply.

I laid out the story like I'd laid it out for Warstrike. Naturally, I didn't mention that her life expectancy was only a few hours long. I ended my pitch by saying, "If you see a woman who bursts into flame whenever she uses her power, that'll be Amber Hunt."

"I once saw Hunt over Las Angeles last year," Choice said. "Are you asking us to capture that world-destroying bitch for you? Why should we do that kind of heavy lifting?”

"I’m prepared to do the hard work. What I'm seeking is an agreement that whoever captures her, she belongs to me."

"Then what?"

"Then I want to return to my home universe and take her with me."

Without indicating whether she believed me, Choice answered, "I'll take your request to the committee."

"Don’t forget to mention that if my plan works, it will save more lives than you can imagine."

"Remind me why anyone living in this world should care what happens in another universe?" Choice asked.

"No reason," I said. "But the Choice I know back home would care. Hardcase would care, too.”

"Hardcase is dead!" she whispered as if the words hurt her lips.

I blinked with surprise. "I'm sorry. What happened?"

She was gazing into the distance, beyond the rubbish piles and wreckage that filled the next block. "He left L.A., looking for other Americans to help. Tom thought we had enough ultra-power to keep L.A. running without him."

"How did you learn that he died?" I asked.

"We didn't. But Hardcase would have returned years ago if he were still alive."

I didn't want to irritate her with cloying sentiment, so I just said, "Probably so.”

"If your mission succeeds, will it save your universe from disaster?" Choice asked.

"Definitely! That would be the big payoff for me," I admitted.

"But what's going to save this world?"

"I honestly don't know. But if you want suggestions, ending this war would be a good idea."

She looked at me as if I were naive. "We'll end it the only way it can be ended. But I can't help but wonder how much you aren't telling us. Like, is the success of your mission going to do any harm to us here?"

"Wherever Miss Hunt shows up, there'll always be danger," I said. "But if she listens to me, we’ll go back to our own universe immediately, leaving you people to work out the best solutions for your own problems.”

Choice grimaced. "All I can promise is I'll carry your message to our council."

"And emphasize that Hunt is expected to arrive at almost any minute now," I said.

She shrugged. “Sure, I’ll mention that. Anything else?”

“Nothing that I can think of," I replied.

With that, the ultra turned and walked away with her escort.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 12

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 12

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 12

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted 11-07-24
Revised 11-07-24

Mantra 12.jpg
.

THE TIME GEM

We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Now left alone in the darkness among the ruins, I wasn't sure how well my conversation with the rebels had gone. With nothing else on my day planner, I sent a telepathic jingle to Gabriel.

What do the rebels want? The little man spoke into my mind.

"Mostly, they want Warstrike dead."

We can offer them anything except homicide since their world will not
exist when the debt comes due.

"Gabriel!" I declared. "That's cold-blooded! Remember, I have family here. Sort of."

At that, he went silent.

"Gabe, are you there?" I asked.

His returning voice said, "I was looking for an apparatus I have. It operates like Warstrike's precognition but is more efficient."

“What precognition do you want to have?" I asked. “Where Amber Hunt is going to touchdown?"

The Time Gem is the bait in the trap we must set. It’s what Amber Hunt is coming here to find.

"I was supposing you had some sort of trap idea already worked out."

Everything will unfold in its proper time, he replied.

"Aren't you the one who's always reminding me how little time we have left?" I asked.

Gabriel gave a sudden shout: I see it! It's hidden inside the castle!

"It's an armory, not a castle," I corrected him. "But earlier you said you couldn't find the Infinity Stone because it was shielding itself from you."

True, but it's possible it no longer wants to hide. Or else, it's exhausted after protecting this world for years and now has had to divert its last energies toward that effort.

"Yeah, I suppose. But who has the thing? Not Necromantra, I hope."

Jamie Tark has it!

"Jamie? How had a pint-sized little girl snagged a piece of a dead god?"

By its permission, I suppose. Hurry. We need Jamie's help to contact the gem. We lack the means to force an entity of such power to do anything against its will.

"I don't like hearing that you plan to involve Jamie in something so dangerous."

"With the world about to be destroyed, the child can hardly be placed in any more danger than she is in presently," he advised.

“I get that. But what about Warstrike?" I asked. "If he finds out his daughter is controlling one of the most powerful entities in the universe, he'll want to grab it himself to turn it into a weapon against the rebels."

"And then there's Necromantra! I don't think there is much going on in this city that she's not going to know about. She's likely to do something crazy if she gets her hands on that much power," I said.

Necromantra is a problem, but you will undoubtedly find the best way to deal with her.

"Another dirty job for me? Why don't you use your VIGOPS to come up with an idea?"

It has mechanistic logic, but it doesn’t have your resourcefulness. You consistently outperform the best technological substitutes.

"Honesty! Your tech must be a million years ahead of ours, but you don't seem to have made much progress in all that time!" When he didn't answer, I asked, "Okay, where is Jamie now?"

The little girl is in her room.

"And where is her room?" I asked.

He gave me a mental snapshot of the armory's interior layout. After that, I no longer sensed Gabriel's presence in my mind, meaning our conversation was over. I leaped into the air and ghosted myself. Time being of the essence, I flew through the mounded junk and rubbish that choked the city streets and came through a wall just behind Jamie. She was sitting at a small table playing with dolls.

I solidified behind the child and said, "Hi, Jamie!"

She looked over her shoulder and gasped. "Mantra!"

"I didn't mean to startle you."

"Evie said you're going to take us all home with you!" she said excitedly.

"I'll take you away as soon as I can, but I learned something that makes me afraid for you especially."

Jamie wrinkled her brow. "What, Aunt Jenny?"

"I've found that there's a big secret you're keeping. Some secrets are too big for a child to keep all by herselve. Can you tell me what it is?"

"I don't know any secrets," she said nervously.

"Well, a while ago, when I used my Mantra vision, I saw you holding a pretty gem. But instead of being happy, you looked sad and worried. Why is that, sweetheart?"

"I – I –" she stammered.

"Is it a bad gem? Does it make you have nightmares?"

"No – I don't have bad dreams." She said, looking guilty. "I had to fib to Daddy."

I stepped beside her and took her hand. "Isn't it naughty to keep secrets from people who love you? I asked."

"The gem told me I couldn't tell anybody or bad things were gonna happen," said the tot.

"What sort of bad things, honey?"

"The gem said it had all sorts of powers like angels do, and if Daddy got the gem, he might hurt people using it."

She was probably right about that. But it was hard for me to believe that an Infinity Stone could care about people getting hurt. "Why would your daddy want to hurt people?"

"Because he has to. He's the king."

"Is he a king who does bad things?"

"I don't know. But he's fighting with people, and when people fight, they hurt each other, won't they?"

"They usually will," I agreed. "But does the gem really speak to you? I've never met a talking gem. Will it speak to me?"

"I don't know. Maybe it will if it likes you."

"When you talk to it, what does it say?"

"It told me the Flaming Woman will soon come and to take it away, and that if she does, everyone is gonna to die. So I hid the Gem to keep the Flaming Woman from finding it."

"Will you tell me where you hid it?” I asked.

Jamie glanced away, unable to look me in the eye. I gathered her into my arms and whispered, "Jamie, I think the gem is saying these things because it's afraid. Maybe if I talk to it, I can help it to stop being afraid."

She drew away and went to her toy box. From it, she withdrew a smooth, glowing vermilion stone. It looked pretty much like the Mind Gem I had seen before, except for its color. Finally seeing it made this whole incredible situation seem totally real. I knew it contained world-destroying power.

The trouble was, I wasn't sure that even Gabriel could be trusted to control it. Maybe he wasn't the good-natured person he seemed to be. After all, I still didn't know him very well.

Jamie stepped up, carrying the Time Gem cupped in her hands. "You can have it, Auntie," she whispered.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"It makes me scared. I think a grownup should take care of it."

Wow! She was offering me a treasure that she hadn't offered to her own father. I must have a face that children trust!

She placed the gem upon my hand. Its warmth penetrated my gloves. A month before, I had been close to another Infinity Stone, the Mind Gem but I had never touched it. As warm as this stone was, I felt chilled to be in contact with such an unbelievably powerful artifact."

"Can you speak to me?" I asked the gem warily.

I can communicate with you, stated a whisper inside my mind.

"What have you been telling Jamie?" I asked.

Only the truth.

"What is truth?"

Truth is an accurate description of a quantitative reality.

"Cute answer! Why are you here?"

I escaped the Infinity Array and chose to occupy this timeline and this planet to hide from my brothers.

"Why do you need to hide from your family?"

They regard me as a traitor. I cooperated with the Reality Gem to help the Black Knight break the Infinity Array. The other four gems now crave revenge.

"How can they hurt you?"

They have power enough to render me inert, which is what I saw happening to the Ego Gem when I looked forward in time.

"Why did you turn against the array?"

I see the future in time. If the Ego Gem ended the Multiverse, even the Infinity Array will cease to exist. The Reality Gem and I prefer continued existence to oblivion.

"If you've already helped the Black Knight, are you saying that while you've been hiding in this world, hardly a second has passed back on zero time on the Main Bough?

That is so. The Crisis is great. With the assistance of the Reality Gem and myself, the Black Knight broke the array, but not before the Nemesis Array released a wave of energy upon the Main Branch. If a second wave follows it, the Main Branch will be utterly destroyed.

That was why I had to capture Amber Hunt and take her back to zero time to fight Nemesis. She would have only a pyrrhic victory unless we could find a way to make her attack more effective. Doing that would prevent a second wave from forming.

I had to ask myself, was this a battle we could actually win?

I was facing a conundrum beyond the understanding of a Dark Age barbarian like myself. I wondered whether even Gabriel understood the mind-boggling situation.

If he turned out to be as clueless as I was, the Multiverse would be in deep trouble.

Again I addressed the stone. "Time Gem, is it possible for you to go back in time and prevent any particle of the Nemesis Energy from escaping?"

I cannot do so. If I return to a nanosecond of zero time that I have already occupied, it will create a paradox that will destroy all Creation, just as Nemesis's plan would have!

"Why should that be?" I asked. "Not too long ago I met a version of myself from a different timeline! Being together didn't hurt either one of us!"

That version of Mantra was a clone of your original. The danger I am speaking of arises from meeting another original of myself. The different situations are incomparably different.

It was no use trying to understand the Multiverse as the Infinity Stone saw it. This was a problem I had to turn to Gabriel's big brain as soon as possible.

I hear you, Mantra, the Timekeeper said, speaking to me by mind-to-mind communication.

"I'm glad of that. What are we supposed to do?"

The data is being analyzed. But an Infinity Stone can't be properly analyzed remotely. Please bring it to the Time Sphere.

"What if our little vermilion friend doesn't want to go?" I asked.

Persuade it.

“How?”

Begin by asking it nicely. Sometimes politeness will yield excellent results.

"Auntie!" Jamie shouted from behind me. "Your clothes suddenly changed. How come?"

"They're magical clothes," I said. "They're always changing. Isn't it fun?"

"I guess so," she said bemusedly.

Suddenly I heard a grating voice echoing between the cement walls of Jamie's room: "So, there you are, bitch!"

My force shield flashed on to protect both Jamie and myself.

I was always horribly conflicted about Necromantra. She was physically my daughter. What killed me was knowing that I would have loved this woman like a parent would if her fetus hadn't been possessed by a psychotic murderer in the womb.

Not wishing to start a fight with Jamie present, I tried to forestall by using a threat: "Don't test me. I killed you once, I'll do it again."

"What? When did you kill me?" she asked.

"I killed an exact duplicate of you in another timeline. I felt bad about it, but having seen you again, I can't remember why."

"Ahhh, poor Mommy. All those bad feelings will go away once you're dead yourself," Necromantra said scornfully.

"It's good to see you're still the same little ball of sunshine you always were."

"What's that in your hand?" the witch asked.

"Take a guess."

"I'm good at guessing. Its energy patterns are almost the same as those that emanated from the Power Gem that Lord Pumpkin used to attack me on the Godwheel. Wherever that gem comes from, it is endowed with power like I've always dreamed of having. Hand it over!"

"Why should I?" I asked.

"If you surrender it without a fight, I'll let my little sister Jamie live. Do we have a deal?"

My lunatic daughter didn't realize time was running out for her and little Jamie. "I would love to negotiate," I said, "but after our past experiences together, I have trouble believing that you'd keep your word?"

The tattooed woman smiled. "How you talk! We're all family, and family are special."

"If only that were true, Marinna," I said. "If it were, I'd ask kyou about your larger goals. Why are you staying in this wreck of a city? It can't be pleasant for you."

"Will you stop jabbering? I've stated my terms and you're still stalling," she pronounced in a cold, hard voice.

"Here are my terms," I answered back. "Get out of my way, go to your room, and keep on playing at being a princess. If you do, I'll let you live. You seem to overlook that I'm in control of the gem, and can easily unleash its power against you. If Lord Pumpkin roughed you up with the Power Gem, you'll be even worse off once I get through with you."

I was pouring on the tough talk, but I didn't have the foggiest idea how to use the gem or even what it could do.

Necromantia made a sweep of her arms and flaming destruction came at me.

Wow! That really stung, and it made Jamie to faint away in my arms. My shield had saved our lives, but I didn’t think my defenses could stand up against many blasts like that!"

Mantra! Gabriel suddenly spoke into my mind. Think! The Time Gem controls time. Ask it to do something involving time! Think outside the box!

I said the first thing to come into my mind. "Time Gem, protect Jamie and me by sending this obnoxious bimbo to a place full of hungry dinosaurs!"

A vermilion vortex opened within the small room and swirled around us, forming a funnel made of arcs of crackling light. The funnel narrowed around Necromantra and swallowed her whole. Almost as quickly, it vanished, taking the witch with it.

I laid Jamie on her bed and checked her over. I suddenly heard her murmur, "Where did the queen go?"

I glanced at the weighty Stone in my hand. "Gem, where did you send Necromantra?"

In your terminology, she now exists in this same location seventy-five million years ago. Is her banishment a satisfactory reply to your request?

"Yeah, you made an inspired choice. Thanks much."

"Is the queen gonna come back, Auntie?" Jamie asked plaintively.

Would she? I doubted it. Necromantra couldn't time travel and couldn't possibly survive for seventy-five million years. Anyway, if I understood Gabriel correctly, when the Nemesis Energy struck this world, it would mean the destruction of the solar system in the past, present, and future, dooming every person who ever existed.

"No, I don't think she can come back. She'll never make you afraid again."

With a happy laugh, Jamie hugged me.

It was all good that I'd defeated Necromantra but it was an almost meaningless victory. Her threat had added up to no more than an annoyance. The intractable problems we faced still lay ahead.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 13

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 13

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 13

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted 11-19-24

Mantra 14.jpg

.
THE FLAMING WOMAN

Chapter 13

Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
.

Jamie was holding me by the waist. I sank to one knee and pinched her chin.

"Evie says you have to go away, Aunt Jenny, and we can go with you!"

“Yes, I'd like that," I said. "You'll be coming, too, won't you?"

“I don't want to be with Daddy. Do you have to go away from here?"

"Yes, I really, really have to. But I’d be so happy if you three kids accompany me."

“Why can’t Daddy come?!”

"He's welcome to come if he wants to. Anyway, we need his permission to take you, Evie, and Gus away. I need to talk to King Daddy about that right away."

I wasn't looking forward to confronting Warstrike. I had just rid the world of his wife Necromantra, and I wouldn't be surprised if he got angry about that. Whether he had personal feelings for the witch, he definitely wanted her power backing him!

Suddenly, the door burst open, and two rough-hewn guards burst in.

I threw a shield around Jamie and myself. "What is this this about?" I demanded.

"The chamberlain sent us to protect the princess!" said the uglier of the two. "Why are you here, lady?"

"I'm just visiting. Maybe you’ve heard that I'm the girl's aunt." I glanced down at Jamie. "Aren't I, sweetheart?"

The child nodded emphatically.

"An assassin has injured the king, and he may be dying," yammered the other guard. "He wants to see his daughter!"

“Daddy! No!” Princess shouted.

The clod! How could he blurt out anything so brutal in front of a child? "All right," I said, picking up the little girl. "Let's all go!"

The gunmen led me to a dressing station. Nicolas was already inside with his leader but was wearing his Solitaire outfit. His hood was down, though, exposing a stern and urgent face. Warstrike occupied a cot with a blanket thrown over him. His skin was marked by burns. Jamie let out a dismayed dismay; I squeezed her close and kissed her.

"What happened?!" I demanded.

"It was attempted murder by Jimmy Ruiz," Solitaire said. "His Majesty was in his cell offering him a pardon in exchange for information against his co-conspirators."

"Prototype tried to kill him?"

"Ruiz wasn't wearing his ultra armor," Nicolas Lone replied. "Somebody smuggled in a suicide explosion device. That means we have an enemy infiltrator among us!"

Jamie was crying, shuddering with shock and grief. I've heard that sound so many times over the centuries. Usually, it happened after I killed some kid's father. When I took my hands from Jamie, she dashed to her father’s bedside.

"Daddy! Don't die!"

I put my hands on her shoulders, afraid that she'd climb on her dad and hurt him even more.

"Jamie…" Brandon whispered. Then he glanced my way. "I…I'm glad you're here for her, Eden."

"You've got to hold on, Brandon," I said. "You have accelerated healing and it can pull you through it if you give it enough time."

He gave a weak, bitter laugh. "That cheap Chung Brothers' wetware isn’t working so well today. I regret I didn't have my operation done at NuTech."

I touched the blanket that covered his seared and blasted body. "I can give you some of my energy," I told him. "Maybe it will kick-start your Chung Brothers enhancements."

"I'd like that," he said "Getting an energy boost from you is almost as good as sex."

He remembered someone else, but I didn't want to take away his happy thoughts.

"Eden…" Brandon whispered hoarsely, "The kids are in danger. I want you to take them away if...I don’t make it!"

"No, Daddy, don't die!" the child shouted.

"I promise to take care of her,” I said. "I know of a better world she and the others can live in."

"Thank..." he whispered as the strength went out of him. I lightly touched his face and felt that he still held a flicker of life, but it was fading fast.

I put my hands on him, willing my bio-energy to flow into him. Something was wrong, he wasn't receiving it properly. I kept trying to get him to respond until someone burst into the room wearing old doctor's togs. “Give me room!” he said. I backed away and took Jamie with me. She was shaking with sobs.

The man on the bed was not the same Warstrike I knew in my world. He had gone where I hoped my friend Warstrike would never go. If I had been a native of this dying city, I might have joined the rebels against him. But yet, somehow, the other Mantra had loved and stood by this dictatorial version of Warstrike. What did she find so lovable in him?

"We haven’t been able to find Queen Marinna," said Solitaire. "Do you know where she went, Mantra?"

I didn't feel like lying. "The two of us fought and I had to send her away."

"What do you mean?"

"It’s a complex business,” I said. "Do you want me to bring her back?"

"No way!" he exclaimed.

"Who's going to take over now?" I asked, not really caring. This world had only hours to live.

"I'm not sure," Nicolas answered. "If the king and queen are gone, it gives us a window of time to work with the rebels to choose new leadership."

“Why don't you make yourself king?" I suggested, wondering how ambitious he was.

“Why don't you take the throne, Mantra? You’ve made fewer enemies here than I have," he said.

"No can do! I came here to corral the Flaming Woman and take her where she’s needed. It's absolutely vital.”

The medic suddenly said, "The king...is dead. " We stared at Brandon's body for a moment, before the medic drew the blanket over his face. The girl beside me gave out an ear-hurting wail.

"Jamie, come away with me,” I said “This is too awful for you."

"No! I want to be with Daddy!"

Then we heard new voices; Gus and Evie were trying to enter the crowded room. I hadn't seen this twenty-something version of Gus before. How tall he'd gotten! He looked more than ever like his father.

"Dad!" Gus moaned as he beheld his stepdad's blanket-covered shape. I knew that his parents' divorce had hurt my grade-schooler terribly. Maybe Brandon had filled some of the emptiness that the family breakup had left in his heart. Then he shifted his blue eyes my way.

"You!"

I nodded. "Yeah, it's me. Whoever me is."

"Evie told me…." He ended his sentence in midair. I wondered whether he had ever been told that Mantra hadn't been his real mother, Eden Blake. Maybe it would be best if he found that out. I wasn't sure.

Evie said, “Mother – I mean…"

I opened my arms to her, and she stepped between them. The teen clung to me like I were a lifeline, leaving me hoping that I could be that lifeline for her.

"Is he really gone?" Evie whispered.

"I'm sorry, yes. Can you do anything for your sister?"

Evie turned to Jamie and dropped to her knees to hug her.

"What's going to happen?" Evie asked me without looking my way.

"Brandon wanted me to take you three away. I want to do that."

A woman guard scrambled in. "Lord Chamberlain!" she yelled.

"What now?!" Nick barked, sounding like a man pushed to his limit.

"War Eagle's group has brought in a prisoner! The guards have locked her locked up in the dungeon."

"Is…is she flaming?" the chamberlain asked.

"She was, but she flamed out when she struck the earth."

The “dungeon” was a basement with cells installed. I saw a young blonde woman in lockup. She was raggedly dressed, which fact made me wonder why her flame-ons hadn't incinerated her clothes.

"Is that the flaming woman you've come looking for, Mantra?" Solitaire asked.

I hadn’t seen high school and college pictures of Amber Hunt in Aladdin's records for a while. Most other photos showed her ablaze with energy. "If she was on fire, this has to be her."

I considered it a blessing that Warstrike's men had captured Hunt. If we had to deal with the rebels, it would have complicated matters. Nicolas Lone was in charge now and seemed to be semi-sane. I wasn't so sure about the rebels' leadership. The sad and angry version of Choice I’d met hadn't left me with a good impression.

“Nick,” I said. “It’s vital that I take her Miss Hunt away with me. Do you have any objections?”

“Not really,” he said. “Just don't even think about bringing her back. We have enough problems without her!”

I looked back at the cell. The captive was lying on her left haunch, looking like an exhausted, battered college girl – which was what she was, down deep. My mystical senses detected a stream of power emanating from her, an unfamiliar sort of power. Probably, the Reality Gem was nestled inside her body. I wasn't sure whether that was a problem or not. The Time Gem had told me that the Reality Gem had an important role to play an important role in this crazy situation.

I wondered how badly hurt Amber was. She had to be kept alive. Her energy-absorbing power was the only thing powerful enough to save the Multiverse. But given my experiences, it was hard for me to see the girl as a savior instead of a world-endangering menace.

Hunt's eyes slowly opened and saw the bars of her cell. She flamed on again and looked like she was covered in blazing gasoline.

I sent out a mental appall: Have you got any ideas, Gabriel?

The next thing I knew, the little man was next to me. I didn’t know if it was the physical man or a hologram.

"We have to persuade her to cooperate."

"Yeah? And how do we do that?” I asked.

"I suggest you ask the Time Gem to negotiate with the Reality Gem. The gem Miss Hunt carries can probably control her actions!"

"Time Gem!" I said to the lump in the bag I was carrying. "Speak to the Reality Gem and ask it to make the girl understand she has to come with us to oppose Nemesis."

Then I looked at Gabriel. “What’s next, Gabe? You have a plan, don’t you?"

I didn't care for the abashed look on his plump face.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 14

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 14

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Eden in ship.jpg

AUTHORS’ NOTE: For the last several months I’ve been posting two chapters monthly of TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, but in the immediate future I'll have to start aiming at only one story per month. What's changed is that I have been offered an opportunity by one of the publishers I’m working with. But the time is short to accomplish it and it will leave me with almost no time for anything else for the next several weeks at least. So, don't expect the next chapter of TWILGHT15 for about a month. I'm hoping I will have time to do that much, even while working on the other project.

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

NO ATHEISTS IN FOX HOLES -- Chap. 14

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted 12-05-24

“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I didn't hear any conversation going on between the two gems, but the aura of fire around Amber Hunt suddenly turned off like the flames of a gas burner. Whatever that fire represented, it couldn't have been natural. Otherwise, it would have set the straw on her cage floor aflame.

"Now what?" I asked Gabriel."Now we must take Miss Hunt away from here. What is left of this universe will not last much longer." I felt depressed. Every being in this universe had vanished years ago, except for the Sol solar system. But as soon as we took the Tim Gem away from the Sol solar system, the last life on Earth would be snuffed out, too.

While I was in a funk feeling miserable, Gabriel was talking to the Time Gem. "You and your brother, the Reality Gem, have been in constant telepathic contact, haven't you?"

The gem made no reply."

Perhaps it only communicates directly with the being holding it," said my partner in Time. "Please repeat to the Time Gems what I said in your own words, Mantra.

I did so, holding that lump of rock so tightly in my hand that no pickpocket could have snatched it away.

"The gentleman wants to talk to you," I said to it. "I hope you'll listen to him in a friendly and productive manner."

A brief silence followed. Then the reddish rock said, "I will listen."

"Okay, Gabriel, do that persuasion thing of yours," I said.

The Timekeeper, flashing an edgy smile and drew in a deep breath. I wondered what he could say that might interest a piece of dead god.

“From what we have learned so far, you gems intend to use Amber Hunt to absorb the Nemesis energy and render it harmless, correct?” Gabriel asked.

After I repeated his words to the Time Gem, it gave a reply.

Yes. We have been in contact, the gem answered.

"How can you and the Reality Gem defy the will of your equally powerful five brothers?" asked Gabriel.

The two of us are capable because we are unique.

“That is good to know,” said the Timekeeper. “What is the probability of your successful defiance of the Infinity Array?”

We were interrupted by a voice behind us. “Why am I locked up?” asked Amber Hunt. She didn't look or sound formidable at the moment, but I didn’t like to think about how powerful she was. We depended on the Reality Gem to keep her in line. “I'm sorry, my lady," said the Timekeeper. "You made a rough landing on the surface of this world and fainted. You frightened the people living here, so they put you in there.”

"I didn't mean to frighten anybody," the girl said.

"Miss," said Gabriel, "we believe that you and the Infinity Gems intend to act against the Nemesis Array, but we already know that you are fated to be unsuccessful."

She gave a bemused look. "I'm not sure why the gem brought me here."

"We understand the gems want to accompany you on a mission," said the little man. "We want to help that mission to succeed, and we will do everything we can to help."

"You'd better talk to the gems," said the college girl. "Maybe they know what they're doing; I don't."

"Well, Miss Hunt, we want you to go with us to a place in time and space where we can carry out a dry run of the upcoming battle with Nemesis. We'll be monitoring every detail and evaluating its probability of success."

"Yeah, fine. I was never good at statistics," the young blonde replied.

We had all run out of words , so I broke the silence. "A question, Amber."

She looked my way.

"You sound very cogent," I observed. "When we last interacted, you were in an awful state of mind. What happened?"

"The Reality Gem happened," Hunt said. "The last thing I can remember before the Reality Gem met me was being inside a laboratory the size of a planetarium. It suddenly went up like a bomb! There were people in there with me. Good people. I think…they died. I also thought that I'd caused it by turning on a machine that I shouldn't have."

I looked at Gabriel. "We've got so little time left. If you're going to take us somewhere, I think we should be on our way."

That was cold-blooded of me. I already knew that if the Time Gem left this universe, it would be the end of all life here. I only hoped I could remember that one death is a tragedy, but a planet full of people lost is a statistic.

"You are right, Mantra. Please free Miss Hunt from that cell," Gabriel said. I winced, knowing that leaving his planet would destroy it hours before it was fated to die, but I had no choice.

I'd had experience using telekinesis to open locks, so opening the cell door was easy. What a day! When I signed on with Gabriel, it was to save trillions of lives. I hadn't realized that I would have to kill hundreds of millions to do it.

I went back to the armory to bring Evie, Gus, and Jamie to the Time Capsule. They were still so affected by Warstrike's death they hadn't even started packing. Now, in the rush, they could take with them not much more than one piece of luggage, the teddy bear Mr. Paws. I honestly don't remember how the four of us got back to the Time Capsule, but I think Gabriel must have snatched us up by teleportation. When I came out of my daze, he stood there telling us that we were in a different universe, some hundreds of feet above version of New York City.

The scene was just like the one we'd seen before. The battle royal was already in progress, with thousands of ultra-clones throwing themselves into a battle that staggered the imagination.
Like Gabriel had said, raw power alone was useless against Nemesis. She was only the remnant of the Creator God, but that fragment was so powerful that an army of ants had as much chance of defeating her as did that army of ultras.

Gabriel sent the kids through a hatch and suggested they have a good time exploring the endless corridors of the Time Capsule. As bad off as I was just then, I realized that wasn't good enough. I had to help them settle in. Before catching up with them, I flashed back into my civilian clothing. They needed something familiar in the face of all this strangeness, and maybe seeing me looking like their mother from the good old days would help them out psychologically.

Our departure from the Super Volcano world had destroyed it, but I hoped they didn't realize that all life on their planet was now vanished. Worse than dead, their universe had vanished from the history of Creation. When I found them by following their life-force signatures, I gave them all hugs. Not even Gus squirmed much when I put my arms around him.

I stayed with the three of them for a while, trying to answer their questions. But all too soon a telepathic voice barged into my mind. "Mantra, get ready," the Timekeeper said.

"What do you want me to do?" I projected back at him.

"For the moment, I suggest you pray."

I wasn't used to hearing religious references from Gabriel, but I knew well enough that there were no atheists in foxholes. "I'll at least keep my fingers crossed," I promised.

I hurried away to the control room. "What have you found out?" I asked the little man.

"I found out something I hoped I wouldn't find out."

"If it's that bad, don't tell me," I said.

"That is not an option," Gabriel replied. "We have received more information from the Infinity Gems. The VIGOPS interprets the new data to say that the Reality and the Time Gem broke away from Nemesis too late. A lethal surge of Nemesis Energy was released before they left the scene of battle"

"Do you mean they were beaten even before their rebellion began?"

"That seems to be the case."

"So why don't we go back in time and correct their mistake?"

"Because to do that correction, the gems would have to undo an act that was performed by themselves at the very moment they performed it. That would create a paradox that the Main Branch universe could not accept. It would be as destructive to the fabric of time as will be the Nemesis Energy itself.

"But I've existed in the same time and space with two other Lukas's."

"Those versions of you were time clones, which was an entirely different situation. We are talking about multiple originals performing contradictory actions."

"If it's a blunder that can't be fixed, what was the purpose of us going to that sad and dying city?" I asked.

"We gained knowledge."

"About what?"

"About a course of action that will not work for us. Also, when we started on the trail of the Third Force, we didn't know what the Third Force was. Now we've found out it was Amber Hunt."

"What are we going to do with that information?"

"I'm uncertain. What we hoped to do we just found out can't be done."

"But you're supposed to be the big brain. I'm depending on you to know everything! Can't you think of anything that we can do to save this situation?"

"Not yet, but the VIGOPS is trying to work out an answer."

"Oh, brother!” It hit me just then that we had accomplished nothing so far to improve the situation that had been facing us since the beginning. It seemed like the VIGOPS that was supposed to be so smart had managed to steer us into a dead end.

I went to the main viewscreen. About all I could see on it was dazzling light.

And then the sky and New York City below it were gone.

"Gabriel!" I called.

"Fear not! The Time Capsule has taken us out of phase with that universe, and I'm re-calibrating," the little man explained.

"What happened?"

"Everything."

"What do you mean?"

"We escaped without harm."

"Escaped for how long?"

"The Time Capsule has taken us into a safer timeline."

"What happened back there?"

"That was a world where Amber Hunt had not joined with the rebel gems, and Nemesis released its total energy charge. It caused the universe to vanish."

"So, everybody in that universe is dead?"

"They didn't suffer," Gabriel said. "Nemesis changed their reality so that they had never existed at all."

"That's it? I asked. "Another universe died and you're not reacting at all?"

"My reactions will not change what's already happened. But maybe my actions from this point on might accomplish something. We both have to keep our minds clear."

"How much time do we have to fight back against this craziness?" I asked.

“In your terms, hours. But we may still have some moves left to play.”

"Are the Infinity Gems and Amber Hunt going to be of any use to us at all??"

"We have yet to find out that out."

"Do you think the gems have learned anything useful from what's happened so far?"

"We will have to ask them," said the scientist.

"Gabriel, can we even trust such inhuman entities? All they're seeking is to do is to continue along in their state of undeath. If they could find a way to do that by sacrificing every living being in the Multiverse, you know they would do it. They must see us as less than dust in the wind!"

"We do what we can with the resources we have while hoping for the best," the man from the Godwheel said.

"Sorry," I said, "but depending on hope tastes like a thin stew."

"Hope sometimes prevails. Pessimism is always born dead in the water."

"Gabriel, I asked, "how much wiggle room do we have left? You said you could find us a place where the disaster won't reach us for over two hundred years. Shouldn't we start thinking about that, at least for the kids' sake? "

"Please don't be satisfied with the idea that the tiger will eat us last, Eden. It's the people who hold on to hope who sometimes conquer in the most hopeless situations. People who give in to despair will be defeated every time," said the Timekeeper.

"Okay, Mr. Optimist, what are we supposed to do now?"

Crickets. The person I depended on to fix everything didn't appear to have anything to say.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 15

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 15

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Mantra Malibu Comics Ultraverse

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Mantra fights the fire_0.jpg

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

THE TOWERING INFERNO

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted 01-03-25

Chapter 15

THE TOWERING INFERNO

“To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
.

Glancing at the Time Capsule’s view-screen, I was not pleased with what I saw.

New York was below us again.

But how could that be? We had left New York only seconds before it was destroyed.

This had to be an entirely different version of New York. This insane mission was like a repeating dream that wouldn’t end.

Which version of New York was this? And what was the date?

The monitor showed me an aerial view of physical damage below, as if New York had been slugged by a heavyweight boxer. The bruiser must have been on fire, too, because I saw licking flames below.

“What happened here?” I asked Gabriel.

“We’re in another alternate timeline. In this reality, Nemesis has already seized the Infinity Gems and the ultras that opposed have rallied on Earth to await her attack.”

“Why did we come here?” I asked.

“To observe, learn, and to plan.”

“Serious fires are burning down there. What are we going to do?”

“We shouldn’t do anything. This timeline is doomed. The standard policy advises the Timekeepers to leave bad enough alone. Try not to be too upset by what you see. This isn’t your timeline, after all.”

That came across as incredibly cynical. “We think differently; maybe it’s because I’m not as educated as you are. But when people are in danger, this dumb person wants to help. Are you going to give me trouble about that?”

You’ll be risking your safety for a world that may not endure much longer.

“Mom!” yelled Evie. “Don’t go!”

The three kids were standing together in the open hatchway. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to save lives, but I’ll be as careful as possible. If the worst happens, never forget how much I loved you.”

I flashed back into my Mantra armor, and the youngsters looked dismayed to see me do it. Their mother had died trying to pull off the sort of brave deeds I was going to attempt now.

I entered my ghost phase again and leaped through the hull of the Time Capsule. That put me high above the ground and falling fast.

My levitation ability arrested my plummet. As I floated took stock of the scene below.

I saw scorched concrete and plenty of blown-out windows. I saw buildings swaying, but I knew that knocking over a Manhattan skyscraper wasn’t easy.

But one high rise was on fire in its upper reaches and that meant that hundreds of lives were in danger. I don’t possess the powers I needed to evacuate crowds of people en masse, but maybe I could hold the flames back long enough to start an orderly evacuation.

I phantomed myself through the high-rise wall and entered an inside room. I immediately needed to raise a shield to protect myself from the smoke. From one hall, I heard panicked cries. The elevators, as usual, were disabled by the emergency system, causing a commotion as people fought for entry into the fire stairwells.

We were high up, close to the fire above us, and the route of escape would be slow. It looked like everyone was wild with fear.

Someone grabbed my arm. “Are you Mantra?!” an adenoidal voiced intern type asked in a shaky, adenoidal voice. Then he answered his own question. “You can’t be. She protects L.A.”

“I’m here to help. What can I do?”

“The people above us can’t come down. The stair is jammed somewhere above us.”

“Thanks,” I said and ghosted up through the ceiling. The next floor seemed empty, so I flew higher. I came out where choking smoke filled the air. I heard many cries; many people were trapped on this level.

Getting air to them was the overriding necessity. Using a force bolt, I smashed a gap into the outside wall. With access to the cleaner atmosphere outside, I employed my elemental power to draw in fresh air. Due to the excessive smoke on the level, I shielded the suffocating people in front of me with a force bubble and provide them with fresh air.

The confusion among the people escalated as they found themselves trapped and surrounded, causing even more panic. Escape attempts were being made. Scuffles had broken out, and the clamor drowned out my shouted instruction. To startle them into quiet, I released a burst of light.

When I could hear myself think, I yelled, “You’ll be all right. I’m Mantra. I’m an ultra! I’m here to help!”

Some people understood, and they tried to calm down the others. “No pushing, no climbing over one another,” I said. “Settle down and get into order! Does anyone know if there are people above us?” I asked.

“I think there are! But they can’t come down,” a woman shouted. "There’s a blockage in the stairwell.”

Assuming she was correct, I had to do something. “You people have to stay orderly. Panic will kill you, so keep your heads on straight! I’m going to get the stairway clear.”

Above these people, a blockage existed, and I had to remove it. I therefore phased through the concrete to locate the problem. I found a mass of helpless people stopped in front of a slug of rubble and twisted steel. They couldn’t go forward and the human press behind them made it impossible for them to go back. When something is in my way, it’s my instinct to use a magical blast to clear it away, but in a case like this, it would hurt people next to it. Also, the falling debris would land on people farther down in the stairwell.

I thought I might have a clever solution. I possessed the power to move matter from a dimensional plane where I’m standing into an alternate dimension. It was just a king-sized version of what I do every day when I project solid objects into my mystical closet for safekeeping.

But I didn’t know whether that other reality was inhabited. I could hurt people if I sent them a few tons of rubble to them. I hesitated to take a risk, but clearing a path for the trapped was a life and death necessity.

I concentrated like hell, and suddenly parts of the obstructing mass disappeared. I kept up the effort until the entire mass blinked out of existence. The cleared stairs appeared usable. But the herculean effort had taken a lot out of manna out of me. I was hoping for a second wind, so I could continue to save lives.

Although evacuation was improved, the fire and smoke filling the upper floors were still placing many at risk.

Fire departments fought flame with floods of water, and they knew better ways to firefight than I did. Going to a wall-sized window, I broke it and then invoked my elemental command over water. I used my power to condense the moisture held by the cumulus clouds hanging like a lighter-than-air mountain range above the city.

Out of that cotton-candy sierra, I summoned a rushing creek of water. I directed this through the burst windows toward the flames, while trying hard not to drown anyone. Where the cold water collided with the searing flames, clouds of hissing steam rolled up. Hot steam presented a danger, too, so I needed to spend even more magical manna to protect myself and others.

Using telekinesis, I directed the water to where I needed it. However, the hallway and office occupants continued to suffocate. Water wasn’t enough; I had to provide air for people to breathe. This multitasking proved to be more difficult in practice than in theory.

I spotted a flying man through a window. He looked like an ultra, but I didn’t recognize him. Had this interventionist come to save lives or to loot? He looked like a powerhouse, though, and I needed some heavy-duty help.

I flew out of the high rise through a broken window and sped after the stranger, waving my arms to make him notice me.

When he saw me, he stopped to chat, descending into the chaotic street. I followed him down.
The unknown ultra wore red and gold armor that made him look like a robot. But I sensed his bio-emanations, so I knew there was a man inside that metal shell. I landed short of him. He stood watching me, cautious but not overtly defensive.

I remarked, “I’ve met a lot of ultras, but I never came across you before.”

The armored man, his voice electronically altered, replied, “I’m new around here, but I’m not inexperienced. Why did you flag me down, miss? Do you need rescuing?”

“No, I’m good, Armor Man,” I said. “But there are still office people trapped in this burning building. They need more help than I can give them.”

“My handle is Iron Man,” the newcomer informed me. At that moment, he gazed skyward.

“This must be our lucky day, Goldy,” he said to me. “We’re getting reinforcements.

“I’m called Mantra, by the way,” I told him. I looked up and saw that the “reinforcement” he referred to was somebody I’d already met.

A powerful being, godlike in aspect, set down near us. He recognized me as well. “Lady Mantra!” he exclaimed in a powerful baritone I’d heard before. I guessed it was the sort of male voice that would send shivers down many a female spine.

“Verily ‘tis I,” I affirmed.

“How do you know a person living in another universe, Thor?” Iron Man asked.

“I did speak to thee about the land of Vahdala,” answered the blonde titan. “This maid of blue and gold was the fairest flower I encountered there.”

Clearly, he liked brunettes. But though Thor didn’t know it, he wasn’t complimenting me. The Mantra he had met months before had been Eden Blake during that brief, tragic episode when she had regained possession of her own body and had taken over the role of Mantra. I’d been standing beside her in a cloned male body when we interviewed the Asgardian. With both his eyes filled with Eden Blake’s beauty, Thor probably hadn’t even noticed me.

“Hi, Thor!” I said. “Can you give me and Mr. Iron Guy a hand rescuing some people trapped in that burning building?”

Thor looked up at the high rise and answered, “It shall be a pleasure, my lady.”

The two men, not only from a different timeline but also from a distinct branch of the Tree of Eternity, soared toward the top levels of the fiery tower. That left me standing on the asphalt pavement amid a squad of excited, just-arriving rescue workers.

I buttonholed an authority figure and told him what I knew about the fire, before jumping clear and levitating into the air. I intended to rejoin Thor and Iron Man to help them pull off a major life-saving operation. Saving lives today would take the sting out of all the lives I hadn't been able to save lately.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 16

The Twilight of the Gods -- A Story of Mantra, Chapter 16

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

Eden Chapter 16.jpg

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted 02-03-25

Chapter 16

NEW PROBLEMS FOR OLD

By seeking and blundering we learn.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[A NOTE to readers. I will have to suspend my uploading of the TWILIGHT OF THE GODS for a while. I'm not sure how long that will be. Hopefully, it will be only for a month or so. I will make an announcement here when I see myself clear to post Mantra's adventure again. Why the suspension? Well, instead of slackening off, my other commitments are becoming heavier these days. That's not all bad, because some good things are shaping up. But to take advantage of them, I have to do considerable preparatory work. That means I need to free up more time and am unable to continue to work on TWILIGHT at present. This is because the unpublished portion of TWILIGHT exists in an early rough draft state and I have to put a lot of time into each new chapter. But I remain very dedicated to posting this superior novel by Aladdin and I will resume work on it as soon as possible. Fortunately, I have another story ready to post here at BC. Most of it is polished already, and the rest of the story is far along in the polishing process. It will not take long to offer it in highly polished new chapters for BC. It is called "JOSETTE'S STORY," A PREQUEL TO "A SOCK IN THE MOUTH," a chapter in the "DARK OF THE MOON" novella. "Dark of the Moon: A SOCK IN THE MOUTH" is already posted here at Big Closet. Of all my recent works, it is one of my favorites. In a month I hope to start uploading chapters of JOSETTE'S STORY for the entertainment of the BC readership. Now let's get back to Mantra's ongoing adventure:]
.

I didn’t reach the flaming tower. I was suddenly in the command center of Gabriel’s Time Capsule. Startled, I looked about and saw him standing across from me.

"Mantra, you've been taking unnecessary risks," he scolded. "I had to bring you back to save your life."

I rounded on him. "I was the one saving lives! What do you do to snatch me out of mid-air?"

"Teleportation technology is elementary compared to time travel. The moment after I transported you, the Avengers received an alarm that Nemesis was approaching Earth. The heroes are even now committing themselves to the fatal battle destined to destroy them and the timeline universe they occupy. We dare not remain where we are, or we will be destroyed, too. The Capsule's self-preservation AI will take us about from this doomed timeline any minute now."

“You mean everyone I just saved down there is going to die, anyway?"

"The possibility is close to one hundred percent," he replied. “If this timeline has a version of Amber Hunt, she will not be able to save the universe any more than the Main Bough's version of Amber Hunt can save the Main Bough.”

"Listen! For a change, why don't you tell me something that will cheer me up?" I asked.

He gave a faint smile. "You'll be glad to know that you have people waiting outside that hatch door who are very relieved that you've returned safely."

He opened the portal, and the three kids came rushing at me. Jamie grabbed my cape, and Evie's arms were tight around my neck. Gus stood off, looking uncertain.

He looked so much like his father, just as tall though thinner. But the senior Gus wasn't so emotionally constipated as his son. I have sometimes wondered whether it was his parents' divorce that had damaged him. I reached out to him over his sister's shoulder, and he took that as encouragement to step closer. I put my gloved hand behind his head and stood on my tiptoes to kiss his forehead. I remembered how much I had liked to be kissed by my own mother in my twenties.

I heard Gabriel’s footsteps and looked back. "If we can't save anybody,” I asked, “what have we accomplished by coming here in the first place?"

"There was never any possibility of saving lives in that universe, not unless we brought a few of its people into our Time Capsule. Our only purpose in going there was to observe and learn."
"What have you learned?" I asked."

"The most confounding thing I've learned is that Amber Hunt has escaped!"

I glared at him like a grizzly bear. “What? I went through hell to capture her, and you let her slip out the back door already?"

“In a metaphorical sense, yes. I'm very sorry."

"What I'm sorry about is that you had me convinced that you're smarter than you are!" I told him.

“Recriminations are not productive, Lukasz. But I still have more to tell you. The Reality Gem vanished with her. Possibly, it had even encouraged and instigated Amber's escape. It's bonded to the young lady, as you know."

“Do you think they'll remain together?"

“I hope so," said the little man. "Because without Amber, the Time Gem, and the Reality Gem all working in tandem, they cannot destroy the Nemesis array. If they are not there, the Main Bough will collapse under Nemesis’ attack. It will take the Tree of Eternity with it, not hundreds of years from now, but immediately."

"Is the Time Gem gone, too?" I asked.

"Fortunately, no. The Time Gem remains with us, at least for now. It's created its own bond with Jamie and hasn't seen fit to abandon her yet. But it must leave soon if it is to rendezvous with Amber Hunt and the Realty Gem on the Main Bough. That attack will not save the situation, but it will delay the collapse of the Multiverse for over two hundred years."

I didn't want the kids to hear this doomsday talk. "Evie, Jamie, Gus, Gabriel and I have to do some major grown-up talk right now. Please give us some privacy."

"Hey!" said Gus. "I'm legally an adult!"

He had grown up in a lawless world. I wondered how he could, even for argument's sake, suppose that a dead law that was never followed in his lifetime counted for anything. Worse, that world was already gone, erased from history by the Nemesis Effect. "Please, Gus, trust me," I said.

Sourly, he left the control deck, followed by his sisters. Jamie, just orphaned, still looked sad, but Evie glanced back at me and tried hard to smile.

"Do you have any more good news to dispense?” I asked Gabriel. "If you know how to fix this disaster, fill me in on it before I develop ulcers!"

"The VIGOPS has no explicit recommendations for any new course of action. Unfortunately, our original plan was fatally flawed and we had to change our approach to the problem

"Duh! I'm no Big Brain like you, but I've already guessed that much on my own! Do you have a new plan, or are you waiting for inspiration?”

Gabriel shook his head. "There are various possibilities, but if we pick the wrong recourse, there may not be enough time left to reverse course."

“Well, then let’s get a move on! By the way, what's happening in Zero Time right now?"

"Presently, the Ultra Force is trapped in Sersi's Soulscape pen. She is doing the bidding of the Ego Gem. As part of its scheme, the Ego Gem intends to use the UltraForce to lure Loki into a trap.”

“We know that the Avengers will join with the UltraForce and do battle of Nemesis. I met two Avenger time clones in the world we last visited. But where are the real Avengers right now?”

"In Zero Time, the Avengers have not yet left their home realm, the Scaffold Universe. Soon they will enter the Main Bough in an attempt to rescue Sersi. They haven't discovered yet that she has been possessed by a powerful evil influence. Shortly after they arrive on the Main Bough, the Grandmaster will induce Loki to accept a sporting challenge—to pit the Avengers against the UtraForce. The prize to the winner will be the seventh gem—the Ego Gem—. It's a ruse. When Sersi touches Loki, the Ego Gem will take power over the six gems that Loki holds. That will initiate the creation of the all-powerful Nemesis."

“The Grandmaster?” I echoed, my brow furrowing. “Who’s he?”

“One of the oldest beings in the Multiverse,” Gabriel explained, “a cosmic game player who enjoys pitting mighty beings against one other. It is like the gladiatorial sport on ancient Earth.”

I crossed my arms, my mind racing. “So, if Sersi is the Ego Gem’s puppet, shouldn’t we be trying to keep Loki out of her grasp? At the very least, shouldn’t we warn him?”

“Loki is... difficult to guide,” Gabriel said carefully. “As the god of lies, he assumes everyone is lying to him. His ego makes him susceptible to trickery, but negotiating with such a one is nearly impossible.”

I sighed. “Gabriel, I’m no match for these battling ancient gods and cosmic entities. I've been trying as hard as I can, but what good have I done so far?”

He smiled faintly. “The VIGOPS has recommended you as my optimal companion for this mission. Collaborating with you has strengthened my agreement with its prognosis."

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t soft-soap me. If luck is all we have to depend on, we’re in trouble.”

Gabriel chuckled lightly, his calm demeanor infuriatingly unshaken. “Luck is a vital element in any plan. And if anyone has luck, it’s you.”

I glared at him. “If you’re counting on me to pull off the miracle that you and your VIGOPS can't deliver, you have to be just as dumb as you’ve been acting lately.”

His smile didn’t waver. “What can I say? Holding onto hope, however slim, serves one better than embracing despair.”

I turned away, my mind racing. Hope or no hope, I damned well knew we were running out of time—and options.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 17

The Woman Who Would Be A Spy: A tale of Zhor

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

Mature Subjects (pg15)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Erotica

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Reluctant

TG Elements:

Prostitution

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

A Tale of Zhor

by Christopher Leeson

Bherdur ob Caron stepped into the administrator's office, her lips pursed, her glance wary. The spymaster looked up from his desk and frowned with interest. He knew that his appointment was with a serum girl, and so he had expected to see a fine figure of young womanhood. She was that, at the very least, especially in regard to her lustrous blonde hair.

A chair stood empty before the desk. “Sit down,” Ewien Griff told the interviewee.

Caron drew in a deep breath and did as directed. Her controlled and precise body language suggested military training.

“I have reviewed your service record,” the man at the desk said. "You were a good officer.”

“Sire...” Caron began.

“Speak.”

“I am still a good officer.”

The spymaster nodded as he scanned the document in his hand. “You were retired from the First Horse Lancer Troop of Prydferth, after your unit’s unfortunate capture at Mabon Pass.”

“I can still serve my city,” she stated tonelessly.

“Your determination is very commendable. According to your application, you wish to enlist as an intelligence agent?”

“Yes, Sire!”

He nodded again. “I’ve already met several of your former comrades from the First Horse Lancer Troop. Two of them are now in training. Unfortunately, the remainder of the applicants did not inspire confidence. They were sent home.” Now Griff captured Caron’s glance pointedly. “Do you know the general nature of work that a female agent routinely performs?”

“Infiltration, Sire,” Caron answered.

“That’s correct. Now, tell me, do you consider yourself male or female?”

She reacted with evident discomfort. “I am whatever the city of Prydferth wants me to be,” Caron replied.

The spymaster accepted her answer without comment. “Here are the facts, Vokshah Caron,” he said, using her decommissioned rank. In most endeavors, women are not useful in the field. In the business of espionage, their sex is against them. We need field operators who are able to infiltrate into the inner sanctums of the political and military leadership of the enemy. Even their own free women are not welcome in their enclaves. A spy traveling as a free woman may, of course, be of use occasionally, but such opportunities come along only irregularly. When one does, it is convenient to assign an agent who has been trained in broader applications."

None of this seemed to surprise Caron.

“Do you know the most efficient method for a woman to insinuate herself into the company of high-ranking enemy personnel, soldier?” He waited, watching her eyes carefully.

“To infiltrate into their homes and into their command centers in the guise of...pleasure slaves,” Bherdur ob Caron answered reluctantly.

“I assume that you have never performed as a pleasure slave before. For what reason do you contemplate assuming such a persona under the most dangerous circumstances?”

“To serve my city, Sire.”

“That is a commendable reason, but we need to know whether it is your true reason. If an enlistee comes to us with an ulterior motive, it can jeopardize his or her fellow agents.”

Caron raised her chin. “What would be a wrong reason, Sire?”

He glanced down at her service record again, but wasn't really reading it. “There are maladjusted serum girls who sometimes come to us to experience the world of female slavery, but they deceptive to the degree that they are too proud, or too timid, to admit to what they are doing.”

“Sire! If I was one of that kind, I wouldn't come here. There are enough slave clubs and camps to make use of!”

“No doubt there are. The women whom I have alluded to seldom make good intelligent agents. However, they oftentimes make excellent pleasure slaves.” He allowed himself a slight smile in appreciation of his own joke.

“Now, tell me, are you holding back anything regarding you motivations, Vokshah?”

“It is as I’ve said; I wish to serve my city,” she replied.

“And can you think of no less dangerous way to fulfill that desire?”

She squared her shoulders. “I would risk any danger, just so long as I can do something to injure the city of Gendir. I need to vindicate my city’s honor.”

“Vindicate its honor? How so?”

“Revenge for the shaming of my city. Revenge for shaming my troop. Revenge for the way that the enemy violated my person as collateral damage to accomplish their sordid aims.”

“You motivation is one that I am not totally unfamiliar with. As for your request, your face is one that could becomingly fit onto a slave's body. That leads me to my next question. What does your body look like?”

Caron pursed her lips, as if offended.

“You have been a woman for about two years. Have you never gazed at yourself in the mirror?” the man asked. He knew for a fact that some serum girls were so traumatized that they stubbornly avoided doing any such thing.

The maiden drew a deep breath. “I have deigned to gaze upon the wreckage that Gendir’s leaders have left of my natural shape as seldom as possible.”

“Why is that? Does you body display flaws, scars, or deformities?”

“No, Sire. I have been disfigured, but in a way that makes me appear fit and healthy.”

The spymaster nodded. “I have met many serum girls and have sized up what the trauma can do to their minds. The brutal truth is that they will find no shoulder to cry on here. We have an important mission that supersedes all personal considerations.Serum girls must buck up and get past their mortification. If they cannot, they will not make the grade. A female agent who goes out into the field does best if she can wear her beauty with comfort and pride, or at least assume a good counterfeit of those attitudes. Rise, soldier. Step back and remove your garments, piece piece. Then display yourself to me. I want to see if you can do so without betraying any self-consciousness or shame.”

Caron, as yet, was not rising.

“Stand up and strip, or else stand up and leave,” Griff commanded sternly. "I have much else to do, including seeing another candidate."

Grimly, Bherdur ob Caron belatedly got to her feet, withdrew slightly, and began to disrobe. Ewien Griff watched the process, remaining professional and detached.

When Caron had rendered herself nude, the officer directed her to unpin her hair.

She did so, but with some some awkwardness. Like many raw serum girls, Caron had avoided learning the details of a normal woman’s daily life.

“Now, let it fall over your shoulders,” Griff directed her.

Yet again he nodded. It was unusual for a raw serum girl to let her hair grow so long. That made him curious. He could see traces of humiliation in the language of Caron's body, but she was mostly hiding it under a facade of indignation. The officer judged that any normal man would have been impressed with the feminine specimen that was Bherdur ob Caron. Her breasts were full and rounded. Jutting nipples such as hers might have done credit to the skill of a masterful sculptor. Her legs were long, unblemished, and finely proportioned. She had dancer’s legs; they left him hoping that Caron had a talent for display dancing. That would make her even more appealing as an infiltrator.

“Physically, you are superb,” he told his interviewee. “I understand that the Gendirites gave all the Lancers Chadwar’s Serum. Are you also a feather-slave?”

Caron reacted as if insulted. “I am not a slave of any kind. Nonetheless, possibly -- probably -- one of the injections I was given was Chadwar’s Serum.”

“You are looking at circumstances wrongly. It would, in fact, be convenient if you received the serum. All of our female agents are required to accept it. For one thing, many slaves, upon each purchase, are given a standard fifty lashes of the girl-whip for their neglect of taking the serum when they were still free. An agent who carries Signir's Curse is spared that unpleasantness. Also, feather slaves are not lashed so frequently, due to the fact that most men enjoy subjecting a bound female to the passionbird feather instead. If the maiden in question has been conditioned to endure a long and skillful feathering, she is often able to hold back vital secrets from an interrogator.”

The ex-officer continued to listen without asking questions.

“Turn a bit, soldier,” Griff instructed her. Caron pivoted slowly, allowing her interviewer to evaluate the blond curls of her peren. “Very lovely,” he said. “Whatever part of your body a man gazes upon, you would have no lack of sexual offers. Do you prefer having intercourse with men or with women?”

Caron stiffened. “Boy-lovers are not accepted into the army of Prydferth,” she reminded him.

“Of course not. But that was before and this is now. The serum is notoriously effective in reorientating a male's sexual preference to the specifics of a female one.

‘“I have not been with anyone since Mabon Pass,” the enlistee told him, indignation smoldering in her glance.

“Not even with one of your own slave girls?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“I do not care to casually expose this mockery of a body to any woman. Or to any man,” she quickly added.

“Step in front of that full-length mirror on yonder wall. Do not use your hands to obscure anything. Let your eyes remain open. Truly study your appearance. Objectively evaluate yourself as a prime specimen of womanhood.”

Swallowing, Caron stepped toward the polished glass.

“What do you see?” the man asked.

“I see...a...nude woman,” she answered, trying to keep emotion out of her tone.

“That is what I see, also. Do you think she is plain, pretty, or beautiful.”

“I suppose most men would consider her beautiful,” came the somber reply.

"Do you evaluate her body as one that simply begs for the collar and the brand?"

The spymaster saw her reflected ire.

"Answer, soldier."

"I suppose that...from the point f view of a...person...who didn't know me, I assume that I should.

“By the way, are you looking at her with the eyes of a man or a woman?”

“I'm not sure.”

"Are you saying that part of you may already be female in outlook or reaction?"

"I hope that is not so, Sire."

“Knowing that what you are looking at is your own appearance, do you feel pride?”

“No!”

“Do you believe that you can learn to project the illusion of being proud of your beauty?”

Her pause was a brief one. “Yes, if it were necessary."

"Necessary for what?"

"Necessary for the success of an assignment.”

Griff rubbed his chin. “What emotions do you experience as you gaze upon such a vision of loveliness?”

The girl spoke though clenched teeth. “The sight of it infuriates me.”

“That is not helpful, warrior. Look at it more detachedly. Can you envision that a sexually desirable object such as you are looking at could intrigue and attract a normal male?”

She forced out the word: “Yes!”

“Tell me something about yourself, Bherdur ob Caron. Have you had a robust sexual life? I mean, have you brolled many women?”

The reply came with a stumble. “Many? Y-Yes. I – I would say that I have.”

"From knowing so many desirable women, do you suppose that you have learned some of the seductive tricks that they use so shamelessly?"

"I...I tended not to pay serious attention to women's foolish games."

The man behind the desk asked, "Have any of your partners been joy girls?

“Yes.”

“Many?”

“Yes!”

“Were some of them pleasure slaves.”

“Yes...many.”

“Your record records that you were unmarried. Why?

Caron seemed taken a little off guard. “Marriage,” she began slowly, “is inconvenient to a military career, which often involves long absences from home. Women seem unable to see the larger picture and think only about their own satisfaction. And with so many well-trained slaves available, females who are specifically trained not to be selfish and quarrelsome, having a wife seemed to lack any practical necessity.”

“I suppose numerous soldiers would agree with you, Vokshah. Now, tell me, have you ever taken a free female lover?”

“No.”

“Why not?

“A free woman who is of loose morality is no fit companion for an officer. Her dishonor dishonors the man she is with.”

“Some cities hold adultery and fornication, if committed by women, to be serious crimes, an indignity to the entire polis. Some cities will condemn and sell such a self-degraded woman from the block. Do you consider that penalty harsh?”

She didn’t answer at once.

“Vokshah?”

“If a woman deliberately disgraces herself and also her family by unrestrained lewdness, it is probable that she has the heart a natural slave. It is better for that kind to spend the rest of her life wearing the brand and the collar.”

“Though you have never married, Caron, have you ever been in love with a woman worthy of you?”

“Perhaps.”

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Woman Who Would Be A Spy: A tale of Zhor, Part 2

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

Mature Subjects (pg15)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Science Fiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Elements:

Prostitution

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

09-6-2020
Revised 09-7-2020

A Tale of Zhor

by Christopher Leeson

"What do you mean, perhaps?”

"I mean that sometimes I have supposed that I was in love. Maybe that was even so, once or twice.”

"Vokshah Caron, have you ever committee rape?”

She glowered. “No. What decent man needs to commit rape when there are so many slaves and joy girls available?”

"Have you raped enemy women?”

Caron drew her lower lip between her teeth. “Yes….but only after I, or someone else, had subjected them to battlefield enslavement.”

"Enslavement may protect a man from the scrutiny of the law, but would you suppose that legal niceties can be of any comfort to a newly-enslaved free woman?”

"No. Not all the time, I suppose. May I ask why such a question is relevant, Sire?" the girl respectfully inquired.

"Some serum girls feel guilty about their associations with women in the past. Such a type may inwardly wish to work in espionage as a form of personal punishment. Such troubled people do not make good agents. The best recruit is a patriot possessing no self-entangling regrets. So, tell me, have you ever done anything, especially things involving women, free or slave, that you greatly regret?"

Caron was quiet for a moment as she searched inside herself. The she answered, "No!."

The spymaster accepted that reply without comment. "Some slaves, especially new ones, say that pleasure slavery is cruel and degrading. Do you believe that the loyalty that you hold to our city is strong enough to stand up against the humiliating rigors that goes along with living a slave’s life?”

Her mouth set in a hard line “I will endure whatever I have to, as long as I am working for the destruction of the city that inflicted this hellish ruination on me, Sire.”

"You can say that now, but do you know that your basic training would require a full year? How confident are you that that hate alone is enough to sustain your patriotism under the conditions that you will be subjected to?”

Her mouth twisted. “The hate I feel could sustain me through anything.”

“Do you hold that the people of Gendir are in some way different from us? Why do you suppose that they are any worse than the people of Prydferth?”

She glanced to the wall. “I don’t know very many Gendirites. I haven’t wanted to. But, plainly, Prydferth elects its leaders freely. Gendirites are debased creatures. They crawl before a tyrant and it appears that they are content to do so. Their warlord carries on like a madman, but he has faced no domestic uprising. Everything he has done has been enabled by their acceptance.”

“So, it is the difference between a republic and a tyranny that frames your opinion of the enemy?”

Her forehead creased. “Yes!”

“How much do you know about the specific training that our female agents undergo?"

“Not a great deal, Sire.”

“Would you object to being briefed?”

Caron’s features set hard. “I am not afraid to acquire necessary information.”

“You would be placed into a training program that lasts a year. Most of it will consist of standard slave training, but it will last four times longer than what is usually deemed necessary for the training of a commercial pleasure slave.”

“That is a long time,” the young woman remarked, concealing any surprise she may have felt.

“A female agent of Prydferth must be trained much more thoroughly than any common slave needs to be. She must not only perform as a professionally instructed slave, it’s imperative that she be mentally strengthened and conditioned to keep herself free in spirit. To hold on to one’s inner identity under the intense conditions of slave-training is a feat beyond most people.”

Caron said nothing.

“An agent’s training is conducted in four three-month stages,” the spymaster said. “Half of our our accepted recruits wash out during the first stage.”

The girl's expression remained steady.

“During your first training segment, you will live out a scenario about being an enemy captive taken in war. At the outset, you can expect to be stripped, collared, and branded. Your trainer puts his pupil through the paces of a woman being prepared for stable slavery. No matter what unpleasantness comes at her, she is expected to hold on firmly to her real identity and purpose. If she fails too many times, she will be mustered out of the program.

Caron’s had winced at the word “branded.”

“Yes, branded,” the officer emphasized. Other ways of marking a woman as a slave, such as tattooing, commonly arouse suspicion. A new agent's branding will come very early in her training. It is best to get that unpleasantness out of the way as soon as possible. All of our enemies train agents as to infiltrate us in the guise of slaves, and they are not easy targets to deceive.”

“By the way,” the officer added, “a cadet being schooled may resign at any time. She if she doesn't have an unusually strong determination to continue, we cannot use her. In the field, a weakly motivated person will break and reveal herself”

The ex-lancer was successfully holding her face blank.

Griff hurried on. “Your instructor would insist that you learn all tasks of a trained stable slave. Wherever your conduct is rated sub-standard, you will be put to discipline – not like a soldier, but a manner of a female slave who has been displeasing.

“Discipline includes switching, strapping, and, very often, the passion-bird feather. A wide range of castigation methods are available to the trainer, but for the first six months we spare our volunteers the unpleasantness of the girl-whip. An inexperience agent may break under a full lashing. To resist the ordeal, she needs seasoning. The aim of discipline is to make the new agent stronger and more resilient. If flogging is too much for her to bear, so be it. Only a special kind of woman can stand up to the conditions that she will meet in the course of espionage work. Any questions, so far?”

Distastefully, Caron asked, “Are trainees mainly women-born or...otherwise?”

Griff steepled his fingertips. “We employ both women-born and serum girls as agents. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Serum-girls with a military background tend to stand up to their challenges better.

“The problem comes with the phenomenon of natural slavery. All serum-girl have the genetics of natural slavery installed into them by Ruk’s Serum. Science has not found away to change the original makeup of the serum. Natural slavery undermines a woman’s capacity to resist the will of a slave-trainer. Most born-women are not natural slaves, though any one of them can be made into a natural slave by receiving the serum. Such a woman is called an ‘enhanced slave.’ As a rule, enhanced slaves are easier to break than are serum girls. This seems largely due to the toughening process that is sooften a part of a male's upbringing.

“But the great weakness of any natural slave is her susceptibility to ignition. Many more of our agents are ruined through ignition than by being subject to physical discipline.”

The spy master had been watching any sign that would help him read her. He saw nothing definite, except that she was tapping one bare foot. It could have been a nervous habit.

“If an agent completes the first three months of her training with a passing grade,” Griff went on, “she is transferred to a special ‘silk house.’ What makes the institution special is the fact that it is owned and operated by our own service. The men that patronize it are our agents. It is usual for our spies to visit the various training houses for rest and relaxation. We encourage them to do so. They provide a safe audience for a female agent while she is learning to perform as a public slave.

“During the first month, the recruit is punished if she does not engage with at least eight brolling partners each day. In the second month, her quota rises to sixteen. At the start of the third month, a trainee is expected to give service to twenty-four customers daily. That number, by the way, is no more than the traditional work load for any public pleasure girl. If the rigors of a novice’s duties should become too much for her, she is disqualified.”

“Are very many mustered out, Sire?” Caron asked.

“A fair number. But, again, most of the attrition comes through ignition. Those agents who perform adequately at the pleasure house are moved to a zeta house, one which is also owned by our service. The men whom girls entertain there will mostly be high-ranking men of Prydferth, primarily military officers and officials. Have you visited zeta houses?”

“When I came of age, my father and older brothers took me over to such a house. Since then I have rarely have considered the entertainment to be worth the expense,” Caron replied.

“Rank and great wealth has its privileges,’ Griff observed. “The trainees in the zeta house learn the the zeta-girl’s arts. Unlike the lessons learned by common public slaves zeta training improves a woman's individual talents for sophisticated entertainment. Dancing, singing, acrobatic displays, or story-telling are particularly useful. Zetas are the most desirable of slaves and some of our trained agents have sported with the highest ranking military and government officials of the enemy. Some have even become intimate with actual royalty from enemy houses. The quality of information learned in that way is excellent.

“Zeta-type work will seem like a vacation after a demanding three months in a pleasure house, but it is at this stage that our trainers start to use harsher discipline methods, including, of course, the girl-whip. If a woman breaks too easily under under enhanced discipline, she is scrubbed from the program.

“The fourth level requires the trainee to live as a low-grade pleasure slave under real-world rigors. The agent goes to one of several siolat houses that our service owns and directs. She must very convincingly perform as a common whore, or else she will punished, frequently by use of the girl-whip. The tavern patrons will be ordinary men from the street. The women must scrupulously avoid giving the customers any reason to think that they are not visiting an ordinary tavern-bordello. If the pupil cannot meet the exacting standards imposed on her, she will be dismissed.

“By the way, one whip-master of the house will be assigned to each new girl as her controller. The trainee must react to her controller as if he is an ordinary whip-master. She is punished for getting out of character, even if she and her controller are together in privacy, unless she is withdrawing from the regimen or reporting on some vital matter.

“As you no doubt have anticipated, some of the other cup slaves in the house will be trainees like yourself, operating under different controllers. The majority of the women on the premises will not be agents in training, but commonplace harlots. The agents should look at these women as role models. Their speech patterns and behavior should be noted and imitated. Where they are cunning, our agents must learn to be similarly cunning. Where the harlots are ignorant, our agents need to cultivate the appearance of similar ignorance.

“But by the time that a trainee reaches the siolat tavern stage, she is placed in an environment that is almost has harsh and dangerous as conditions in the field. All trainees are charged with the task of discovering which of their sister cup girls are agents like themselves. The trainees must treat one another as enemy agents. A woman must seek to discover and betray as many of her peers as possible. If a girl should mistakenly name someone as a trainee when she is not, she will be whipped. On the other hand, if a girl is unable, or unwilling, to expose a sister trainee during the space of a month, she is also punished. Espionage is a pitiless business; each girl is on her own with no room for camaraderie. A girl learns what it is like to live with the enemy, to become used to an environment of suspicion and betrayal. This type of experience may save her life later on, if she makes the grade to cadet.

“A trainee may exit from the siolat tavern one in three ways: by completing her training with honor, by being expelled as an unpromising specimen."

"What happens if she is exposed by another agent?"

"After spending so much time in a girl's training, we are reluctant to throw it all away. The organization allows the failed girl a choice. She may resign immediately, or else she may elect to repeat her siolat tavern training. This process can continue until she graduates with honor, gives up and resigns -- or until her trainers lose all confidence in her and drum her out of the service.

“The successful graduate is promoted to full cadet and will thereafter be schooled in skills specifically needed in actual espionage. After a successful graduation she be placed into a field assignment.”

Caron’s flesh had paled somewhat.

“So, now,” concluded Ewien Griff , “are you still interested in our recruitment program? Be honest with yourself. If you have self-doubts, do not waste the time of our training personnel. When we misspend our resources by training the wrong people, the service as a whole is hobbled and people die.”

The woman’s expression hardened and she raised her chin assertively. “I am still of the opinion that I am the sort of man – or woman – that you are looking for.”

The spymaster sat back, his arms folded. He was reassessing her, not only for her physical beauty, but was even more seeking for signs of strengths and qualities that a spy needed to prosper and survive.

“Come back to your chair, soldier,” said Griff.

When Caron was seated, he said to her, “I need to ask a few more questions. Answer truthfully, even if you feel that an honest answer will not be helpful to your cause.”

“Yes, Sire,” she said with a nod.

“As a man, have you ever discovered in your female persona any quality that might be seen as an obstacle for you?”

“I’m not quite sure what you are asking, Sire.”

“For example, as a female have you ever envied branded girls? Have you ever wondered whether the pleasure they get from men is something that you are unjustly deprived of?”

The ex-officer received the question with dumbfoundment. “Never!”

“Why is that?”

“Because the lives they live are obviously degrading, heinous even to consider.”

“So you may believe. But what is the source of such certainty?”

“Common sense. Under the law they are not even human. They live like domestic animals. They must feel humiliated and mortified every day.”

Griff made no comment, but asked a different question. “Since you have been a woman, have you every found anything that you positively like about being a member of the female sex?”

She glanced to the floor and swallowed. "In a way,” she whispered.

“In what way?”

“I – I mean that I surely realize that a woman’s beauty is something powerful. To be desired is a kind of power. A woman can make one who desires her into a fool. A fool can be manipulated to serve another's ends. I have thought it ironic that by forcing this body upon me, Gendir may have given me a weapon that I can ply against it.”

Again, Griff asked an unrelated question. “Have you had daydreams – pleasant ones -- imagining yourself dressed to please a male and being looked upon as an object of pleasure?”

“I don’t recall that I ever have. Why should I – Sire?”

He pressed on. “How often have you wondered what it would be like to be placed totally into the power of a lusty man, one who expects you to be his female lover for an hour? Have you been curious about what a female experiences in sex? Have you wondered what it would be like to live as a true slave lives, being passive and obedient in the arms of one who is by instinct dominant and demanding?”

She answered stiffly. “If I had, I would be visiting a slave club, not in your office.”

“Is your answer absolutely true?”

“Yes!” she said, but her eyes seemed to lack conviction.

"If disturbing feelings should come upon you, would fight against them, even if you realized that they could improve your impersonation of a slave?"

Caron was inadvertently showing nervousness by drumming her fingers on the table. “I – I would hope that I would be wise enough not throw away any advantage that might prove of use to me.”

"Is there anything at all that you would refuse to do, even if it meant that throwing away all scruples and pleasing an enemy might allow you to wrest useful secrets from him?"

"I'I'm sure that there are things that I could not bring myself to do today. But I assume that standard service training tends to reduce inhibitions..." She trailed off.

The serum girl was looking at her own bare knees, avoiding the eyes of the spymaster. “Such thoughts have come to me," she replied in a low and reluctant voice, "They come and go outside my control. I always try to swat them away, but they buzz back like horse flies”

“I see. Do these thoughts and feelings tell you anything about yourself?”

She looked furious. “Such degrading thoughts only fill me with rage. They tell me how foully violated I have been. I want to strike back at the accursed city that has ruined my life! When they come on, the best way to blot them out is by visualizing every Gendirite lying with broken bodies on the streets of their despicable polis, writhing in agony and dying slowly.”

“Next question," said Griff. "The matter of ignition has come up more than once while we’ve been speaking. Tell me, how familiar are you with the subject of slave-ignition.”

She seemed taken aback. “Sire?”

“I’m asking, how much do know about female ignition, beyond the gutter jokes, of course?”

Caron shifted in her chair. “It's hasn't been a subject of interest to me,” she responded -- rather unconvincingly, her interviewer thought.

“Then you must be unique among men. In my school days, the boys laughed and chattered about it all the time. Caron, you have come too far to suddenly give in to squeamishness. Describe real ignition, as far as you understand it.”

The young woman gulped down a build-up of saliva. What she said next sounded like it had come from a book. “An ignited woman is one who succumbs to the genetically-induced drives that have been imposed by the injection of Ruk’s Serum.”

“Can you describe what are these drives are?”

The ex-soldier took a deep breath. “If a...s-serum girl has resisted female heterosexuality thus far, ignition changes her orientation. She starts to feel man-need, if she isn't already feeling it. Also, her slave-need becomes almost uncontrollable. An ignited girl wants the attention of men, desperately so, and she cannot resist acting in the role of their slave.”

The blonde girl glanced up. “But people say that no woman who is free in her heart and in her mind can become ignited.”

Ewien Griff eased back in his chair. “Scientists say many foolish things. If someone, for some reason or no reason, chooses to convince someone gullible of a falsehood, he can easily find a dishonest doctor willing to swear that his idea represents good science.

“The bitter truth is, alas, that none of us are fully in command of either our hearts or our minds. The observation of centuries tells us that should a woman come to think of herself as a true slave, even unconsciously, she has become an excellent candidate for ignition. Remember, if one is a natural slave, she may, a moment of emotional overload, or mental confusion, walk into the snare of her genetic programming.”

Caron frowned. “Is there no way to prevent or to cure ignition?”

The man shook his head. “None that are reliable or long-lasting. An agent's careful training can increase her resistance to ignition, but I have known female agents of long experience and the best quality that that suddenly find themselves ablaze with slave-fire. If a girl ablaze with slave-fire can get word to us, we try to bring her home. It serves our own end to. An ignited natural slave surrounded by enemies suffers from divided loyalties. She becomes a great security risk.”

“I would slay myself if such a thing happened to me,” Caron declared, her eyes flashing.

Griff glanced at her sadly. “Some of our female agents have indeed committed suicide rather than risk doing harm to Prydferth.”

Caron was posed like a beast contemplating a trap. “Why…? the nude blonde started, but broke off.

“Why what?,” her interviewer inquired.

“Why are you tempting me to withdraw my application?”

The spymaster pressed his lips together in a askew way, “I have explained why," he began sternly, but swiftly softened his tone. “The game we play is a deadly one. We do not want to send out the wrong type of people. Too many women have already met their deaths in the course of their duties. Lamentably, rescuing an ignited woman doesn't solve her real problem. She may return home in a state so mentally and emotionally transformed that she may be unrecognizable, even to her closest kin.”

“What do you to when a woman becomes so afflicted?”

“We return them to their kin with a bonus for good service,” said the spymaster. “But it is often said that one can take a woman out of slavery, but no one can take slavery out of a woman. An ignited freewoman still a natural slave by every definition. She is an addict who can't find her drug. She oftentimes will seek out a lover and offer herself to him with crossed wrists. Others have become so frenzied in their needs that they will go brazenly to some street bawd, a siolat tavern owner, or a silk house master and submit themselves likewise. In the face of such monumental disgrace, their families give them funerals and consider them to be among the dead thereafter.”

Caron’s expression was grim. “Test any weaknesses that you imagine I have, Sire,” she said. “I believe that I can endure any hardship, just so as long as I know that it is putting me on the path of revenge.”

The man remained quiet for a moment. “This is only an initial interview,” he reminded her, “but I’ve seen potential in you. I’m willing to give you a positive recommendation. But your psychological profile must examined very carefully by our soul-searchers. Do not get your hopes too high, Vokshah. Many volunteers who have made a good initial impressions upon their interviewers have not made the grade.”

The blonde frowned. “Soul-searchers?” Most people held the school of psychology to be an unsavory one. In the mind of the common man, seeking out its help was tantamount to admitting oneself to be insane.

“Their input is very necessary,” said the officer. “We do not want to send unsuitable people into the field.”

“I...I will not be found unsuitable, Sire,” Caron declared.

“I hope that is so, Vokshah. We can never find enough promising recruits”

“I absolutely refuse to let myself fail. I have no reason to live, except that I may do something useful for my city. I am even willing to do the most foul types of duty,” the girl said.

Ewien Griff rested his elbows on his desk. “I appreciate that sentiment, soldier. Now, tell me, would you prefer to take a few days to consider your final course of action? The step you are contemplating may turn out to be the most faithful decision of your entire life.”

Bherdur ob Caron’s expression came across the desk as both grave and intense.

“I do not need more time, Sire. Nothing I have learned today discourages me. I feel with all my being that I have never wanted anything more than to be an intelligence agent for the city of Prydferth.”

THE END?

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 1

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Science Fiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Amnesia

TG Elements:

Memory Loss

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

THE WOUNDED WORLD

A Story of Mantra
Written 2006 by Aladdin

Edited (with the permission of Aladdin) by Christopher Leeson
Revised, July 19, 2020
Revised Sept. 6, 2020
Revised July 27, 2021
Revised July 31, 2021

THE LITTLE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE

When God commanded this hand to write
In the studious hours of deep midnight,
He told me that all I wrote should prove
The bane of all that on Earth I love.

William Blake

When I started these secret memoirs, I never supposed that I’d have to write a memoir like this one. What I have gone through has been frightening, mind-boggling, even on the ultra scale. I keep asking myself whether it is finally over, asking, too, if I'm not tempting fate by subjecting it to an autopsy so early. But, honestly, some part of me is still afraid that it will all come alive again, come alive like the monster so often does in a bad horror movie, even while the closing credits are scrolling.

So, fear is one reason that I have begun writing this story in haste. Another is that I am only mortal. I have barely survived this recent experience and do not want the story of it to go untold, should some accident should end my life suddenly.

For me, the world as I knew it was drawing to its close late Thursday afternoon, September 14, when I took my family to the Mall. The Mall is the largest shopping center inside the L.A. suburb of Canoga Park. Gus and Evie were with me. They needed a few more school supplies that hadn’t been on the list that the kids were handed on opening day.

I was new to school shopping, just as I was still new to parenthood. I won’t digress into all that, since it makes up a a portion of the earlier installments of my memoirs. Suffice to say, after a rough start, my new life had started to feel approximately natural. We were at Target and I was actually having a good time with the kids. As we picked up the needed items, I started to think that it could be even more fun to take them out Christmas shopping later in the year.

I had missed the last two Christmases in the Blake house. The first had fallen when I was seriously considering giving up the Eden Blake identity and creating a new one. That spell of madness didn’t last too long, fortunately. But shortly before the next Christmas, the Godwheel Crisis kidnapped me to an artificial world on the other side of the Galaxy. I survived it, but returned to Earth until New Year’s Eve.

Little did I know then that something behind the scenes had occurred while I was at the Godwheel, something ghastly had been set into motion. By September 14, that motion had already built up such a head of steam that it was about to slam me in the face like a runaway locomotive.

We were passing by the writing supplies in the back-to-school section of Target when Evie asked me, “Mommy, can I get some eraser tops? I chewed the rubber off my favorite pencil.”

I frowned down at the dark-haired seven-year-old. "Evie! It's not healthy to chew on some dirty old pencil eraser. Do you want to get sick?"

"It wasn't my fault!" she answered back. "The eraser kept getting into my mouth and I chewed it without thinking about it."

"Pencils can't climb into people's mouths,” I said. “People have to put them there."

"I know, Mommy," she sighed glumly.

"Knowing is important," I told her, "but what good is knowing if you don't do the right thing once you know?"

"Do you always do the right thing, Mommy?"

She had me there! "Nobody can be right all the time," I finally said. "But everybody has to do the best he can. The world would be a terrible mess if most people weren't at least trying to do their best."

While the youngster seemed to consider this bit of wisdom, I scanned the pen and pencil display and espied a packet containing ten eraser heads. I took a pack and handed it to Evie. "Will this do?"

"Oh, yeah!" she chirped. Then she let her attention stray for the umpteenth time. "Look at the ultra tablets! They didn't have them in the other store."

I glanced down and saw several stacks of writing tablets with photographs of well-known ultra heroes on their covers. They represented the crème de la crème of the most popular vigilantes. Prime's stack had only a couple left, but Warstrike's didn't seem to be moving at all well. I noted that there was a Mantra cover, too, and that made me scowl. It showed a picture that I'd never posed for. The model was wearing cheap facsimile of my armor and she was, physically, no body double for Eden Blake. Another thing I noted was that Mantra's stack was higher than Prime's. That could have been a good thing, if there had been a rush on Mantra tablets and the shelf had already been restocked. If that wasn't the case, it could have been that using a skinny model had hurt sales.

"Evie, do you really need another tablet?"

"I like the pictures. Can I have a Contrary?"

I looked askance.

"She's pretty," Evie explained.

"Isn't Mantra pretty, too?"

The Evie wrinkled her nose uncomfortably. "Oh, sure. But Mantra is pretty like a mommy. She's not hot like Contrary!"

I was amazed. "Evie Blake, how do you know what's hot and what's not at your age?"

"The big guys say Contrary is hot."

"What big guys?"

"The fourth graders!"

I crossed my arms. "Well, that wolf-pack would certainly know what they're talking about. Doesn't anyone at school think that Mantra’is hot?"

"I do!" put in Gus, now entering our aisle. "Mantra's hotter than Contrary. And she sure doesn't look like anybody's mom!"

She looks like your mom, Junior, I thought. I regretted that my daughter was gushing over Contrary on the subject of – of charisma. But I was even more embarrassed to have my son ogling my alter-ego. If he ever put Mantra’s picture on the wall as a pin-up, well, I I'm not sure what I’d do.

"She does so look like a mommy!" declared Evie to her brother.

"Ultra ladies don't become moms! I know because I read the comics."

"They could be moms, if they wanted to be!" the little girl insisted. "Even movie stars have babies!"

"The dumb ones do. Having kids is for dorks," Gus pontificated.

I picked up a Contrary tablet and handed it to Evie. I also took one of Mantra's for myself. I'm a sucker for Mantra collectibles.

"By your rules I'm a dork, too," I told Gus. "Thanks for setting me straight." I looked about. "You kids are getting loud; people are frowning our way."

"Just shove them!" declared Gus. "Why do we always have to worry about what other people think?"

I sighed. Junior was well on his way transforming into a grumpy teen.

"Because if you do wrong things people are going to dislike you," I explained. “Their opinion might be wrong, but it might also be right. So, if you get a chance to be either nice or nasty, be nice. Politeness won’t kill you and it could help you avoid some problems." He shook his head, pugnacious and unconvinced.

"Come on. We'll pay for this stuff and get something to eat at The Kids' Club before we go home."

The Club was on the Mall’s second floor. The serving line was a long one and Evie and Gus raced ahead to get in queue in front of me. Standing behind them, straining to see the menu, I funny feeling suddenly came over me. I’d felt that sensation many times before and it usually meant that I was being watched.

Shifting into my into my “on guard mode,” I peered around. There was nothing special to see. Just behind me was a short, stout man with a round face and red hair. He was staring directly at me, and he didn’t blench when my scolding eyes met his.

I sized him up as either being unusually bold for a suburban male or else exceptionally rude. I'm not especially thin-skinned about the little things, so I didn’t slug the guy. And I wouldn’t, not unless he did something stupid.

Though I feigned looking toward the front, I continued to watch him from the corner of my eye.

Ouch!

He’d moved fast and must have stuck me with something! I swung about, ready to floor him, but ---

But he wasn't there.

It surprised me because I hadn’t even taken my eyes off him, except for the half-second when the pain made me blink. So, how could a man of flesh and bone have disappeared so quickly? Something was screwy.
Worst than screwy. A strange feeling was sweeping over me.

Damn the luck! Had the creep injected me with some sort of drug? Poison, even?

To my amazement, the lunch line started moving like a sped-up film. The queue accelerated to the speed of a freight train, until everything and everyone around me started to fade into a blur. I was instantly afraid that I’d been injected with a hallucinogen.

Everything softened into a blur. I tried to see by an exercise of will, and when my eyes cleared up, I had a sunlit view of --

A parking lot.

As my senses cleared, I found myself leaning against a green sedan. I noted a motel sign in front of me. What was I doing here -- wherever here was? What could possibly have carried me away from a shopping mall and deposited me at some cheap motel?

And something else was wrong.

I had just glanced at my watch. It was seven after eight -- in the morning, obviously. What had happened to all those missing hours? Where were the kids? Because I have lived a life very unlike the rest of Earth’s population, a crazy thought jumped into mind.

Was I still myself?

The readers of my earlier journals know that I've been spontaneously switching from one body to another since long before Mohamed met the angel. Likewise, I got used to being thrown into strange locations and dangerous situations with neither warning nor preparation. The last time that such a thing had happened to me, I'd become a suburban mother of two.

If I had a new body, whose body did I have? It didn't take more than a downward glance to confirm that I was still a woman, but was I still Eden Blake?

I turned and squinted at my reflection in the car window. With relief, I recognized Eden's face.

Slightly calmed, I took stock. I wasn't wearing the jeans and pullover that I'd had on at the mall. Instead, I was dressed in a blue-skirted suit with a silk ascot, an outfit from my own closet. In my hand I held my familiar purse. But I couldn't remember changing my clothes. Was it possible that someone was controlling me, making me do things that I couldn't remember afterwards? Or was I sleepwalking?

There had to be a reason for my shift of place and time. What was it that the red-headed man had shoved into my bloodstream?

I didn't feel sleepy nor drugged, just confused -- and who wouldn't have been addled in a situation like mine?

Don't fly off the handle, Lukasz. Don't attract attention.

Okay, I was still Eden Blake. I felt fit and my face looked fine. As far as I could tell, nothing nefarious had been done to me. But some thirteen hours had passed and that time had to be accounted for. I took another look around. I was in front of a motel, an Econo Lodge, a franchise that often advertised its low prices. Well, that fit, considering as how my family wasn't in the upper 5%.

First things first. I needed to get the address of this place, so I walked toward the motel office. Under the shade of its canopy, I noticed a mailbox and noted the address stamped on it.

San Francisco.

What? How had I ended up in San Francisco?

The last I recalled, I had had no intention to go anywhere near the city.

Perplexedly, I passed through the glass doors and entered the smallish lobby, hoping that something that I'd see would bring back pieces of my missing memory. The clerk, a Latino lady, glanced up brightly. "Meesees Blake, isn't eet? How are you thees morning?"

She knew me. Random motel clerks didn't know out-of-towners, not unless they're current guests. On impulse, I checked my purse and found a motel key. The Econo Lodge logos and a room number were embossed on the plastic key paddle. I glanced back at the clerk. "Oh, I'm fine," I said. "I just thought for a minute that I'd lost my key, but here it is under some tissues."

The clerk smiled blandly and nodded. I turned and went back outside. There was no obvious menace in sight, so I decided to check out the room that, apparently, I had rented.

In front of my unit our family car was parked. I had to be alert. Chances were that some sort of game was afoot, and when strangers railroad me into their crazy schemes, it usually turns out to be both painful and bloody.

I put the key into the lock and turned it. At the last instant, I decided to summon up my magical force-field. An ultra never knows when he’ll be walking into a hail of machine-gun slugs, or something worse.
That is, I tried to call up my shielding, but nothing happened. To my dismay, I felt as inert as a stick of firewood. The magic just wasn't coming. Concentrating harder failed to light the spark. I didn't like this one little bit! What was wrong with me?

As I tottered there on high heels, someone inside must have heard me or seen me through the window. The door now opened. The knob, as it swung away, slipped from my fumbling grasp and I found myself looking into a face that I knew well.

Very, very well.

My daughter Evie was gazing up at me nonplussed. Glancing over her head, I saw that she was alone; also, the room seemed to be crammed with luggage. Whatever was going on, our inexplicable relocation seemed to have been a serious one.

"You just left, Mommy. Did you forget something?"

Oh, brother, had I!

I stepped past the little girl, trying to make sense of things. The queen-sized bed, newly made, was the only furnishing not loaded with boxes and suitcases. What had happened? Just the evening before, we had had no plans to go out of town, and yet here we were -- in San Francisco, no less -- with enough luggage to fill a pickup. Was I on the run? Had someone discovered my Mantra identity and forced me to go to ground? I sat down on the bed, bemused. Evie then stepped up, her brow arched with uncertainty.

"Wasn't the Jack-in-the-Box open?" she asked.

The Jack-in-the-Box was a fast food franchise, I knew. "Oh, you want breakfast?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry. I didn't get over there yet. I wanted to...to look in on you. Is everything all right?"

I saw some slight hesitation in her wide blue eyes. "I guess so. Did you see something bad outside, Mommy? Is that why you came back?"
Something bad? Was that it? Were Evie and I hiding from danger? I decided to ask nonchalantly about the rest of the family. "How are Grandma and Gus?"

Evie looked at me wonderingly. "Grandma was okay last night. We talked to her, remember? And Gus, he's still in jail, isn't he?"
"Jail?"

If I was trying to sound nonchalant, I wasn't doing a bang-up job of it. Without subtlety, I asked, "Evie, these questions of mine sound funny, don't they?"

She nodded.

"Something just happened."

"Something scary?" Her little hands tightened into fists.

I enveloped her into my arms. "Evie, there’s nothing very bad wrong, but I sort of need your help."

She spoke to my shoulder. "Are you okay? You don't feel sick, do you?"
I rested my chin on her shampoo-scented head. "Shhh, I feel okay. It's just that I -- I suddenly seem to have...forgotten a few things. Did I seem all right – before...before I went out to the Jack-in-the-Box?"

"You seemed okay, 'cept that you still weren't Mantra."

Still wasn't Mantra? Could that mean that my powers hadn't just glitched out momentarily? What ever happened to them, they'd been missing long enough for Evie to have found out about it.

"Evie, about that help I need. The last thing I remember was us being in the Mall last night, standing in line to buy dinner at the Kids' Club."
She gave a jump. "No, Mommy! That was last Thursday!"
She'd said Thursday like it was a hundred years ago. "What day is it now?" I asked.

"It's Wednesday."

"Wednesday the twentieth?"

"Yeah!"

This was getting scarier and scarier.

"Darling, did something...bad...happen since Thursday? I can't remember that far back."

I felt her tremble. "You can't have forgot, Mommy!"

"Please, sweetie, tell me what I've forgotten."

“Did you forget Friday, too?”

“I’m afraid that I have.”

"It happened right after you got home after work! It was the most awful thing ever!"

What a reaction! Evie had always been amazingly brave. What in Creation could have frightened her so much? Did it have anything to do with my sudden loss of magic?

Gently, I asked, "Evie, is there some grownup who knows about the awful thing that happened? I'd like to talk to that person, so you won't have to remember it and be afraid."

She shook her head. "There's just Lauren. Gus tried to kill her, too."

"G-Gus? Gus tried to kill his babysitter – and somebody else?"

She nodded.

Oh, brother! What kind of mad world had I awakened into?

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2....

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 2

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Science Fiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

THE WOUNDED WORLD
A Story of Mantra

Written 2006 by Aladdin

Revised and Edited (with the permission of Aladdin) by Christopher Leeson, Aug 21, 2020
Revised Sept 6, 2020
Revised Sept 22, 2020

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

She went out in Morning
Attired plain and neat.
"Proud Mary's gone Mad,"
Said the Child in the Street.
William Blake

"Did -- Did he hurt you, darling?" I asked.

Evie shook her head. "No, but he chased me and he said he was gonna hurt me. Then Laddin came and Lauren helped them beat up on Gus and take him away to jail."

Somebody wake me! Gus tried to murder Lauren, and then she got the help of somebody named Ladin to take my son to jail? Who in hell was "Laddin?" Was he some friend of Lauren’s from school?

Suddenly, I got a horrendous idea!

“Was Laddin not just one person but a group of people?”

Evie nodded.

"Was their name more like ‘Aladdin'?"

"Yeah, that's it!"

Worse and worse! Aladdin was the government agency that I worked for. It was just about the dirtiest outfit in the Deep State. Once I’d been hired and found out some of the things they were involved in, I stuck with the job, but only to keep an eye on them. The Aladdin people never stopped! I’d managed to foil a treason plot of theirs earlier in the summer. In facing off with them every day, I felt so alone. I couldn't go to the Justice Department. The Attorney General had been turned into a figurehead. The shifty assistant A.G. held the real power!

When the name Aladdin comes up, it's always like a cold shadow has walked into the room. Where had Evie learned Aladdin’s name? I was always careful never to talk shop in front of Mom -- Barbara Freeman, I mean -- or the kids. I let them think that I worked for the C.I.A, whose rotten existence was at least publicly known.

"Is Lauren okay?" I asked.

Evie nodded again. "She visited Monday, remember? She wanted you to go back to being Mantra, but you said you couldn't. You told her that she had to be Mantra now."

What had been going on for the last few days? According to Evie, Lauren now knew I was Mantra, and somehow she had become a new version of Mantra? How could Evie have come up with such a bizarre idea -- unless it was true? I felt like I'd fallen down a rabbit hole.

"Pumpkin, where is Gus? What do you mean that he's in jail?"

Evie started to cry.

The little girl seemed so fragile, so afraid. Did Aladdin really have Gus? Was he charged with attempted murder? Who had he tried to kill, besides Lauren? And how could a little boy of twelve have become a public enemy?

And how how had Aladdin get involved? It existed to monitor ultras, not to enforce the law.

"M-Mommy," Evie stammered, "is Gus ever gonna get out of jail? He isn't gonna be a -- a lifer, is he?"

I held her close. "I don't know, darling. I don't know anything about what happened. I just can't remember."

"Did you stop remembering because Gus hurt you so bad? Does your head ache?"

"No, sweetie, my head feels fine. How did Gus hurt me, Evie?"

"He zapped you."

I kissed her wet cheek. She settled in against me and, holding her, I tried to reason things out. Gus had tried to kill me? Why? He was a heedless, lazy, and sometimes rebellious boy, but he'd never displayed a wantonly violent nature, not even against animals. And what did Evie mean by "zapped"?

I could hardly take it all in. I had lost my magic, apparently after an attack by Gus. I’d known for months that Lauren had dormant magical abilities, but now it seemed that they somehow had resurfaced. On top of that, why weren’t we at home in Canoga Park instead of occupying a motel room in San Francisco?

Nothing wasn't adding up. Would I have to get Lauren Sherwood to explain things?

But was I letting myself get worked up over nothing. After all, I only had the testimony of a second-grader.

"Evie," I asked, "did Lauren look like herself, or did she change to look like me, like she did last time?"

The tyke shook her head. "She didn't change. She just got magic. Mommy, why are so many people getting magic?"

"Gumdrop, who else got magic, besides Lauren, I mean?"

"Gus got magic, but it made him angry and mean. He hated everybody, even you. It was awful!"

Was any of this true? It made no sense. The Blakes were a magical family, but I’d never heard of a male of the bloodline inheriting sorcery. Was it possible that Evie was telling me about a nightmare that she'd had, confusing it with reality? But if so, that wouldn't explain how I had lost my ultra abilities, or why we had made this inexplicable relocation.

I needed more information – and I gladly would have taken it from anybody.

"Where's Lauren?" I murmured out loud.

"She must be in school," Evie replied. "That's where I wish I was. All my friends are there, Mommy. I also miss Grandma, Aunt Lila, and Mrs. Griswell."

I petted her hair. "Poor little thing. Can you tell me why we’re here in San Francisco?"

She bit her lip. "You said you wanted to work in Sanfrisco, so you could visit Gus at Laddin every day."

Could Aladdin really be keeping Gus in custody? If he’d turned into an ultra, they certainly would be motivated to. They’d lock him up for study. San Francisco was the Aladdin's Western Regional Headquarters, and also the location of a secret Aladdin prison. If Gus was a captured ultra, relocating him to San Francisco would make sense. The only good thing going for us was that I was a trusted Aladdin employee and could probably gain access to the boy on a regular basis.

A strange thought now came to me. What if Gus's powers had originally been mine? Could my magic have inexplicably been transferred from me to him? That would explain a lot. Maybe if I could take my Mantra abilities back from him, Aladdin would have no reason to keep him locked up.

What was I saying? How could I be speculating on fixing something that shouldn't have happened in the first place?

"Evie, darling, I'm going to talk to Lauren after she gets home from school. Maybe she and I can make everything okay."

Suddenly the seven year old was all eagerness. "Can you make all the bad things go away?"

"I'm not sure, but I promise to do my best. Tell me, was everything still good with our family after you and me and Gus visited the Kid's Club Thursday night?"

She looked confused. "You're forgetting again, Mommy."

"What am I forgetting?"

"Gus wasn't with us.”

I was incredulous. "I don't understand. I know we were all three there shopping for school supplies. Don't you remember how you two were talking about ultra ladies in the Target store?"

Evie shook her head. "It didn't happen that way, Mommy. Maybe you dreamed it."

Somebody had to be dreaming; I was willing to grant that much.

“And Gus didn’t need school supplies,” the little girl added.

“Why not?”

“The don’t want him at school, because he’s so ugly that he scares the kids.”

Eh?

"What are you saying about Gus being ugly, Button?"

That put the tyke over the edge. I let her cry against my shoulder. "There, there, honey,” I said at last. “If it's too awful, you don't have to talk about it."

"It was the bad fairies," she finally whispered.

"Fairies? "What bad fairies? When?"

"Last spring. They caught me and Gus in the garden and took us away to fairyland."

This just had to be a nightmare, either Evie's or mine. "What garden?"

"The big one that Mrs. Dimsdale has. I thought I saw fairies hiding under the flowers and I told Gus about them. He didn't believe me and I took him to show him. When we were looking through the leaves, the ugly fairies got us."

No! That hadn’t happened. Gus had been fit and fine all summer. And Mrs. Dimsdale had never once let on that her garden was infested with supernatural creatures.

"What happened after the fairies got you, Cupcake?" I coaxed.

"The good fairies saved me, but the bad ones took Gus away. You came into fairyland to get us, but you saved me first. By the time we found the bad fairies, they'd done some magic on Gus to make him look ugly like they were."

I grew calmer, but only because I no longer believed that Evie was telling the truth. Maybe she was ill. Maybe I had brought her to San Francisco for an appointment with a child psychologist.

"Why would the bad fairies do something so nasty to a little boy?" I asked softly.

She sniffed. "Gus said they wanted him to be the fairy king. We brought Gus back, but he still looked like the ugly fairies. He was so sad. He didn't think anybody could love him anymore -- not you, or me, or even Grandma." She shook her head. "I don't read fairy stories anymore, not since I found out how mean fairies are."

I held her cheek against mine. Before I let myself jump to any conclusions, I needed to get somebody else’s version of what was going on.

I looked around the room. "Evie, do you know where I put the cell phone?"

She hurried away and retrieved the missing device from the nightstand drawer. "Thanks," I said.

I wanted to talk to the children’s grandmother. When I punched in the memorized number, the screen told me that I was dialing a phone that didn't exist. Didn't exist?

"Evie, the operator says that Grandma's number is bad. Why should that be?"

"I dunno."

I brought up my phone's "friends" list. While I recognized many of the names, the numbers were all different. It was looking more and more that the person who was dreaming was me.

Barbara Freeman's name was opposite a number that I had never seen before, but I tried it anyway. The sound told me that I had reached a real phone. The ringing stopped and I waited with bated breath until Barbara's voice came on.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Mom. Are things okay there?"

"I'm fine. Is Evie all right?"

"Oh, yes, but, Mother, there's a new problem."

"What?" she asked edgily.

"This might sound strange, but all of a sudden I'm having some pretty bad memory-loss problems."

"Memory loss?" After a pause she said, "Well, I don't wonder, considering what you've been through. Do you need me to come up to San Francisco to help?"

"Maybe that's an idea," I said, wanting to humor her. "What bothers me most is that I'm beginning to wonder if some of the things that I still remember are actually wrong. Mom, didn't you used to have the number 818-346-8357?"

"For heaven's sake! I don't know how you could have come up with anything like that. I've had this same number since before you and big Gus were divorced."

I continued my cautious questioning. "Mom, Evie said something about Gus -- little Gus -- that I don't understand. It's about him becoming ugly last spring. The last I remember, he was looking just fine. Do you know why she would say such a thing?"

A deafening silence answered me.

"Mom?"

"Eden, you’re in a bad condition! Is there anyone in San Francisco that can take care of Evie while you're getting some help?"

"Mom, why do you say that? Is Gus all right?"

"Eden, you must be having a breakdown. Gus did change. We don’t know what happened, except that Evie and Gus said that some fairies had kidnapped them. Mantra got involved somehow, too. Eden, please stay indoors and try to rest. I'll fly in as soon as I can, but don't drive to the airport to meet me. You might lose control in the unfamiliar traffic. Give me your exact location. Until I get there, be very gentle with Evie; do not get impatient or excited around her. You're just not yourself!"

I obligingly told Mom that I was looking forward to her visit and that I'd be very careful with Evie. After we disconnected, I just sat there, trying to make sense of the senseless.

"Mommy, you look so funny," my daughter said.

I was getting another idea now, and I didn’t like it at all. What if this child was not really from my own family?

If I wasn't delusional, I could have been that I'd into an alternative reality. It wouldn’t be for the first time. I'd been temporarily trapped inside a parallel dimension a few weeks earlier. While there, I'd even met another version of Evie, one who looked and acted just like the girl I knew. Thankfully, in that dimension the girl's real mother had never died. I’d been able to talk to a living Eden Blake face to face.

Evie was looking oddly at me, probably alarmed by her mother's strange expression. She would have been horrified had she known that the most important person in her life had suddenly become a stranger.

On the good side, maybe the Eden Blake of this world was hail and hearty, and she would suddenly walk in our motel room door carrying boxes of food from the Jack-in-the-Box restaurant. If that happened, I’d be able to leave her daughter with her while I headed out and tried to get a handle on my own problems.

But wait! The situation might not be so simple. Evie had said that her mother had lost her powers, just as I had. If we were two different people, why should the same disaster have happened to both of us at the same time? Instead, could it be that my spirit had somehow possessed the body of my counterpart in some alternate dimension?

Considering the life I had lived, this guess wasn’t as crazy as it would have sounded to a stranger. I had lived in hundreds of different bodies over the last 1500 years through magical transmigration. But I'm not able to make such a thing happen on my own; my wizard master, Archimage, had run the body-switching operation. But he couldn’t be responsible for what had hit me today; he'd been dead for months, or at least he was dead in my home world.

I can’t image what my expression was just then, but Evie suddenly drew back, looking startled. With a forced a smile, I said "Easy, Pumpkin. "Life hasn't been nice to us Blakes lately, but we're tough people and we're going to get through this all right. Grandma said she’s coming to see us tonight. She'll help me take care of you until my memory comes back."

"She's coming? That's terrific!"

"Yes, isn't it?" I said with reservation. From the start, Barbara had been trying to figure out why I’d been acting so odd over the last couple years. So far, I had considered it best that she didn’t find out that her real daughter was dead.

Just then, Evie’s little arms encircled my waist. Despite all the tragedies of this version of my family, she was, in fact, very like my own daughter.

I gazed out the window. Why had this thing happen to me, and what was going on back in my home world? Was I the victim of some abnormal glitch of Nature, or had this situation been brought about by some malevolent mind? Who could have done such a thing, and why?

"Dumpling," I said, "did I mention earlier what was I going to do today? After breakfast, I mean."

"Uh-huh. We were going to talk to a man about getting us a new place."

"Do you know the name of the man?"

"Uh-uh, Mommy. You just called him a man."

"Did I talk to him on my phone?"

"Yeah."

I thought it best to call and postpone that appointment. If it should turn out that I needed a new apartment – heaven forbid – I’d get back into touch. Consulting my list of recent calls, I chose to ring an unlabeled number that was the next previous call that I had made.

"International Exports," came a receptionist-type voice on the other end.

This reply didn't throw me. I knew that "International Exports" was the dummy company that served as a front for Aladdin in San Francisco. It figured. If this world’s Mantra had transferred to Frisco so she could be near Gus Jr., she naturally would have been in contact with the local office.

"Ah, this is Eden Blake. I'm a new transfer. May I speak to my unit chief?"

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Blake," the woman responded. "Just one minute."

Very soon, a new voice came over the line; I recognized it. "Sarn here, Blake."

Dr. Sarn had been the hard-as-nails field division supervisor back in L.A. I didn't know what she was doing in San Francisco, so I chose my words carefully, trying to feel out the situation.

"I was wondering if there were any new developments. You can imagine how worried I am."

I hoped that such a question made sense. If Gus was being held at Aladdin, as Evie implied, Sarn would assume that I was talking about that. If she didn’t know what I was going on about, I could make up something.

"Your boy has been conscious periodically," the Aladdin official answered. "We’d like to have you here soon during one of his lucid episodes. How are you doing with your move?"

"It's going slowly. There's just so much on my plate right now. I was set up to talk to a real estate man today, but I'm not feeling well and I'll have to reschedule. I'll need some time off."

"More than the week you asked for?"

"I hope not." So, Eden was on leave. Well, that made sense.

"You really do sound stressed, Blake. You ought to see a company psychologist. Until then, be careful what you say to outsiders while you're so vulnerable. Your work is heavily classified."

Was everyone on this weird planet assuming that I’d gone nuts?

"I've never believed in psychology, Dr. Sarn. I'll only go that route if I have no other choice."

"Yeah, I know how tough you can be, Blake. Play this thing as you see best. But don't push yourself too hard. You're not a superwoman."

These days I certainly wasn't!

"If Gus wakes again you'll give me call, won't you?" I asked.

"Naturally, naturally," replied Sarn, her clipped tone telling me that her well of sympathy had run dry. "Be sure to file your report on Sunday's mall fiasco when you come in."

What mall fiasco?

How was I supposed to file a report on something that I knew absolutely nothing about? If this nutty situation was going to end well, it would take a miracle.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 3....

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 3

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Fanfiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

THE WOUNDED WORLD
A Story of Mantra

Written 2006 by Aladdin
Revision and Editing by Christopher Leeson
Posted Sep. 21, 2020
Additional revision, Sep. 24, 2020
Additional revision, July 24, 2021

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THE ULTRAMATE SOURCE

Mercy and pity threw the gravestone over me
And with lead and iron, bound it over me forever:
Life lives on my Consuming:
And the Almighty hath made me his Contrary...

William Blake

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"Uh, sure. Is there anything else, Doctor Sarn?"

"No, that's it, Blake." The Aladdin bureaucrat clicked off.

What in blazes had been going on? I didn't know which mall she was referring to. Did it have anything to do the weird experience I had over at the Kid's Club? No, that couldn't be. She'd mentioned Sunday, and my disaster occurred on Thursday.

That had been a weird conversation. Why was a data analyst being asked to make a mission report instead of a field agent? Why was Sarn getting me involved?

I shifted toward Evie. "Scrumptious, did something happen at the Mall Sunday? I mean, did anything go on there that was important or scary?"

The child made a little moue. "You can't forget that! A bad robot came and started chasing people. Lauren had to fight with it."

A robot? “What sort of robot?"

“A big one!”

"Was it at the Mall at Topanga Plaza?"

"Yeah, it was scaring everybody!"

“Were you and I there?”

“You were, Mommy. I was at grandma’s house.”

“Why was I there?”

“I don't know.”

I had to think this out. These little details, as perplexing as they seemed to be, were pieces of a puzzle. I needed more pieces. What had Sarn said? She'd used the term fiasco. A fiasco at the Mall? Shouldn't she have called it an attack or a tragedy? A fiasco usually referred to a failed plan. Was the robotic attack somebody's failed plan? Whose plan?

I had a sinking feeling. Had Aladdin sent a battle robot into a minor suburban mall, intending to start a panic and make it look like some ultra was responsible? That would have been a heavy-handed move, even for Aladdin.

Momentarily stumped, I thought I should check the phone numbers that I had most recently called. I punched in a recent but unlabeled number and got a real estate office. That figured. It also figured that they told me I had an appointment with them this very afternoon. The local Mantra had been trying to find an apartment in the San Francisco area. I asked for a postponement of the meeting, using illness as an excuse. With that distraction taken care of, my first order of business was getting more information about this alternate world. I needed to stop reacting to all the weirdness like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Evie," I said, "do you feel like going out with me?"

"Sure! But you told the man you were sick."

"I fibbed. I have to go and carry out a secret mission."

"A secret mission? Can I be your sidekick?"

"You certainly can! We’ll go to the library first."

She looked dubious. "Are there robots or monsters at the library, Mommy?"

"I certainly hope not!" I said, not quite able to smile.

A sign at L.A. library that I'd stopped at directed its patrons to a parking ramp that was blocks away. After parking, we continued our trip on foot. Evie stayed close and I thought at first that she was clinging to me in fear. But her stern expression suggested something else. Was Evie protecting her mother from danger, now that she was no longer a super-powered ultra? I took her little hand and squeezed it. Whatever version of Evie that I met, she was always an easy child to love.

But that raised another question. How should I react to a emergency while I was in such a weakened state? I could hardly think of anything to do, except to grab Evie and run. Depressing.

We passed in front of a paperback-and-news shop called the Readmore News and I impulsively led Evie inside. I went first to look at the newspaper headlines. Every story on the front pages were histrionic accounts of a recent catastrophe. I bought the Los Angles Times on the spot and also asked the clerk for a copy of The Ultra, but the young man replied that he'd never heard of the title. He recommended instead a newsprint tabloid called The Ultramate Source. I didn’t have much choice but to buy the unfamiliar weekly.

We left the news store and stopped to read at a coffee shop a couple buildings away. Evie was hungry, so I bought brunch for the two of us. While absently consuming my java, sausage, and eggs, I poured through the Times' lead story, the one describing a disaster in New York.

And it was a lulu! The paper was saying that more than a quarter of New York City had been blasted to rubble by a mysterious explosion. Millions were feared dead. A suitcase-sized nuclear weapon was at first suspected, but area testing had shown a low radiation count. The authorities were frantic to find a scapegoat to redirect blame away from what had been a muddled initial response. Some were latching on to Fake News standby idea that Russia had done it.

A civilian's smart phone video had come forward, showing ultras near the blast zone. One of them was a giant of a man in armor, and with him was some yo-yo swinging a scythe. A woman in a black cat suit was also to be seen. When an ill-trained National Guard unit confronted the mysterious group, the ranking officer apparently lost his cool and gave an attack order. A female ultra appeared overhead, distracting the panicky guardsmen with energy bolts. The soldiers started shooting at anything that moved -- including at each other.

In the aftermath, two members of the ultra gang could be tentatively identified. One matched the description of Amber Hunt, a name that was familiar to me – and not in any good way. But what floored me was the allegation that one of the ultras had been the crime-fighter known as Strike.

Back home, Strike had been the nom de guerre of Brandon Tark before he'd re-christened himself "Warstrike." Was Warstrike still called Strike in this reality? I searched my reading material to find the name "Warstrike," but couldn’t.

Had Brandon Tark been involved in a terrorist incident? Tark, I knew, had suffered a severe breakdown following the Godwheel incident. But it seemed like he had pulled out of it by summer. Was it possible that in this world he’d lost his marbles and gone rogue? I didn't want to believe it. Maybe Strike had been on the scene trying to apprehend Amber Hunt and hadn’t really been a member of her gang. A similar mix-up had wrongly implicated me – as Mantra – in a museum break-in case.

I kept reading, but didn’t find much of use. I couldn't let the magnitude of a disaster on the other side of the continent throw me. My focus had to be on Cangoa Park. The local news carried a story that apparently confirmed Evie's earlier testimony. It had a small picture of what the reporter was calling a "new Mantra." She was masked, but I could tell that it was Lauren Sheppard wearing a rather bland gray costume – and she was holding Mantra’s sword!

I showed the page to my little girl. "Have you seen this picture of Lauren yet?" I asked. “Do you know how she got the Sword of Fangs?”

She frowned. “No, Mommy."

“Do you know where my gold armor and cloak are?"

"Oh, they're in that box under the motel bed. The mask, too."

If truth be told, I had lately been one of the most powerful ultras in the world. It was true, too, that I’d been unconsciously been defining my personal worth in terms of my magical powers. If I couldn't restore that power, what would my life amount to from now on?”

Despite my abysmal mood, I continued the research. In The Ultramate Source I found references to a number of new ultras, none of whom sounded like heavy hitters. Who was the pathetic "Thorn Boy," or the crime-fighting acrobat named "Jack Dancer"?

Interestingly, there had been some armored goofball whose whole super career had consisted of coming out into the street and shouting “I'm the Chaotician.” He was immediately taken out by some mysterious back-shooter.

I also learned that the Strangers and the mercenary ultras of the Solution were still doing their thing, though the latter was in semi-retirement. That jived with what I knew from back home. On the other hand, this world’s UltraForce consisted Prime, Ghoul, Topaz, the Black Knight, Prototype, and a couple of ultras I’d never heard of. Oddly, their base was in Headless Cross, Arkansas, not in Miami, Florida.

More amazingly, Prototype was no longer Jimmy Ruiz, but Bob Campbell, who had been Prototype before Jimmy had come along. In my own reality, Hardcase had been the unofficial captain of the ultra team, but he wasn’t mentioned in the story. Neither was Contrary, the sexy-dressing ultra who had so impressed the fourth-graders at my daughter's school.

"Evie, have you ever heard of a couple of ultras named Hardcase and Contrary?"

Evie perked up. There was no subject that excited her more than ultras. "Everybody's heard of Hardcase. He used to be in the UltraForce. But who's Contrary?"

“You've never heard of Contrary?”

“Uh-uh. What can he do?”

“Why did Hardcase leave the Ultra Force?” I asked.

She frowned. “I don’t know.”

I went back to my reading. “Mommy,” Evie said in a sad voice.

"What is it, Sweetie?"

"Does God always answer prayers?"

"Why do you ask?"

"'Cuz my prayers didn't come true. I always ask Him to bless everybody, especially you and Gus. But He didn't. Why?”

This was a big bucks question and I had to answer carefully.

"Evie," I replied, "what you're asking is the same question that wise men have been asking each other for a very long time."

“Did they figure it out?”

“No.” I said.

The corners of her mouth turned down. "Those wise men don't sound too smart."

"Well, try not to worry. Whatever God does, it’s always for the best in the long run. Whatever their problems, people should keep on doing good deeds."

"But wouldn't doing good deeds be easier if you were still Mantra?"

I sighed. "Maybe. But if my magic doesn’t come back, I’ll just go on doing good deeds in little ways. That's what firemen, police, and nurses do."

Still sober, Evie asked, "Why doesn't God let you keep doing good in big ways? He could make your magic come back if He wanted to, couldn't He?"

I squeezed her hand. "Of course. God can do anything. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

All of a sudden, the hand I held started trembling again.

"Evie, what's wrong?"

"You f-forgot, Mommy. M-my hands shake sometimes. The doctor said it was because I got so scared."

I cupped both her little hands in mine and lifted them to my lips. I was relieved when the quaking stopped.

"This is very bad, Darling. Did -- did the doctor know how to help you?"

"No. He said we should see another doctor. You said we’d see one in Sanfrisco."

"We certainly will! My little girl has to be well and happy. That's the most important thing in the world."

She shook her head emphatically. "No. Helping Gus is most important."

I nodded. "You're right again. I'm going to do the best I can to fix things."

The tyke seemed to brighten a little. I urged her to finish her lunch, and while she was doing so, I paged to the science section of the L.A. Times.

Well now! The main article said that many strategic air defense stations and civilian observatories had monitored a series of world-wide energy spikes on Friday night. The unprecedented phenomenon was still under investigation.

Reading on, I learned that observers had seen the world's skie display a purplish glow. Green-colored bolts had struck the earth at random places on every continent. Oftentimes, these strikes correlated with bizarre events on the ground. Some individuals spontaneously gained ultra powers. Some people and animals underwent inexplicable deformations, death, and spells of madness. But a much more amazing thing had occurred in Oakland, California. Unburied corpses had allegedly come to life. The walking dead had ranged into the surrounding neighborhood, attacking several passersby and breaking into homes. Fortunately, the Strangers had arrived in time to get people to safety and to destroy the zombie marauders.

Next, something I found in the L.A.City section caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. Energy bolts had struck Canoga Park, also. A little after seven, local time, a hit had engulfed a home on Leadwell Street where a "special" boy was living with his family. Later, that same youngster was seen exercising ultra-type powers destructively. Also, a different energy bolt had struck another family's home in Canoga Park. It blasted out a wall and the members of a teenage Mantra fan club, who had been upstairs during the incident, were afterwards reported missing. They fortunately returned hours later, not remembering what had happened.

The "special" ultra boy in story had to be Gus. But Canoga Park wasn't all that large and it had only one Mantra fan club -- a clique consisting of Heather Parks and her friends Jessica, Samantha, and Trish.

"Evie," I asked, "did anything happen to Heather Parks last Friday?"

She looked up excitedly. "Are you remembering things now, Mommy?"

"I wish I were. But it says in the paper that some Mantra fans in Canoga Park were frightened by something. I know that Heather has a fan club."

"They all got turned into a monster with four heads. They’re okay now.”

For the love of Pete! No wonder Evie had been left a nervous wreck after Friday night!

"Four girls became one monster?" I asked.

She nodded. “She was really scary!”

I could imagine. "Did our house get hit by lightning about dinnertime?” I asked

Evie blinked. "No, Mommy. I saw a flash in the window, but there wasn't any thunder at all. When I was outside, sky looked awfully funny, sorta purple."

How could our house be hit by a totally silent energy bolt? Stranger and stranger. There had to be some underlying connection between all these baffling events, if only I could find the key.

When Evie had finished her lunch, the two of us went over to the library. After helping her find some good books to read in the children's section, I made for the Internet terminals.

A net search of various keywords turned up bits of intriguing information. Many sites were calling Friday evening the "Night of Terror.” News stories provided more information, but they didn’t add up to any bigger picture about the Night of Terror. When I at last put "Eden Blake" and "Canoga Park" into the search window, I hit pay dirt.

The Weird World blog reported that one Mrs. Eden Blake of Canoga Park, along with a young daughter, Eve, and her son, August Jr., were at home when a green bolt was observed striking their tract home on Leadwell Street at about 7:15 P.D.T.

According to the website, Eve had gone into her brother's room and found him practicing what she called “magic.” According to the girl's grandmother, Barbara Freeman, also of Canoga Park, Eve was forcibly detained by her brother for a short while, but managed to flee outside when a visitor distracted young August.

Mrs. Freeman reported that her daughter Eden had come back in the early morning accompanied by Evie, whom she had found safe at the home of a friend. Eden Blake herself was not available for comment, having been summoned out of town by her employer. At the time of the interview, Eve appeared to be in a somewhat stressed condition.

The article provided a few more details supplied by young Eve herself. Before the energy bolt struck, August Jr., a twelve year old who had previously suffered a disfiguring accident, had gained ultra powers. His father had just canceled a trip to a football game and, becoming incensed, Gus had attacked his mother physically. The boy reportedly went into the streets of the neighborhood after midnight, where he frightened passersby with threatening behavior.

A chill coursed through me. In my own reality, big and little Gus had been planning to attend the season's first Bearcat game. If the two worlds could share so minor a detail, might they not also have shared something major? Something catastrophic? Could the strange things that had come to pass in this alternate reality have also occurred back on my world? Could people I knew there have been injured or even killed?

How I wished that I could get back to where I belonged.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 4....

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 4

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Science Fiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

THE WOUNDED WORLD
A Story of Mantra
Written 2006 by Aladdin
Revision and Editing by Christopher Leeson
Posted Oct.. 22, 2020
Revised July 24, 2021
Revised July 31, 2021

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PINNACLE

And thine is a face of sweet love in despair
And thine is a face of mild sorrow and care
And thine is a face of wild terror and fear
That shall never be quiet till laid on its bier.

William Blake

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CHAPTER 4

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From Internet news I learned that Gus – young August, as they called him – had gone on a destructive rampage on the evening of the 15th. It was hard to find out more. The events of that night across the face of the world were being heavily censored – not by the government, but by Big Tech -- or so said the truth-in-news people. Why international billionaires companies should want to hide the events of the Night of Terror I couldn’t guess. But I suppose there's no understanding people like that.

With my research frustrated in one direction, I switched focus and tried to find out about Gus's earlier – and equally tragic – encounter with the so-called fairies. A keyword search for “August Blake,” “Canoga Park,” and “fairies” drew in a scattering of stories – most of them frustratingly brief. I learned that August Blake, Jr. had been a normal boy until May 23. Then, inexplicably, he had suffered a spontaneous mutation, one that medical science was at a loss to explain.

Felicia Campbell, who was the wife of Bob Campbell (aka Prototype) and also a specialist in ultra-oriented medicine, was interviewed by FAUX News. The scientist thought that August Jr.'s physical changes generally followed a pattern observed in some new ultras, in which they occasionally underwent disfiguring mutations. In this instance, however, the boy had developed no observable ultra abilities.

Other authorities were passing off the youngster's claims as hallucinations stemming from trauma. The supporting testimony of his younger sister was likewise ignored. The case had swiftly passed out of the news cycle and there were no follow ups. The poor little guy! I could easily believe that events -- even those before the Night of Terror – had been bad enough to have driven Gus half out of his mind.

I checked my watch. Mother wouldn't be arriving in Frisco for hours yet and Lauren would be at school until 4:00 pm. I wasn’t sure what to do in the meantime. Gus’s condition was looming large in my mind, but Aladdin still hadn't called back to brief me on his condition.

The world had been lambasted by some mysterious force and my family had been devastated. I needed advice about what to do, but to whom could I turn? Not Aladdin. It was staffed by professional paranoids whose was to hide information, not circulate it.

What resources did the Mantra of this world have that I could draw upon? Did she and I have the same friends? My best bud was Warstrike, or – as he was called here, Strike. But he was currently a fugitive wanted for mass murder and terrorism. I had a good relationship with some other first-class ultras, including the Strangers, who operated out of San Francisco. I tried their highly-secure phone number but, as expected, it was an unknown number in this world.

Then it came to me. I did know another ultra in the Frisco area and even knew her address. Pinnacle had been the most powerful psionic I'd ever run into, and she was also a multi-discipline genius of science. Only, my memorize phone number for her failed, too.

An Internet search for "Pinnacle" brought nothing but trash listings. Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised; Pinnacle had never gone public as an ultra back on my world. It would probably be the same here. In fact, she could easily be using an entirely different code-name on this planet, like Warstrike/Strike was doing. Or, even worse, she might have become a “forgotten person,” like Contrary.

But the Pinnacle I’d known possessed a fully-equipped lab, using intermediaries and dummy companies to cover her traces. NuWare, the Big Tech company that had infused her with ultra powers, was probably still seeking her in this reality, too. They didn’t think of her as a human being, but as a company asset that they had a right to control absolutely. Penny had broken free of their mind-control and had gone to ground.

If I couldn’t phone her, I’d have to drive over to her address and see what was there.

On the other hand, Pinnacle, like a lot of other psychics, routinely formed enduring psychic links with anyone's mind once she'd read it, and Penny had read my mine more than once. That made me think that I might be able to link with her telepathically.

I braced myself and tried to initiate the psionic contact. "Penny...I need your help..." I mentally shouted, while simultaneously fixating on a thought-picture of her fashion-model face.

After several minutes, my optimism started to wane. I was not feeling her at all. But instead of accepting failure, I stubbornly persevered. Maybe it was that dogged determination that finally put my call through.

"Lukasz," spoke a ghost in my mind.

“Penny!” I psychically exclaimed. “I need your help!”

“And I need yours,” the voice answered.

“What, Pinnacle?”

"You can save my life."

That was all the communication that came through. Was Pinnacle in some sort of a spot? If she had a problem, it couldn’t be a small one, considering how individually powerful she was.

But what kind of help could I offer in my condition? Should I call the police to check on her? No. Pinnacle wouldn't appreciate a SWAT team breaking down her laboratory door and laying bare the possibly unethical experiments she might be carrying on. Pinnacle didn’t care much for following the rules and the role of a mad scientist came easy for her.

Any help I could give to my ally had to be delivered face to face. With a sense of urgency, I went to the children's’ section to fetch Evie and drove with her though the early afternoon traffic to Pinnacle's laboratory. When I stopped, I made sure that we were parked near an intersection where Evie would be able to read both names on the street signs, which were South Grand and Venice Blvd.

"Pumpkin," I said, handing Evie my cell phone, "there's a doctor in that building who might be able to fix Gus and me. But I have to check if she’s home. Watch the clock. If I don't come back in ten minutes, punch 911 on the phone. When someone answers, tell the person where you are and say that you're worried about your mom. Tell them that I’d told you to call for help if I didn't come back real soon. Okay?"

"Is somebody gonna shoot at you, Mommy?" she asked, anxious-eyed.

I gave her a hug. "I don't think so, Precious, but I need you to be my brave sidekick. Okay?"

"Okay," she said anxiously.

I felt the girl's stare like a warm spot on my back as I left the car. She was afraid for me and I had my own doubts, too. What if Pinnacle needed some heavy ultra-style help? Would I be doing her any good showing up as plain old Eden Blake?

Ready for the worst, I took off my treacherous pumps, stuffed them into my large purse, and confronted the building’s security door. Behind its glass pane I could see a camera. If Penny, or anyone else, was watching the monitor they’d know that I was here. I pushed the intercom buzzer with resignation.

"Penny, are you in there?" I spoke into the grid.

After a tense silence, the door buzzed, releasing the mechanism. Short of receiving a new telepathic message to warn me off, I didn't seem to have any choice except to go inside.

The front hall looked deserted. Several doors opened off it, but everything was stone quiet. I opted to go upstairs to Pinnacle's living quarters.

Wary of ambush, I walked past the elevator and took the stairs. The third floor landing was empty and I advanced to Penny's apartment door without mishap. It had a push-button doorbell and this I jabbed with my thumb. Then I waited, primed to dodge if I had to.

The door pivoted in. Pinnacle, at the threshold, was silhouetted against the large window across the room.

"Are you alone?" I asked in a low tone.

She shrugged. "I'm nothing else but alone. Come on in, if you're not too choosy about the company."

As she stood back, I cautiously stepped inside. The place was a housekeeping disaster, without light except for the window. There was a stale bouquet of assorted liquors in the air, gin being the most powerful. My friend's lounging outfit, I observed, looked slept-in. Her frowziness, her forlorn expression, and lack of makeup added to my sense of wrongness.

"Is it okay for me to bring Evie up?" I asked, observing Pinnacle's troubled face closely.

"Or else she'll call the law?" Pinnacle asked.

“Well, yes.” It still seemed uncanny howshe could easily mind-read, even while drunk.

Penny didn't look physically endangered, but her careless grooming, the general disorder about her, and her inebriation had me on my guard.

"You don't seem yourself, Penny. You look like you need someone to talk to."

She shook her head and went ungracefully to a liquor cabinet.

I stepped up behind her. "What's the problem? Is someone threatening you?" I asked. She still made no reply, but poured a good measure of Holland gin into a crystal glass.

"Want some?" she asked. "I’m down to my last bottle, but I’ll just call for another delivery. I can afford to drink myself to death in style."

I put a hand on her shoulder. "Penny, you're worrying me. You're incredible in so many ways. What can have gone so wrong that you can't handle it?”

"Sure, I'm like Ludwig Von Drake, the expert on everything. I'm Indiana Jane, the world's greatest seeker after lost knowledge. That last did me in. It's not smart to uncover all the secrets of the universe. Do you know why?"

“No. Why?”

“Because you just might wish you had kept them covered!”

I tried to smile. "I’d be glad to hear about it, but I've got to let Evie know I'm all right."

“Yeah, go get her.”

I excused myself, left the room, and took the lift to street level. I didn't have much time to waste, not if I wanted to spare Pinnacle an official visit.

The little girl bounced excitedly when she saw me returning. I took her hand and led her back to Pinnacle's apartment. "This is my friend Penny," I told Evie. "She's a doctor. You two met before. Penny, do you remember Evie?"

Our hostess nodded distractedly and then swallowed the rest of her drink. Before Pinnacle could refill it, I drew her to an ottoman. "Enough of this bender already, Pen. Sit down and tell me what's eating on you?"

The psionic slumped into the pillows. Then, drawing a deep breath, she said, "Wouldn't you rather talk about your problem? Your brain has been screaming since you walked in here that you've lost your powers. I'm sorry about that, but I’m not good at fixing other people’s problems. I can’t even fix my own.”

I regarded her. "You’re reading my mind, but you haven’t seemed to pick up on the fact that I'm not the Eden you know.”

She blinked. “Then who are you?”

“I'm a person who’s popped into the wrong universe and who wants to go home.”

“Wow!” the psionic said. “No wonder I couldn't make sense of what's rattling around inside your head. You really don’t have a clue about what happened?”

“No. I lost five days from my life. It’s like I’ve time-traveled."

Pinnacle frowned. "Maybe you're just not in your right mind."

I bridled slightly. “Are you sure that you're in yours?”

“Touche,” she said with a sleepy yawn.

"Let me fix some black coffee while you gather your thoughts," I suggested.

Pinnacle shook her head. "Caffeine just turns a sleepy drink into a wide-awake drunk."

"I’ll settle for having you wide-awake, even if you're still drunk."

Just then, I heard Evie sobbing and wheeled. "Precious, what is it?"

"I-I know where I saw Dr. Penny before," she mewed.

Going to the tyke, I drew her into my arms. Pinnacle had been with us when Evie had seen her mother, Eden, murdered at the hands of Necromantra. The renewed meeting with my friend had brought back that awful memory.

As I comforted the weeping youngster, Pinnacle pushed herself up from the ottoman and crossed over to join us. "May I?" she asked. I nodded and Penny touched Evie's left temples. The latter blinked and her sobbing ceased.

I looked askance at the doctor.

"I've blocked the flow of her emotions into her memory centers," she explained. "She'll feel better while the effect lasts."

I grimaced. If the psionic ultra was able to do something like that, why was she guzzling gin instead of giving herself the same treatment?

"Because," Pinnacle said, replying to my unvoiced thought, "I’ve gone past my denial phase. I have to face the truth, and the truth stinks."

"So boozing yourself red-eyed is the cure?" I asked. "Since when?"

The blonde threw up her hands. "Look at us! We're really three basket cases, aren't we?" And then I saw her tears start to flow. At the same time, however, Evie's own were starting to dry.

Bringing Pinnacle out of her funk was going to be a major undertaking. I had a lot of work to do before I'd have to go back to the motel and meet my mother coming in.

To sober up Penny, I had to help her get all the toxins out of her body. She also needed a good shot of self-respect. I took my hostess into the bathroom and stripped her down for a cold shower. She didn't object at first, but the cascade gave her goose pimples in seconds. Shouting, the woman tried to get out, but I held her in place. She couldn't have been too upset, though. Otherwise, as an ultra, she could have slammed me against the wall with a mind-blast.

I drew her out, her teeth chattering, and quickly patted her dry with a thick towel. Then put a larger towel around her for warmth and let her flop down on the bed while I rummaged through her dressers for fresh underwear. This I shoved them into her trembling hands. Afterwards, I assisted Pinnacle in donning a clean blouse and pantsuit.

If she was going to go out, it was absolutely necessary to bring her snarled hair into order. I did my best and, as a finishing touch, applied some makeup, which put back a little of the color she was missing. Through all this, Penny hadn't said much, but her demeanor suggested that she was grateful enough to be with someone trying to be helpful.

Once I had Pinnacle looking like a real lady doctor, I heated some instant coffee in the kitchen microwave. Penny, on the sofa, received the mug into both her hands, as if afraid she might drop it -- as she easily could have done. The effects of alcohol would be a drag on her system for the next few hours.

I left her briefly to fix Evie a snack from the refrigerator. The appliance needed a serious restock, but there still remained a little juice and some cheese and crackers.

Behind me, Penny resumed talking. "I suppose you want to get your lost magic back.”

“Yes? Do you have any ideas?”

“Where were did you last put them?”

"Very funny. By the way, when were you and the Mantra of this world last together?"

She blinked thoughtfully. "In January, after Lukasz and Eden came back from the Godwheel.” Pinnacle paused. “Are you absolutely sure that you're not the same person I know? You talk and act a lot like her!"

"Not so loud,” I said, casting a backward glance toward Evie. “From what you’re saying, your past history here sounds like the one that I know.”

Pinnacle frowned. “Why are you so convinced that you're not from this planet?”

“The history here is different. How much do you know about alternate dimensions?"

"I haven't had any reason to study them. Do you often slip into other realities?"

"Happily, no. The last time was last month.”

The blonde eyed me carefully. "Yes, I can see that in your mind. Did you steal somebody else's body there, too?"

"No, I didn't. I went over to that plane physically. I don't know why it’s different this time.”

“What sort of world was it?”

I shook my head. “It was a gut-wrencher. I met Eden Blake; she's still alive there, still married, and has a happy family. When I realized my being there could only cause her problems, I went home as soon as I could figure out how to do that.”

“Couldn’t you do that again, here?”

“No, I’d need Mantra powers to bring it off.”

“Of course. Sorry.”

I checked the clock. "Around six I'll have to meet with my – with Eden's – mother. You'd better come with us.”

“Why?”

“For your own safety. A little while ago you seemed suicidal."

Pinnacle shrugged. I took that to mean that she was willing to go along with my suggestion.

"Just be careful not to say too much when I introduce you to Barbara. If she realizes that you’re falling-down drunk, she'll start nagging me about my terrible choice in shrinks."

"And your mother agrees that you need a 'shrink' because you've lost your memory, right?"

"Right. That’s the cover story I gave her this morning. But Barbara’s thought that that I've been off my rocker since last year. I didn’t want to tell her that I’m a totally different person living inside her dead daughter’s body. As things stand, she'll be glad to have me checked out.”

"Mothers are wonderful."

"Yeah! They are!" Evie piped in.

Pinnacle smiled. "It looks like you've made a big hit with at least one member of your family, Lu."

I shook my head. "Not me. I only just got here. By the way, when you meet my Mom, what name are you going to give her?”

"Lammars. Penelope Lammars," the doctor replied.

"Is that for real?"

"Not by a long shot. The last name comes from a movie character I like."

"I guess you'd need to use a false name with Nu-Ware still looking for you."

"Who ever said that I had a real name?"

"Is this something we ought to be discussing in front of Evie?"

Pinnacle glanced away. "I wish I didn't have to discuss it at all. But I'll explode if I don'’t talk to somebody.”

“I'm listening."

“Not yet,” she said. “It's complex, it’s crazy, and I’m way, way too fuzzy-mined. I wouldn't want to make you run away from me screaming."

"It's not easy to make me scream," I assured her.

"Well, I feel like screaming. I’d also like to get some rest before we have to go. You can put a DVD on for Evie. I've got a few titles that she’d probably like.”

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 5

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 5

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Science Fiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

THE WOUNDED WORLD
A Story of Mantra
Written 2006 by Aladdin
Revision and Editing by Christopher Leeson
Posted Nov.. 21, 2020
Revised Nov. 22, 2020
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THE ANGEL AND THE APE

When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears
Did he smile, his work to see;
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

William Blake

With Penelope Lammars away getting some shut-eye, Evie and I watched The Miracle on 34th Street. Being restless, I could hardly follow the story. But there wasn’t much else for me to do, not until Barbara Freeman arrived in town. Another thing that bothered me was my feeling of responsibility for the Evie and Gus of this world. On top of everything else, I couldn't get my mind off Penny’s condition. Something had gone wrong in her life, something so bad that it had driven her to drink.

When the movie ended, I shook Pinnacle awake and put both her and my daughter into the car. The drive to Budget Inn took us through some bad traffic, but I’d dealt with a lot worse since the automobile had been invented. We were only at the motel for a short time before Barbara Freeman showed up.

After brief introductions and a few pleasant words, the still-tipsy Penny excused herself and retired to the car. Evie and stayed behind to help “Mom” register and settle in to a room of her own. Whatever she’d thought of Pinnacle, she didn't say a word. She simply told me that she was glad that I’d I'd found a psychiatrist so quickly. I felt obligated to give her a cover story about Penny, claiming that she and I had been friends in college. I elaborated that she’d done great work in a psychiatric clinic back East before coming to California to start her own practice. As soon as I could, I took my leave on the excuse that Penny and I were going to get re-acquainted over dinner and, later, would discuss of my memory problems.

I took Penelope back to her own place; my watch was reading seven by then. That reminded me that contacting Lauren was crucial. I selected her number from my phone list and her father picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Mr. Sherwood? This is Eden Blake. May I speak to Lauren?"

"Oh, of course, Mrs. Blake,” he answered cordially. “Lauren’s told me that you've moved away from Canoga Park. I guess nobody could really blame you. Hopefully, we aren't going to lose a good neighbor like you permanently."

"I hope not either. But I left town in too much of a rush to get everything done. I think Lauren might be able to help me with that, if she has the time."

"Sure. I’ll call her. Just a minute!"

I waited tensely. After a minute, Lauren's voice came on.

"M-- Eden?"

Embarrassing moment. Her stumble reminded me that, unlike the Lauren I knew, this Lauren was aware that I was -- or used to be -- Mantra. I would have to speak to her guardedly.

“Where are you?” the girl asked.

"San Francisco. We can't talk over any public line. I’m in a bad situation and you’re one of the few people I can talk to about it."

"Yeah, okay."

“Just a minute, Lauren,” I said, looking back at Pinnacle.

"Penny, I need to ask Lauren to call me back on some secure line. Can you recommend one?"

The melancholy blonde nodded. "My line here is heavy-duty secure.” She jotted down a number on a pad and me handed the page. I took the sheet.

"Lauren,” I said, “I can't say too much just now. Can you find a public phone, maybe -- without your dad becoming suspicious?"

"Fortunately, there’s at least one public phone left in the neighborhood. When should I ring you up?" she whispered.

"Maybe after your Dad’s in bed. Would you feel safe going out that late?" I asked.

"Are you kidding?"

Silly me; she was the "new Mantra" after all, and sounded as cocky as all hell.

"Sorry, this arrangement takes a little getting used to." I read Penny’s number to her. “When can I expect your call?”

“Is eleven o’clock too late?”

"Not at all. Great. You're super."

"Funnnn-ny."

We said goodbye.

I sat there, reflecting that Lauren had sounded normal and levelheaded, at least for a teenager. That was definitely a big improvement over the way she had flipped out when she’d gotten powers the first time. Back then, she had come at me with intent to kill.

I had brought over some evening clothes back from the motel. By the time I was dressed for dinner, Penny was likewise ready. She suggested a cafe that she liked and, upon arrival, we requested a private spot. The attendant escorted us to a candlelit table behind a row of potted fronds.

Left alone, I kicked off the conversation with: "It's unbelievable how much you look and talk like the Pinnacle I know."

"Well, I just hope that she’s in better shape than I am."

“How did that happen? What put you over the deep end?”

She glanced away. "It's a hard subject to talk about it, Lukasz. I've found out some really disgusting things."

“About what?”

“About myself.”

“I’ve never found anything disgusting about you, except for your sense of humor. What’s happened?"

She met my glance this time, the candlelight dancing in her cerulean eyes. "You of all people should know what's wrong! You saw it the day we met!” Then she paused. “I mean, it was right in front of the other Mantra."

I frowned. "I'm here to listen. Give me the straight scoop.”

She laughed, but with a shrill edge. "I don't know where to start. I always try to come off as cool and wise. But I do have emotions, and they always trip me up. When they click in, they can switch off my sense of reason."

"So I've noticed!"

She shook her head. "It's about all I can do to keep myself from running and screaming right now, so be on guard."

"I will,” I promised.

Pinnacle started out with a non sequitur: "What's the world going to do, without Mantra to look after it?"

"The world is going to be all right," I advised. "It already has a new Mantra. Or haven't you heard?"

She narrowed her eyes. "From what I’ve gathered from your thoughts, Lauren is the ‘New Mantra' now. Did that girl steal your powers? Or did they somehow transfer to her on their own?”

I shook my head. "All I know is that the Lauren back home is a natural-born ultra. Evie tells me that I lost my magic after being injured in a fight."

“How powerful is this Lauren?”

“It’s creepy. She came out of the gate as a powerhouse. When I went toe to toe with her the first time, she packed an incredible wallop, even though I had my magic armor boosting me, and she didn’t. She almost took me down, and I don’t think it was only because I was trying not to hurt her.”

“Can a child be trusted to control so much sorcery?”

“She's sixteen, and a thousand things can go wrong whenever a kid tries to play ultra. But let’s talk about you instead. You're saying that you have a problem. What is it?”

Pinnacle glanced down. “Do you remember the first time we met?"

"Who could forget it? Your boss sent you at me like a guard dog. But what does that have to do with anything?"

She swallowed hard. "It has everything to do with everything. Remember how I used my mind to evolve into a woman of the far future?”

I certainly did. "That was weird. How much control over your own body do you actually have?"

"I have a lot of control. But think back to when you used your magic to flip my control switch, to throw my evolution into fast-reverse. What did I look like then?"

"Ahh, well, you looked a lot like a...gorilla."

"Bingo!"

"Is that what's upsetting you? A bad hair day?"

She dropped her voice. "Don't you get it? Why should a Homo sapiens devolve into a -- great ape? You may come from the Dark Ages, Lu, but sometime since then you must have heard that humans didn't descend from gorillas."

I shrugged. "I’ve seen a ton-load of strangeness; I’ve learned to just go with the flow."

"I should have realized the truth at that minute, but I think NuWare had played with my mind, to keep me from asking myself hard questions. Once I was out of their influence, I started removing elements of their conditioning, one piece at a time. It's been like picking boot-jacks out of a pair of jogging pants."

“What is it that NuWare doesn’t want you to remember?”

Her lips tightened into a thin line; I could hardly hear her next whisper: "They didn't want me to realize that I'm not, and never have been, a human being."

Now that the ice was broken, Pinnacle seemed to be in a rush to tell me everything. I just listened.

According to my friend, she had remained clueless until she’d developed an interest in human genome studies. She began with an analysis of the available research, mostly by hacking into university and private laboratory data banks.

Most of these studies affirmed that all the other mammals on Earth appeared to have been better built than was humankind. The modern human genome seemingly held thousands of unused pieces. These are popularly called “junk DNA.” In late days, there have arisen theories that that ultra powers might actually be supported by portions of this material, and also some diseases, both great and small.

Her preliminary readings encouraged Pinnacle to start a serious independent genetic study. She learned that homo sapiens didn’t fit in well with every other form of life on the planet. He had fewer chromosomal pairs than other hominids, including the most advanced of them, Neanderthal. Also, about 98.8 percent of what Homo sapiens did have in his genetic makeup was junk DNA. It didn't make any sense. How could the most intellectually advanced animal upon the face of the earth function even survive, much less thrive, if he was built out of bits and pieces, like a scrap-metal sculpture? The accumulating data eventually made Penny realize that mankind couldn’t have evolved naturally. It seemed more like it had been built rapidly, and not very well. If it hadn’t been Nature that put the planet's dominant species together, who or what pulled it off?

Penny had found that available research literature was very flawed. University and corporate scientists are by nature afraid to ask the hard questions. They simply ignored things that didn’t fit in with accepted ideas from the ivory tower. Their bosses didn’t complain; they were all in on the game and they were all playing it together.

According to a few honest researchers – usually labeled “controversial” – the human race, by the weight of the evidence, had to have descended from a very small population that existed as little as 5000 years ago. The “ancient aliens” people ran with the idea and gained the scorn of the establishment by speculating that a population so tiny could conceivably have been produced inside a genetics lab. But in plain fact, whatever his means of origin, modern man gave every sign of having been put together using the organic equivalent of robber bands and chewing gum.

“If any of this is supposed to make sense,” my companion said, “it would seem that mankind was created for a narrow purpose – to have brain power and a creative imagination. The builders apparently stuffed all the leftover pieces into the box and closed it."

So, Pinnacle was left with a mystery and went after the truth like a bloodhound. She started out with a study of her own genetics, letting herself stand in for a typical human specimen. She was looking for human genetic patterns that were inconsistent with those of the higher mammals and fossil hominids.

The trouble was, there was nothing in her own genetic makeup that wasn’t an anomaly. Pinnacle, without wanting to, had discovered a completely new paradox – the mystery of her own being. Having found out that she was a “freak,” she forgot about the human genome business and tried to discover what sort of creature she actually was.

She wondered if her parents had been strange, too. But her whole life story was a mystery to her. She had no living family connections. Although she had eidetic memory covering thousands of topics, she inexplicably retained only sketchy impressions concerning her own younger years. She began to realize that these bits were not real memories, but “recordings” that had been artificially imposed onto a blank mind, probably by the scientists of NuWare.

It figured. Science had gotten dirty as of World War II. Penny had learned about the black ops experiments back then, aimed at implanting false memories as a means of controlling mass populations once they conquered them. The big-nation intelligence agencies, proliferating like locus after the war, had carried on the same evil work, mainly aiming at controlling their own populations. She inevitably came to doubt everything that she’d thought she had known about herself. For her peace of mind, this was very disorienting.

To start filling in the blank spaces in her past, Penny searched the records of the schools and places of employment that she remembered attending, albeit in a sketchy way. She found out that she could verify almost nothing from her memories. Her schools and universities had preserved no records about her studies or even her attendance. Basically, she could find no evidence to prove that she had ever lived at all.

The implications of these discoveries obsessed her. Pinnacle went so far as to get a court order to take samples of genetic material from the graves of her deceased parents. A thorough testing proved that she was not related to the buried couple at all!

Delving further, Pinnacle discovered that the only known daughter ever born to her so-called parents had actually died in infancy, leaving nothing behind except a birth certificate. That was the very birth certificate found in her NuWare files. Someone had used the document to built a false identity for her. But if Penny was not whom she was supposed to be, it begged the question: who was she, really?

Having reached a dead end, she checked and rechecked her DNA. What was apparent from the first proved out. Penelope Lammars could not deny that she did not fit anywhere inside the human race. Her body, presumably, had been grown from the heavily-edited chromosomes of a...gorilla. She had had no real parents and, probably, had been born to a human surrogate mother as part of the experiment. When the facts could no longer be denied, Pinnacle had stopped working and started drinking.

My friend gave a weary laugh. "Lu, do you know what I’m really afraid of?"

"Penny..." I began.

“I’m afraid of having a child that’s made of the same garbage as I am!” she declared. “I won't have children. I'd have a tubal ligation before I’d ever let that happen. Whatever I am, it has to die with me."

Her tears had started to flow copiously. I was sure that she wanted me to say something, say anything to make her feel better, but I couldn’t utter a word except, “Why?"

She looked up. "What do you mean, why?! Don't you understand? I'm a species of livestock! I have no rights, not even under the law. If I were killed, it wouldn't even be murder. No wonder NuWare looks at me like I’m escaped lab rat. That’s what I am!”

Penny seemed to be losing it. I placed my hands over her balled fists. "I mean, why do such a terrible thing to yourself? If you didn't start out human, it doesn't mean that you're not human now. Didn’t you say that the whole rest of the human race might have come out of an experiment? Your origin might not be of the usual kind, but the results have been pretty damned good. NuWare, even if it’s only acted from selfish motives, did something positive by bringing you into the world."

Pinnacle stood up, angry. "I was hoping that you, of all people, could understand, especially since you’re pretty damned freakish yourself! Don't patronize me! I can't bear it." She shoved her chair back and stomped toward the exit. I rose, wanting to say something, wanting to call her back, but I didn't know how to relieve so much anguish and despair.

Suddenly, all on her own, the young woman – for I still saw her as such -- turned back my way, her expression incredulous.

"Good God, Lu!”

“What?”

“I heard you thinking.”

“What was I thinking?”

“That you actually meant what you were saying."

I thought Penny needed a glass of wine, and so signaled to the waiter and asked for a bottle of the good stuff. "Wherever your body comes from," I told my companion over drinks, "the spirit inside you is human in every way. That kind of spirit has to come from the same place that every other human spirit does."

She shifted uncomfortably. "I've never been into religion," she said.

"Good grief, Penny! Last winter you put my consciousness into the body of a clone! When you were doing that, didn’t you realize that you were proving the existence of the soul?"

She was silent for a moment, avoiding my glance and attentively stirring her wine glass with a swizzle stick, "I call the thing a life-entity,” she sighed. “What you’d call the 'soul' is probably only a natural, bio-imprinted recording of sensory impressions that allows for coherent thought and patterned behavior."

"Soul, ‘life-entity,’ you're only playing with words."

"I just find it hard to believe in the ---" she trailed off.

"In what, the paranormal? That's a damned funny thing to say to Mantra, the Golden Sorceress."

She cleared her throat. "I can't help it. I'm hard-wired to be rational. If I can't see something under a microscope, if it doesn't produce a wave pattern on an oscilloscope, if it won’t grow in a culture, we shouldn’t assume that it’s real."

"You modern people! You think you’re respecting reality, but you’re really searching for ways to avoid it! You assume that ancient people were backwards but, from everything I see, we understood the world a lot better than your generation seems to. It was plain to us from the start that religion and science were only two sides of the same coin. Why else were all the best minds of the Renaissance both scientists and theologians at the same time? They'd be stumped to understand how people today can suppose that religion and science are in any way at odds. They both seek to understand the laws of Nature.”

"So what are you trying to say, Lulu?"

I ignored the annoying nickname. "You're a genius, Penny. Can't you figure it out? A human being isn’t just a machine made of meat. Your own body is whatever your body happens to be, but you have a spirit of the highest order. You're brilliant, funny, brave, generous, and compassionate. You're devoted to your friends and...and..."

"You’re not saying anything that can’t be said about a pet poodle," she broke in.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call a poodle 'brilliant.'"

That got a laugh out of her, her first of the evening. "You’re making the same mistake I did; you're being blinded by emotion. You want to see me the way you want to, but I’m something else. I don’t know what I should be called, but I'm not human, not by any objective standard."

"Well, you're a pretty good approximation," I said. "You're easy on the eyes and you come across as human in spirit."

"If I'm so wonderful, would you like to marry me?"

"Now who's not being serious?"

"You're so old fashioned, Lukasz!"

I regarded her levelly. "I was born in the year 430 A.D. before it was called 430 A.D. Who has a better right to be old fashioned?"

"Well, whatever you say, you can’t change my whole world outlook in just the time it takes to down a glass of Moccagatta.”

“No, I can’t. But you’re smart enough to figure things out for yourself one of these days.”

“Never mind me. I’ve been sitting here thinking that I can do something super-great for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can rustle you up a male body just like I did before. The way I see it, it wouldn't be an improvement, but if it would make you feel a little better...."

I shook my head. "That's something I've thought about a lot, but my life has gotten a lot messier than it was before.”

“Messier? How?”

“Eden Blake saved my life by offering me this body, and she asked only one thing in return – to protect the children. I take my promises seriously. The kids are still so young. They need parenting and their father isn’t offering them much of that. If I became a new version of the old Lukasz, I’d have to get out of the children’s lives. How could I possibly keep their custody? Gus still thinks I am his mother, and Evie loves me for being Mantra. If I can’t pass muster as Eden Blake, I don’t think either one of them would be happy with me. And another thing, I’d like to get my – Eden’s – powers back. There's at lot wrong with the world and I want to go back to straightening things out.”

“Are you saying you'd rather live someone else's life instead of going back to your own?”

“My real life ended before Rome fell. The life I’ve been living since then has been insane,” I told her. “And if I got a new body it wouldn’t fit in with the present-day needs of the Blake family. It could have been different if I’d been able to marry Eden, as I wanted to. But without her I’m out of the clan. In that case, the kindest thing I could do for Gus and Evie would be to disappear."

"It seems to me that Gus is a very big part of your problem. Why haven't you said more about him so far?" she asked.

I sighed. "Because what's happened is so painful that a large part of me is trying to forget about it. Everything that's happened to Gus wrenches my guts just to think about. Even though he’s not my own Gus, I can’t help but care."

"So, none of this wild stuff is happening back in your own world, I take it."

"No. It was a perfectly normal summer for both of the kids. As for me, well, nothing is ever normal."

“I heard about what happened to the Blake family last summer and tried to contact you. I found out that you were in Europe, whereabouts unknown.”

"I don’t know where your Mantra was at the time, but I was in Britain on a mission for Aladdin.”

She frowned thoughtfully. "Why is it that your world seems to be so much like ours in some ways, and so different in others?"

“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said. “Did you ever hear of an ultra hero named Contrary?"

"Is he in the comic books?"

"No, she was -- is -- famous in my world. She's an original member of our UltraForce.”

“I’ve never heard of her.”

“I wonder if Contrary was even born into this reality. And how many other people are missing? Was there an Adolf Hitler here?”

“Unfortunately, yes," she said with a grimace, "but that’s old news. I have to wonder whether you're invested enough in helping the Gus of this world to be willing do try something really extreme?”

"I can be pretty extreme when I have to be. What do you have in mind?"

"Here's what. I have the know-how for cloning bodies, even if I don't have the specialized equipment just yet. When I was at NuWare, I was curious enough about the subject to hack into the company's research database. I downloaded quite a few gigabytes of company secrets. What I'm trying to say is that if we grew a new body for Gus, I could transfer his -- soul -- into it, like I did for you."

I regarded her keenly. "Would that get rid of his magic and his disfigurement?"

"It should. But we have to find out whether his DNA has been been mutated by what happened. If that’s the case, a clone would be just like the Gus who exists now.”

“That wouldn't get us anywhere,” I said.

But her face remained optimistic. “No, it wouldn’t. But even in the worst case scenario, we wouldn't be totally beaten. Like, can we recover a bit of his pre-mutation DNA?. Do you think that there could be some saved tissue from a past medical procedure?”

I shook my head. “All I know is that he hasn't needed any serious medical attention since I've been with him.”

“Well, there's still another option. You once told me that he’s the spitting image of his father. If Gus, Sr. contributed a cell sample, I could develop a little-boy version of him and incarnate Gus, Jr. into it."

"You could?"

"Sure. Everything about human cloning is illegal, of course," Penny confided, “but we all know the sort of crap that government people are involved in. Their hypocrisy aside, what Big Brother doesn't know can't hurt us. If the transplant worked, I might also be able to wipe away young Gus's memories of the last few months. That would protect him from the psychological trauma that he’s been sustaining."

I regarded the lady scientist. If ever there were angels in real life, Penny would be one of those flying at the front of the flock.

"Please, Lukasz," the blonde ultra chided me, "you'll make me blush."

I sat back and sighed. Mind readers! Love 'em or leave 'em.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 6

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 6

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Serial Chapter

Genre:

Science Fiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
Originally written 2006
Posted Dec. 21, 2020
Revised Dec. 22, 2020
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WHAT ARE LITTLE GIRLS MADE OF?

"Every house a den, every man bound;
The shadows are filled with specters,
And the windows wove over with curses of iron..."

William Blake
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As soon as we got back to Penny's digs, I stretched out on the couch. Such a day!

Pinnacle had crossed into the kitchen and now reappeared with coffee cups on a tray. She offered me one, "From what you’re saying, Lu, you're carrying quite a load of trouble. What do you need fixed first?"

I sat up and took a cup. “If I'm ever going to get back to my real home, I'll first need to recover my Mantra powers."

She set the tray aside and occupied the easy chair across from me. "Okay. But you’ve been vague about how you lost them in the first place."

I shrugged. "I wasn't the one who lost them. I’m from another universe, remember? All I know is what Evie told me. Lauren probably knows something, too, and I’ll need to talk to her before we go off on a wrong track. Right now, my working theory is that Mantra got hurt fighting Gus."

"What kind of an attack did Gus make?"

"Search me. Evie used the word 'zapped.' The boy probably let loose some sort of magical blast. That was the first thing I learned to do. On my first night in Eden Blake's body, I incinerated a street creep who came at me. When I saw him as a danger, it triggered itself automatically, like a self-defense mechanism.”

Penny took a sip of coffee and nodded, satisfied with its flavor. “That strongly suggests that your emotions and your abilities are tied together.”

“I guess so. They get stronger when I'm made furious. Where do ultra powers arise from anyway?”

"Nobody knows for sure. We've talked about some of this before. Remember how I said that the most compelling theory is that ultra powers come out of the so-called 'junk DNA' that everyone possesses. I've already mentioned now it makes up about ninety-eight point eight percent of the whole of a person’s DNA.”

I cocked my eye. "I was wondering about t hat. How does DNA fit in with the sky blast that hit that San Francisco trolley? Aladdin’s research says that most of the fifty-nine people inside the vehicle developed ultra powers afterwards. I know that the source of that surge originated on the Moon, sent out by an A.I. brain from outer space."

Pinnacle nodded. "That’s a very well studied case. Ironically, one of the people on that same trolley ride was my old boss – my old slave master -- J.D. Hunt.”

“A billionaire riding on a public trolley?”

“That's J.D. for you. He likes to go slumming incognito, like the kings of old. I never saw him use any ultra power, though. Still, when he was near me, I could sometimes sense an odd energy emanation from him. Maybe ultra abilities will eventually be manifesting in him. Or maybe they already have and he’s keeping it secret. After all, only a handful of the people on that trolley have so far stood up and gone public with their ultra powers.”

"Does everyone have the potential to become an ultra? If so, what, exactly, is an ultra?"

“Nothing on that score’s been proven. Most of what’s said, even by scientists, is crap that shouldn’t be listened to. It’s like that grandstanding that Carl Sagan used to do about his belief in life on other planets. It was all a lot of double talk just to make headlines and sell books."

"Well, I happen to know that there is life on other planets."

"Sure, but Sagan would always step up and try to deny the real proof, so that nobody could pin him down on anything. Fortunately, there’s still a few real scientists left out there. The most active theory is that an ultra is a person who can tap into unsuspected, genetically-enabled capabilities. From what you’ve told me before, Eden Blake must have been born into a bloodline of already-activated ultras. But, just as that streetcar incident shows, ultra potentials are carried dormant in most people until activated. Certain phenomena, both natural and artificial, can stimulate them. I'm wondering if the ancient gods weren't actually...."

"Ultras?"

She gave me a “not quite” look. "I can see Hercules as some sort of B.C. Hardcase, but god-like beings seem to be on a whole different level. But it is possible that gods started out like everyone else, except that their DNA potential was somehow activated to nearly 100%. It’s logical, isn’t it? If we took an ultra and kept adding to him more and more powers and abilities, he’d progressively become more and more godlike.”

"I've met a few gods in my day, so I know that they’re more than just mythology. The Godwheel, especially, used to be crawling with them.”

“The Godwheel is that super-sized artificial solar system in deep space that you’ve talked about before?”

I nodded. “The toughest so-called god I’ve ever run into was Loki. He could do almost anything! I'm still not sure why a nut-case like that let Primeval and me get away with our lives.”

“Any ideas?”

“Maybe it was because we'd shown off enough power to amuse him, but not enough to be a threat.”

"Okay, but let’s get back to the jump-start idea. If something can turn on ultra powers, couldn’t something else turn them off?"

“I can’t say. You’re the scientist.”

“I think a study like that would take years and I’m sure that you don’t want to wait that long.”

“You’ve got that right! I’d like to get my condition cleared up with just an office call.”

“Well, that’s a tall order. But I have an alternate idea.”

“Since when?”

“Since we were driving back from your mother’s room.”

“That’s fast work. What’s the idea?”

“Lauren is a witch who's extremely similar to Mantra, isn't she?"

"Yes, as far as I know."

"Well, studying her physical and genetic makeup might allow me to map out the genome for a healthy witch. Where your makeup differs from hers, that could point to the source of your problem. I hope she hero-worships you enough to put up with what could turn into a long series of tests."

I shrugged. "I think she might. She's quite a fan."

"That would be a break. But what about Strike -- ah, Warstrike, as you call him? You said today that you helped him when his precognitive abilities started to fail."

“I tried transferring a little healing energy into him. It worked like a charm. Afterwards, he got back into form.”

She regarded me with narrowed eyes. “Could his problem have been psychosomatic?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“Is it possible that Mantra could be suffering from psychosomatic symptoms herself?”

“The other one? How can I know that? Speaking for myself, I think I've got my head on pretty straight."

Pinnacle stroked her chin. "I’m not saying that your problem is merely psychological. A physical abnormality can come out of a mental problem. Like, have you heard of hysterical paralysis? The shock of what happened to Mantra on Friday might have traumatized her. Think of it like this. The mind is sort of like software and the body is hardware. The software can activate a switch that affects the operation of the hardware."

"Hell! Where does that leave us?"

"If the problem started with the other Mantra being traumatized, your powers might eventually reset on their own. But that may take some time. After all, you haven't been in that body for very long.”

"Are you saying that Mantra may have lost her powers because something clicked in her mind telling her that they were doing her more harm than good?”

"I didn't say that, but it’s possible. The hysterically blind don't set out wanting to be sightless. But if their subconscious sees a problem, it may act on the physical senses in strange ways."

"So, are you saying that we should wait and see what happens? That’s not very far from saying, “take two aspirins and call back in six months.'”

Penny's sighed. "If your problem fixes itself, we're home free. But it could be that you need a fresh jump-start. The Entity is no more, but people are getting ultra powers from the Theta Virus. What if Theta is not a natural disease? What if its infecting microbes are really artificial nanites constructed to create ultras? Those who have worked on it have been very secretive about what they found.”

“Yes, like that Aladdin project that Warstrike and I smashed. They were using hired mercenaries as guinea pigs to form an army of ultras to help the Deep State take over the United States.”

“You got it! For now, though, I we should look at another fix that I've been thinking about."

“Yeah? What?”

“You said that you restored Strike's power by squirting a little energy into him. What if we persuaded someone – someone like Lauren – to give you the same treatment?"

"It won't work."

"Why would you suppose that?"

"It's too simple. Too fast. Too painless. I never get a break.”

"Tsk, tsk. You're just loaded with negativity, Lu. Please remember that thoughts will act like things. The best vitamin shot in the world is a positive attitude. But I'm only throwing out ideas right now. We'll know more about what’s ailing you once we've recorded your molecular profile."

"I hope you won’t just end up telling me that I’m crazy. I get plenty of that from Mother."

“The poor lady. Life hasn’t been fair to her, has it? She doesn't know yet that she has a complete stranger for a daughter. But on the subject of mothers, do you remember your real mother after fifteen-hundred years?”

“How could I forget? She was a Polish tribal princess. When the Huns moved in, she was sent West for safety. In Gaul she learned about Christianity and converted. I was named after one of the Gospel writers.”

Penny smiled. "You’ve been living like an ultra for centuries, without really having been one until lately. After you became an ultra, how did you feel about it? What are the drawbacks to being a super-witch?"

“Are you figuring to write a book?”

“A case study maybe. We certainly can't rule out that there's a psychological component to your condition.”

I shook my head. "I have the same problems that most ultras do. I have to juggle a private life with a secret one. The tension is bone-crushing. I have to neglect important responsibilities and cut corners on things, things that I’d prefer to deal with straight up. One of the worst things is having to lie to people that I care about. Living a false life is damned lonely. Being a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma is no fun.”

“Don’t I know it! But, even so, you seem to have a few devoted friends. Evie loves you, for one.”

“She's too little and too innocent to give me what I need – a confidant. Warstrike – pardon me – Strike knows a lot about the real me, too, but his idea of handling a problem, especially one of mine, is to make a joke of it."

“I've been wondering. Does Evie know that her mother used to be a man?”

I winced. “I'm not sure. I told her who I really was on the day that Eden died, but for some reason she's been acting like she can’t remember what I said.”

"I see. Is there anything else that you'd like to get off your chest? No double entendre intended."

I shook my head. "I always feel under pressure. Being an ultra seems to attract enemies and danger. And I’m not just being paranoid. A lot of ultras have lost loved ones from sudden attacks. I lost Eden that way. Warstrike lost his family. Hardcase's Squad was wiped out by a mechanical assassin called NM-E.”

"That's good.”

“Good?”

“It’s good that you’ve stopped clowning around with my questions. You're baring your soul. The more I know about your inner workings, the easier it will be to construct a cure."

“So you think there’s a cure?”

“I don’t know that for a fact, but we have more than one option. For now anyway, just try to share as much pain as can bear.”

I nodded resignedly. "If you want to hear about pain, I've got plenty. I'm haunted by a fear that my secret life is going to get the kids harmed. And my life is so dangerous. I know how much it would hurt them if they suddenly lost me. I watched Evie suffering after her mother died. It made her angry against the whole world;for a while she even acted like she hated me. Luckily, I behave, sound, and look like her mother, so much so that I think she stops her hurting by telling herself that she really hasn't lost her mom. But loving me has a downside, too. She almost saw me die last Friday."

"From the sound of things, maybe part of you actually would like to stop being an ultra.”

“But it wasn't me who lost power. It was the other Mantra.”

“Yes, but the two of you may have been so much alike on the mental plain that you would both have the same mental configuration.”

“Isn't that a piece of luck?”

“And we can’t forget certain other issues, especially the ones that come from the elephant in the room.”

“What elephant?”

“I’m not sure that I’ve ever met anyone who has taken the kind of psychic body-blows that you’ve been taking. Like, you’ve had plenty of life experience as a man, then suddenly you have to live as a woman. You had to take responsibility for a family without any family experience. And you had to make the big transition look seamless -- even to the point of denying that your original life even happened. That’s a load that could destroy the mental health of most normal people.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing that I’ve never had so much as a waving acquaintance with normality.”

“I get it how stressed you are, Lu. You’re living three lives, not just two. You have a fragmented personality and each fragment has its own needs. Which one of those lives could you most easily give up?"

I thought about that. "I can't let go of Lukasz," I said at last. "He’s not old news; he's actually my core. I'd be a basket case if I lost my basic identity. Lukasz is what makes me different from Eden. When she tried to be Mantra, she couldn't pull it off. To be Mantra, a person has to be an instinctual fighter. Eden wasn’t a fighter and so she lost a battle when she could have won it. But going against the odds to win makes up the whole bedrock of Lukasz’s psychology."

"And Eden?"

"Me trying to be Eden is like existing as a fish out of water. But living this life depends on me bringing it off. For one thing, everything I have was passed on to me from her. I didn’t have to build a new life because I could step into hers. On top of that, becoming Eden has given me a completely different view of the world. I suddenly had a home, a family, and friends of a kind that I’ve never had before. I thought I had BFFs with the knights of Archimage, but when the chips were down, they turned out to be only some guys who happened to be in the same foxhole with me. When I watched the last of them die, it didn't hit me. I just shrugged and walked away. It was then that I found out that I was emotionally dead on the inside, something that I didn't realize until that moment.

“It started me thinking and I figured out that Lukasz’s thought processes were a mess. Looking at the world through his eyes for so long was actually keeping me from really connecting with it. He had gotten too hard over the centuries. I came to realize that I'd lost something, somewhere back in time. But making the effort to see things through Eden's eyes has shown me a new perspective. I mean that things that had always seemed important before suddenly became unimportant; what had always seemed unimportant, like family life, has given me a whole new foundation. To Lukasz, blood vengeance was a great motivator; but by standing in Eden’s shoes I’m finding out how much a child's hug can mean. I’m also realizing that that there's a world of difference in being a protector instead of a simple hitman.”

"And Mantra?"

I scowled. "Mantra is important, too. This is a rotten world. Every day is a battle. It’s not just the out and out criminals that make all the problems. It’s the system. Governments, far from helping, keep everything in chaos. Whenever the world pushes too hard on Eden, or on the people that she cares about, Mantra can charge in and start kicking ass. In a funny way, she actually has more to do with Lukasz than she does with Eden, I think. Eden was courageous in some ways, but as fragile as porcelain in others. Being an ultra is different. There’s an exhilaration in letting the world know that Mantra's on the scene to make things good. She has what it takes to stand up to anything. The hard part is that if you keep helping people, they start looking up to you. Because they think of you as more than human, an ultra has to act in ways to keep them from being let down." I looked at Penny, surprised that I was opening up so much. "Are you getting anything?"

"I think so. But before we can start rebuilding you, we need to inspect your foundations. What I most need to know is what, exactly, happened last Friday, in every detail.”

"I don't have every detail. I wasn't there. Whenever Evie tries to remember those events, they terrify her. Remember those trembling hands of hers?" Then, suddenly, I got an idea. "Say, Penny, you were able to turn off Evie's grief before. Could you possibly do the same thing again, long enough for us to question her about what she saw on Friday?"

Pinnacle’s brows knitted. "Possibly. Just be warned that there's always a risk in putting pressure on children's minds. They're so...breakable."

I squared my shoulders. “Here we are, talking about how my life. You’re hurting too. How are you gong to deal with it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how are you going to reconcile yourself abut that – that certain matter that you’ve told me about?”

She smiled, grimly perhaps. “Talking to you has been good therapy. When you look at me the same way you used to, talk to me the same way you used to, when you give me a problem to solve -- something that's so huge that it takes my mind off of myself -- I feel human again.”

Just then the phone rang.

"Hi, Eden, what's up?" Lauren asked.

"Laurie, I've been chomping at the bit to talk to you. This is going to sound nutzo, but I've somehow lost my memory – of the recent stuff, I mean. I’m hoping that you can help me fill in the missing gaps.”

“Wow! What do you need to remember?”

The first thing I need to know is...is whether you've found out something -- important -- about me."

"Do you mean me the fact that you're...” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “You're the greatest hero ever? Or are you afraid that I've figured out those sneaky hints that Necromantra was dropping about you?"

I chilled. "Did you say Necromantra? You met her?"

"Yeah, I did. And she was one bitch of a witch, too! But honestly, Eden, how can you forget fighting with her? She tried to kill the both of us!"

Necromantra was alive! This was one of the worst things that I’d heard in months. Of all the enemies I’ve had, she was most dangerous. I was able to hide even from Boneyard in my Eden Blake identity, but Necromantra knew exactly who I was and where to find me. If she came after me again, it would be like a tabby cat squared off against a god!

"Eden? Are you still there?"

"I'm sorry.

"What else do you need to know?"

"A thousand things! I've spent the whole day trying to find out about what happened Friday evening."

"I get you, lady. How did this happen? When we last met on Monday, you seemed fine, except that you'd lost your magic."

"Well, my memory loss only hit me this morning. Here’s what I heard this morning. Evie said that you fought with a robot at the mall, the one on Sherman Way."

"You were there yourself. Have you blanked out on that, too?"

“It’s all white space for me.”

“Well, maybe you're lucky. There’s things I wish I could forget. Those first two days after getting ultra powers have been giving me nightmares. Do you remember what the robot’s name was? It was called NM-E.”

NM-E? That was the "big robot" that Evie had mentioned? Aye-yi-yi! It was big, all right – and bad to the nth degree! Aladdin had a file on the thing and believed that it had been created by some super genius for the expressed purpose of killing off ultras."Fighting that thing isn't for kids," I said, aghast. "What happened?"

"I won, naturally, or else we wouldn't be talking, right?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. It’s not easy to wrap my mind around this."

Unbelievable! An inexperienced ultra kid had beaten NM-E! How? I wouldn't have wanted to take on that killing machine without a dozen other ultras backing me up. Either Lauren was incredibly powerful, or else she was incredibly lucky. I hoped that surviving a fight with NM-E hadn’t made her too cocky. One reckless move in her next ultra battle could put an end to both her luck and her life.

"Eden, can I ask you a question?"

"What?"

"Why is it that ever since these powers switched on, I've become a marked woman.”

“In what way?”

“I mean, even when I’m acting like myself, the weirdest things keep coming at me. Gus, the Coven, Necromantra, all on the same night. And then NM-E blindsides me on Sunday. It's crazy. And it hasn't stopped yet. Last night I ran into an ultra-powered thief. What's going to be hitting on me next and will I survive it?"

"I know the feeling," I commiserated. "I was just talking about the same phenomenon. If you want my advice, get out of the ultra business.”

"That doesn’t click, Eden. What good will hiding do? It isn’t like I’ve been walking around with a 'Hi, I'm an ultra. Attack me,' sign on my back.”

"I'm sorry, Lauren. I don't know why these things happen. I'd be glad to become Mantra again, along with all the problems, so you could go back to your old life.”

“Now wait a minute! I never liked that life. Nobody respected me. I could never understand why I wasn’t able to make really solid friends. People called me a nerd and wouldn’t take me seriously. I felt invisible. I like the idea of being an ultra; it’s just that I don't want live every day like a clay pipe inside a shooting gallery.”

“I'll give you all the advice I can, Lauren, once this craziness settles down. But for now, can you tell me, step by step, what's been going on – to me especially – since Thursday?"

"As far as I know, nothing much happened on Thursday," the teen replied. "On Friday, I called you up about getting paid for my last babysitting job. You told me to come right over.”

“Did I sound normal?”

“Yeah! But by the time I got to your house, all hell had broken loose. I found out that Gus’d attacked you, shrunk you down to the size of a figurine, and put you inside a cracker box.”

“Shrunk me?”

How had he done that? I'd been Mantra for two years and had no idea how to pull of such a trick. How had Gus learned to do the impossible in about two minutes?

“When did your powers kick in?” I asked. “Did anything strange happen to you?”

“Plenty of strange things happened, but not until Gus let me into your house.”

“Did he look – unusual?” I asked.

“He looked even scarier than usual! He was glowing green, and levitating!”

“Lauren, do you remember what happened to his...appearance... last spring?

“Of course! Have you forgotten that, too?”

“Yes, I have.”

“But it happened long before last Thursday!”

“It's too complex to explain right now. Did Gus attack you?”

“Not at first. He was acting kind of shy and smiley, until he made a little-boy type pass at me. When I reminded him about the differences in our ages, he went berserk!

Lauren then related an amazing story, about her captivity, about finding magical armor, and realizing that her body had suddenly become a living battery of preternatural power. I couldn’t understand what had made her flame on as an ultra, unless being touched by Gus's magical aura could have given her a jump-start.

“Does it make any sense?” the girl asked.

“I’ll have to think about it. When you came back into the house, what happened next?”

“I knew I had to fight back. All I could think of was imitating what I've seen you do, I tried to hit him with a magical shot. I wasn’t sure that it would come just because I wanted it to, but it did! It was a real sizzler, but he shook it right off, as if he’d only been doused by a water sprinkler. That's when you shouted something to him from that cracker box. What you said made him so angry that he killed you.”

Killed me?

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 7

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 7

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
Originally written 2006
Posted Jan. 21, 2021

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THE KILLING MACHINE

My mother groaned, my father wept;
Into the dangerous world I leapt.

William Blake
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“It sure seemed like you were dead,” the teenager insisted.

“If you say so,” I said. “What happened next?”

“The things Gus could do were incredible; he turned your house into a holodeck full of monsters and warriors.”

She had a lot more to say, but what surprised me the most was her encounter with the phantom of Eden Blake.

This “ghost” showed up almost immediately after Lauren’s powers manifested, but before Eden was killed. All I could think was that the living Mantra was making a telepathic communication with Lauren from the cracker box on the living room table.

“You need more magic than you have,” the specter told Lauren. “Find it before it's too late.” The girl admitted that she didn’t have a clue how to do such a thing. Before Mantra could tell her anything, Gus pulled the girl back to the living room to complete their battle. When the boy attacked, Lauren managed to fend him off, if barely. When Mantra called for calm, Gus sent a sizzling bolt at his mother and apparently killed her. Then, either by luck or by inspiration, Lauren took aim and blasted the plastic joystick that the boy was holding, seemingly using it like a magic wand. Startled, the boy vanished.

Lauren was now left alone; even Evie had used the distraction to run away and take her mother’s dead body with her. Oh, my God, I thought. No wonder the tyke had been traumatized!

Confused by the crush of events, Lauren dashed outside the house. But she'd no sooner looked at the door than a police squad started to bawl orders that she drop her sword. The startled teen hesitated only for a moment and that was enough to start the panicky police shooting. Somehow, without thinking about it, the girl ghosted, turning herself into a living hologram that bullets could pass right though. This was a reflexive defense move that I’d used myself many times.

Lauren was experiencing a police riot, plain and simple. It must have been a terrifying night for them, but they seemed not to have conducted themselves at all well. The officers decided to rush at Lauren and try to beat her down with their sticks. The teen surged with power and tossed them away like leaves on the wind. She used that same gust carry her away, taking to the air with the same technique that she had used months before, when she had briefly gained Mantra powers. Once again, Lauren found herself sailing through the moon-lit night like a paper airplane. But, as soon as the girl started thinking about the mechanics of landing, she gained density and dropped precipitously to earth. Her forward momentum threw her into a bumpy roll across the grass.

Shaken but unhurt, Lauren pondered the question of how to get more magic, like Mantra wanted her to do. Just then, she became aware of the bizarre phenomenon that had been going on in the sky over Canoga Park. The full moon was bright and the sky was glowing violet. Even more amazingly, green zig-zags were sizzling overhead. But these weren’t forks of normal lightning; they came across as a whole different form of energy, writhing in place like sparks from a Jacob’s Ladder. While staring at this amazing tableau, she started to pick up an odor, not exactly with her nose, but one that touched her psyche in a way that registered a smell. She realized, correctly, that magic gave off a fragrance on the spiritual plane. She reasoned that if those bolts were magical, and if she was seeking magic, the best thing to do was to go to where these sorcerous discharges were touching down.

Lauren took to flight again, following a magical streak that touched down at the home of a person she knew from school, Heather Parks. Two squad cars were already parked in front of it, probably checking out heavy damage that the house had sustained. There were inspecting a gaping hole in one wall,one large enough to exit to a buffalo. While the green-as-grass heroine was looking things over, these jumpy police tried to shoot her down.

I sensed a pattern. The Canoga Park cops that night had been scared out of their wits and their actions were inexcusable. It sounded to me that they needed retraining, but they weren't likely to get it -- not as long as media-pandering mayors kept insisting on cutting police budgets.

Lauren got herself out of there as swiftly as possible and ended up airborne over the Mall at Sherman Way. For some reason, there was a lot of frightened shouting going on there, and so she flew through the Mall's glass doors, trying to find out what the excitement was all about. To her amazement, she saw a monstrous armored being tearing things up for no apparent reason. Coming closer, Lauren saw that the creature had four faces, the faces of Heather Parks and her three mean-girl friends!

Tho startled, she kept her wits, realizing that the girls must have been affected by wild magic abroad that night, just like Gus had been. Not wanting to use force, she started to shout, hoping to lure the weird mutant out of the mall. She got its attention, all right. As fast as a speeding bullet, the magical creature sprang off the ground and slammed a fist into the teen's face.

They fought, clawing and slapping, like two girls in a cat fight. The abomination, the stronger, threw Lauren into the decorative fountain. The monster then held Lauren down and almost drowned her but, of a sudden, she heard Mantra’s voice again, telling her that she had to fight back, that she had the power to save herself. This reminded Lauren that she controlled the elements, including water. Desperately she focused, turning the fountain water into a powerful surge that flushed the armored creature away from her. Lauren needed a breather, and so flew away, taking refuge atop an empty rooftop. Her mind was spinning. So many things were coming at her. It was like she had stepped into a whole different world. Every which way she turned, she was being forced to fight for her life.

The fledgling ultra tried to calm down and think. Her priority had to be the bringing Eden Blake back from the dead – somehow. And she had to corral Gus quickly, before his incredible bellicosity provoked him to start killing his neighbors. She also needed to stop the four-faced abomination’s rampage. The latter seemed to be the most urgent, but she knew she wasn’t strong enough to fight it toe to toe. That would take a much more powerful sorcerer than she was, someone as powerful as Gus himself. That was it! What an inspiration!

Lauren sniffed the air. She already knew that Gus’s magic, for some reason, stank like spoiled apple juice, only it was a lot more unpleasant. And she could smell him now, on a bearing leading back to the west. Buoyed up by new confidence, she flew back to the Mall to look for “Coven,” a name that she had spontaneously come up with due to the fact that Heather's group called themselves “Mantra’s Coven.” But the monster was no longer there, so Lauren chased after its rank magical scent. This led her to the nearest landfill, where Coven was, digging through the trash, probably moved by hunger. The young ultra came close enough to allow her foe to hear her mocking and jeering.

With a cry of rage, the thing sprang into the air and pursued Lauren as she fled. The teen, having summoned up a swift tailwind, sped back in Gus’s direction, all the while carrying on a running fight with her horrendous pursuer. Very soon, the two of them were over a strip mall, looking down at a squad of heavily-armed men skirmishing with the power-packing Blake boy. Whoever these military types were, Lauren thought that they were wearing suits of armor slick enough to make Star Wars stormtroopers envious.

Coven spotted Gus, too, and gave out an awful cry. Gus looked up, saw the monster, and felt like killing her. He threw green power-bolts her way but Coven wouldn’t stop. They clashed and fought close in, but in less than a minute the skirmish was over, both of them having been knocked cold. Coven, having hit the ground, broke up into four teenage bodies. The armed men, whom Gus had been holding at bay, now saw their chance take the pint-sized sorcerer. They discharged knock-out gas at the boy, and when slowed him but didn't stop him, they used some sort of launcher to snag him with what looked like electrically-charged tendrils. When he was rendered only semi-conscious, the tactical team bum-rushed the lad into a portable booth. It sounded like a tech device I knew of, one that was rigged to sap an ultra of his power.

Though Lauren didn’t know who these people were just then, I'd earlier learned from Evie that they were from Aladdin.

Fortunately, the Aladdin guys were pretty much ignoring Heather and her friends. The girls were starting to bestir themselves, confused about what was going on. Frightened by the excitement, they decided to go home and nobody stopped them.

Meanwhile, the soldiers had successfully manhandled Gus’s capsule into their van and sped away with it. To Lauren's surprise, my daughter Evie came rushed out from the shadows just then, overjoyed that her babysitter friend had showed up. The youngster explained things quickly and handed over Mantra's diminutive and inert body to Lauren, pleading with her to save her mother's life.

Lauren didn’t really know how to work that kind of miracle, but she promised to try. Not trusting the Aladdin people, having had enough of uniformed men with guns, she took flight with Mrs. Blake's body clutched in her right hand. The teen was still following Mantra’s last request, that she find magic. The Shepherd girl was glad enough that she could no longer sense either Gus or Coven, but there was something else in the air that she couldn’t ignore. Whatever it was, it was potent enough to make her gasp. She described it to me as the scent of hot cinnamon. I winced. I knew that smell, too. I couldn’t forget it and didn’t like the idea of that fragrance being so close to my home.

The spicy odor led Lauren to a junky warehouse on Hollywood Boulevard. Eager, but clueless, the girl ghosted inside to check things out. She found one big room, dusty but in use. Its shelves and cabinets were cluttered with things, mostly bottles and jars, some of them giving off powerful magical odors of their own. But there was still that dominant cinnamon smell, and it was coming from the only occupant inside that room. It was a woman who had – wouldn’t you know it – cinnamon-colored hair. Otherwise, she was wearing a cape and a creepy costume that was on the skimpy side. The stranger gave Lauren a smile that chilled her blood, and tried to engage her a conversation. She called herself “Marinna” and claimed to be Mantra’s daughter.

Well, that was true – but only in a sick, twisted way.

In actuality, Lauren was meeting my most dangerous personal enemy. Once she had been the male knight Thanasi, and the two of us had been the best of friends. But Thanasi had been turning bad unbeknownst to the rest of us knights. Worse than that, she – he – was becoming murderous and psychotic. His betrayal of Archimage's knights left him and me the only survivor. I thought that she was dead; the last time I’d seen her, my enemy was being sucked into a dimensional vortex. I’d thought she was going into deep space or something and that that was going to be the end of her. But maybe history had been different in the world where I’d found myself. That was to Lauren’s bad luck.

“Marinna” tried to play it semi-sane for a little while and pump the teen who seemed to have powers like mind, but when Lauren wouldn’t open up, Necromantra went homicidal. Their ensuing free-for-all carried them outside, where passersby distracted the redhead long enough to let Lauren slip away and dart back to the warehouse, where she had left Mantra’s body. But she only had a moment of respite before Necromantra came ghosting in through the wall, wanting to take up where they had left off.

“Just then, I heard your voice again,” said Lauren. “You were telling me to use that mantra of yours – “Change, growth, power.”

Lauren, in a fight for her life, used the magical chant and they helped, but Marinna still had the momentum. “I guess she knocked me out; don't remember anything until I came to with you kneeling over me, telling me what had happened.”

“So what had happened?” I pressed.

“You said you’d been inside something called the “Soul Walk.” From there you’d been able to summon the Sword of Fangs that I’d brought to the warehouse with me. You used it to slash your way out of the spirit world. You said that your spirit had gone back into your own little dead body and broke the spell, making it come back to life at full size. I guess the Sword was all the magic that we had ever needed, but I hadn’t realized it. I felt so dumb!”

“Don’t sweat it,” I told her. “Magic is subtle and complicated. But what happened to Necromantra?”

“You told me that when you tried to use Mantra magic against Necromantra, you couldn't. When the witch realized your were no match for her, she tried to play it malicious and taunted you, wanting you to beg for mercy. But instead, you told her that the reason your power had drained was because you'd just used a huge slug of it to summon the 'Tradesmen' to Earth. Well, that really shook the witch and she took off like a bat out of hell.”

Yes, that trick sounded like one of mine. The Tradesmen were an alien race that, under their law, had a valid claim upon Necromantra as their slave. She had actually been their captive for a while, apparently, and was absolutely terrified of them.

But Lauren’s story had added some perplexing details to what I thought I knew. From what she’d been saying, Mantra's spirit gone to the Soul Walk, which was a halfway house between life and death, something created by my old master Archimage. Up to now, I’d been supposing that Mantra had lost her powers when she was hit by a power blast from Gus. But it was now starting to look like she only lost them after she left the Soul Walk and reentered her own dead body, restoring it to life. Was it the power needed to bring off that resurrection that had drained her, or had even burnt out her completely? That possibility made some sense, but I sure hoped that the effects weren’t going to be permanent!

Lauren was still talking. “You were wearing a black outfit that I'd never seen before. It looked super-cool.”

I knew that costume very well. “Yeah, I only use that suit when my better costume isn’t in reach." That little mishap is something that's happened to me twice now – once in my world and, apparently, at least once in this new world.

“Maybe you should let your fans know about it!” she suggested. “There could be posters and models to show it off, and it would be great for a Halloween costume.”

“No, I don’t think so. I want to keep that little number secret, to use as a sort of disguise when I don’t want to be recognized as Mantra. Please don’t tell anyone about it.”

“Uh, sure. You can count on me.”

I actually believed her. To be honest, Lauren’s story had really showed me what a great friend she was, and also what potential she has as an ultra in her own right. But her catalog of battles was absolutely insane! She had escaped death narrowly several times just since Friday. And then there was what I knew had happened on Sunday!

“I've got so many questions I want to ask you,” the schoolgirl told me.

“I'll explain everything, later,” I replied, “but I'm in an awful crunch right now. Let's talk about the Mall fight on Sunday. How did you get involved with NM-E, and how did I end up there?"

"You'd come in with an armed group from Aladdin. You were wearing a gun on your hip and calling yourself 'Agent Eden Blake,'” answered the girl. “Does that mean that I've not only been Mantra's personal babysitter, but the local La Femme Nikita's, too?"

"I wouldn't say that I’m the La Femme Nikita type. I have no memory of that little adventure. I’m just a data analyst at my regular job.”

“So, how did you get that uniform and holster?”

“I don’t know. Sunday is part of my blackout. The problem is, I have to write a report about the fight at the mall. I really need you help to find out what exactly happened there before I can write it.”

“Too bad you're not still working in Canoga Park. I'm really sorry that you had to leave town.”

I chuckled. “Is that because I was so generous with the milk and cookies?”

“You know what I mean! You’re the best ultra in the world! And if I'm a kind of Mantra now, I could learn from you. Are you ever coming back?"

“I want to, really. Unfortunately, as long as Aladdin has Gus, I have to stay with him and protect him. But, please, tell me everything about NM-E and what went on at the mall.”

“Well, okay,” she sighed. “Once I took you back to Evie, I went home. I was dead tired. My dad was so wrapped up in his home office that he didn't seemed to realize how late at night it was. I slept like a log. On Sunday morning, tried to get all those awful things off my mind by catching up on my homework. In the afternoon, I went to meet my mom at the Mall. That was a mistake! All of a sudden, NM-E dropped down out of the sky, like a one-unit bomber squadron!”

“How did you stay alive fighting that thing?”

“It wasn't easy! I slipped away from Mom and flashed into my Mantra armor. The robot was just standing around, looking tough, but not doing much of anything. I gave it a shot of my power, hoping to drive it back outside, but it attacked me instead. We fought a little, but because it was a robot, I got the feeling that someone else was controlling it. So I zipped myself out of there and went looking for whoever was in control. I found a van and inside could see that it looked like the one that Gus away Gus. When I looked inside, I saw on of the same guys that had been in on the kidnapping. He had to be up to no good, so I fried his equipment, hoping that it would deactivate the 'bot.

“Unfortunately, without its controller, NM-E went absolutely crazy. It plowed into a crowd and almost killed my mom! I decided to try to phantomize it, just like I can do with myself. The trick worked, and once it wasn't able to hurt anyone, I dragged Mom to safety, without letting her realize who I was.”

She "phantomized" it? What an idea! I probably could have done something like that, too, but I’d frankly never thought of it. I was beginning to suspect that Lauren was an instinctive ultra. I could learn a trick or two from her..

“As soon as I was able to leave Mom by herself,” the girl said, “I checked in on the robot. It was crouching there passively where I'd left it, like a computer working on a problem.”

Just then, the new Wrath burst into the room where Lauren was, as mad as hell. He accused her of destroying the control center and allowing the automaton to run wild. The pair of them didn't have much time to argue before a crowd of television reporters mobbed them. They started jabbering questions, seemingly more interested in the man wearing red than they were in NM-E, or even in Lauren, whose armor was showing off a lot of leg. She seemed slightly miffed at being ignored.

But NM-E wasn’t down for the count. It suddenly solidified and came back at Lauren with a slashing attack. Somehow, NM-E’s A.I. had solved the problem of controlling its own density. The Aladdin file says that the metal monster has been in and out of history since ancient times. Who back then could have designed a machine so incredible? Had it been dropped off by a flying saucer?

Lauren went on to say that she'd tried to "ghost" the robot again, but NM-E had become immune to that gambit. As a fall-back plan, she pretended retreat. Unfortunately, the robot could fly faster and they had a battle in midair. The newby ultra hacked at the mechanism with the Sword of Fangs, but to no good effect. NM-E was able to repair itself almost as quickly as it took damage. Lauren next phased into the ghost plane herself as a place of refuge, NM-E changed its density likewise and kept after her. While fending off the killing machine, Lauren was struck a glancing blow, whereupon she dropped toward ground level like a stone.

I didn’t like what I was hearing. Lauren had made a bad mistake! She had done a good trick, but on the wrong enemy! As dangerous as NM-E had been before, in the future it would know how to move through walls, avoid crushing blows, and be harder than ever to defeat.

“I fell through the mall roof and crashed onto a pile of boxed toys,” the teenager went on. “They had a lot of air packed inside them, so I lucked out.” Then she suddenly quieted. Maybe she had started to grasp that without her amazing luck, she would already be dead!

“Do you need a minute?” I asked.

She took a deep breath. “No. I'm okay. After I landed on the toy boxes, I was alive, but bruised, scraped, and aching. NM-E just wouldn't give me any peace. It was coming in through the hold I had made in the roof! That's when that Wrath guy charged in to attack the robot. He was trying to save my life, I guess. Because I've started to heal so fast, I picked myself up fast and I went to back him up. But he was already hurt. That’s when I got the idea to do with the earth what I could already do with water. I brought up some of the pavement of the parking area to envelope NM-E and try to crush the thing. When it looked like it was slipping away, I started punching at it with cement fists. The Robo must have been taking a lot of damage, because it suddenly broke off and shot out there like a rocket. I guess it hasn't been programmed to fight to the death.”

She had actually figured out how to command the rocks and the soil while in the middle of a fight? Wow! If I ever got my powers back, I’d have a hard time keeping up with her!

“The newspapers didn't say that anyone was killed. Is that right?” I asked.

“As far as I known. I think guy in red came the closest to chalking out”

“Good job, gal,” I told her. I could have said a lot more, but the last thing she needed was a swollen head. Overconfidence might lure her into taking foolish chances and get her killed in the next battle. The girl could easily have been slain already during her short ultra careen.

"Right after NM-E took off, you showed up, Eden," Lauren said.

"Yeah? Where had I been before that?"

"I'm not sure. You were pretending not to know me, making like you were trying to arrest me. I took off and ghosted myself when when the Aladdin gang coming up behind you started shooting. Gees, how many trigger-happy psychos are wearing government issue these days? Why don't they shoot at bad guys instead? Anyhow, once out of sight, I switched back into my street clothes and joined Mom outside of the mall."

I shook my head. “Lauren, I have to warn you. Even with magic powers, you're going to get yourself killed if you go on this way.”

“Danger goes with being an ultra, doesn't it? Is it any worse than the risks you've been taking?”

“Maybe not, but I had years of practice before I started."

“Weren't you learning on the job, just like I’m trying to do?”

Oops, I’d slipped. I didn’t want anyone to know that I had lived for centuries before I ever became Eden Blake. Also, I didn't want to share my male history with anyone. So I fibbed. “No. I got my powers years before I ever let anyone see me in public as Mantra. I made contact with experienced ultras who taught me how to fight and to use magic. Sure, it was frustrating, because I wanted to go out right away and help people. But I knew I had a lot to learn about being an ultra first. Anyway, even if you’re not using powers, a life like yours is never going to be without worth, no matter how you choose to live it.”

“Oh, Eden, that's sounds like the corny esteem-building stuff that grownups are always telling to kids.”

“That doesn't make it untrue.”

I let the matter drop and went on to grill Lauren about every detail I could think of regarding the Mall action. By the time the interview wound down, I was was satisfied that Aladdin had brought the robot to the Mall and deliberately set it lose. But what, exactly, had they been trying to accomplish?

I thought I could guess. Odds-on, their plan was to draw in some upstanding ultra who would try to protect innocent people. When that ultra, whoever it was, showed up, the agents would be prepared to use high-tech gadgets to snare him, just like they had overcome Gus. I knew that they had more than one prison to keep such people locked up. They wanted two things from them: to learn how to duplicate ultra powers, and to brainwash captured ultras into becoming Aladdin assets. Aladdin always played dirty, and rarely did it for the good of the American people. I knew for certain that it had worked with a syndicate of subversives -- crooked politicians, bureaucrats, trillionaires, Big Tech, and Chinese spies -- to take over the government of the United States earlier in the same year. What kind of treasonous scheme would they be getting involved in next?

Deep State, thy name is Aladdin.

TO BE CONTINUED in Chapter 8

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 8

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Revised Feb. 24, 2021
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MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS

Edited by Christopher Leeson

Chapter 8

I see the past, present, and future existing all at once before me.

William Blake

"When do I get to do the glamorous stuff" my young friend asked me suddenly.

"What are you talking about? There isn’t anything glamorous in being an ultra hero."

“Aren’t you being cynical? Look how people lionize Hardcase.”

“Yes, they do. But from what I’ve heard and read, he's a man who carries around a lot of hurt. Believe me, getting praised by a lot of people you don’t even know never means much. It's a meal of straw. The happiest person I ever met was a fisherman.”

“I don’t think I’m the fisherman type.”

“Well, if you don’t like getting your pants legs wet, start a flower shop. But if you want an over-the-top miserable life, being an ultra hero is the best way to have one.”

“How can you say that? I love what ultras do, except for the pain and fear part. Want’s wrong with making a career out of protecting people?”

"It isn’t wrong. In fact, I respect people willing to do that. I’m just saying, don’t expect crime-fighting and monster-chasing to give you a fun life. Look before you leap. Like, weren't you at the mall just to meet your mom, but ended up in a fight for your life? Reality really hits you in the face when you’re an ultra. You already know how easily innocents can get hurt by being caught in the crossfire. When that happens, you blame yourself. Friends are going to die right before your eyes, and you’ll feel rotten about that, too. Ultras get killed trying to do the right thing, and even more of them end up crippled. You were lucky last weekend. A lot of ultras haven't been so lucky. Because of NM-E, Starfire has been lying in a coma for years. And what reward does an ultra gain? His picture in a series of trading cards? His action figure at the shopping mall?”

“If you can help people, why can't I?” she asked.

“You can help people, if that’s what you really want to do. But there are so many safer ways to help people. Like, wouldn’t it be great to start a campaign for shaming internet trolls enough to make them hide in their mother's basement?”

She didn’t sound convinced. “I think a lot of folks could have died at the Mall if I hadn't been there. If I hadn't been willing to fight last Friday night, you'd be dead, too. And the Mantra fan club would still be doing the wandering-monster thing. Think of what harm could Gus have caused if he’d taken over the entire town?”

Okay, I could grant that she'd saved the life of the local Mantra. But also it sounded like she had managed to take a stupid situation set up by Aladdin and turn it into something really dangerous. Also, by my reading, it was Aladdin that stopped Gus, not her. But I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of a girl who was so sweetly earnest.

“If you’re serious about being an ultra hero, at least never make the mistake of thinking that you’re important or irreplaceable. I last month I visited a parallel dimension. It was just like ours in most ways, except that it had never had a Mantra. And you know what? That world was solving its problems very nicely without her. That experience has cued me in on the fact that we’re all less important than we think we are.”

When she didn't make a reply, I continued. “Listen, Lauren, we'd better finish this off quickly. I have a few more questions about Friday night, and I don't want to keep you up too late."

"Yeah, you're right, Eden. I have school tomorrow."

After Lauren and I had signed off, I looked back at Pinnacle, who was lounging on the couch. "I got a few more details about when Mantra lost her powers," I told her.

The blonde nodded. “I know. I was following the whole conversation psionically. But there were things that your protégé didn't know. We should still learn the details that Evie might have."

"So, are we done for tonight?"

"Yeah. You can sleep over if you want to."

"I suppose. But this thing seems to be getting more confusing than ever. Like, how was it that Mantra’s powers disappeared only exactly when she returned to her own body?"

"That will take some analysis. But maybe I can cheer you up. I've gotten another idea about a way to restore your abilities."

“How?”

"Well, you know how some people think that ultras are ultras because they have nanites that allow them to access untapped powers inherent in their DNA. It’s just possible that Gus subjected you to some sort of energy pulse that destroyed the nanites in your tissue. Think of it like an EMP electrical circuits. If that’s the case, cloning of your present body might not successfully produce a new body that will be able to channel the magical forces like before."

"So we're talking about cloning again?"

"That’s not my preferred recourse but, if all else fails, it's our last best hope. If, instead, get you a cloned body that’s derived from a vital and functioning witch – such as Necromantra or Lauren – you might be home free. Or would you prefer to be a male sorcerer the next time around?"

I looked away. This was something heavy to think about. “I have a good reason to want to stay with Eden Blake's body,” I finally told her. “She asked me to take care of her family. How could do that if I lost her identity? If I have to give up being a member of my family, I might do a ‘hard reboot’ and go male again. Sure, I'd have to restart a whole new life and identity, but I’m pretty sure that it would be easy to go back to what I’m most used to.

"I see your point."

“But why make a whole body?” I asked. “Why not just grow a culture of a living nanites, the way a medical lab cultures antibodies?"

Her eyes narrowed with thought. “A worthwhile suggestion. It's something to experiment with. In the meantime, I’m going to put a watch on your nanite count, to see if they are on the increase. That could mean natural healing that could bring your abilities back within a reasonable time. We also have to check you out psychologically. I’ve overheard you're negative attitudes toward the ultra life. When the other Mantra was traumatized on Friday, her own subconscious might have switched off her nanites. Did you notice that Mantra kept her powers until she was safe?”

“Safe? Mantra ended powerless in the same room as Necromantra!”

“Well, it’s likely that there’s not a one-to-one correspondence between the conscious and the unconscious mind.”

“Has anyone actually proven that nanites are actually key to an ultra's power?”

“Not conclusively. The most convincing study I know of involves Hardcase. Either he was born with nanites, or that pulse from the Entity on the moon materialized them into his blood and tissue, don’t you think?”

“You're asking me?”

She shrugged. “I thought you might know something. Doesn’t Aladdin have files on all the known ultras?”

"Yeah, but I don’t have clearance to everything. Anyway, a person can't trust any information out of Aladdin. But on another score, how long would a nanite study take? I can't be waiting for the grass to grow, not with Necromantra out there gunning for me."

Over breakfast, I tried to make conversation, but Penny wasn't registering.

"You seem preoccupied, Pin."

The blonde sighed. "Cloning facilities are expensive. I built this lab using my Las Vegas winnings. When they couldn’t figure out how I was fleecing them, they just started banning me on sight because I was “too lucky.” The industry gets away with blacklisting not only cheats, but lucky gamblers, too. It’s as unconstitutional as all hell, but since when have politicians and judges cared about the Constitution?”

“Is you medical practice on a good financial basis?” I asked.

“What medical practice? I don't have the big-school credentials to treat patients legally. I'm self-taught. I could invent some lucrative new medical technology that could make millions, but the required testing, production, and marketing would take years – and a lot of start-up money.

“Why not play the market? Isn’t it just a form of gambling? Manipulators have been making tens of millions overnight forever, and nobody even notices anymore.”

“The way I see it, the market is a casino, but a crooked one. The winners and losers are all picked before the game even begins. The regulators don’t exist to stop the real lawbreaking. Their backroom orders are to make sure that the people who are supposed to lose actually do lose. I’d have to get insider credentials to have a chance at keeping the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission off my back. The quickest way to do that would be to set up a hedge fund and load up its board with long-established Wall Street sharks. But I don’t happen to like playing ball with people so corrupt that they make my own psyonic dodges seem honest. What about you, Lu? Do you have any resources?"

"Back home, I live from check to check. I've got about $42.00 in my Christmas club account. Back home, I could get help from the only billionaire I know, Brandon Tark, but not here."

“I see. Our Brandon Tark is an international fugitive these days.”

“Oh, no! You've read my mind to get a fellow ultra's secret identity!”

“Sorry. I always find out so much more than I really intend to.” Pinnacle stared down into her bacon and eggs, as if reading logarithms. "If I put my mind to it, I could probably hack into some human trafficker’s Cayman Island bank account and suck out a few billion for my own use. If you target dirty money, someone without connections won't be able to report his losses openly.”

I shook my head. "The trouble is, I know that lots of human traffickers have high-end connections. It’ barely even a secret anymore. Hell, there’s open talk about bigshots and big crimes like that in Aladdin’s lunchrooms. And nobody that I’ve heard discussing even thinks that it’s even a problem. Remember that Haitian orphans scandal, and who was profiting from it?”

“Touché."

“Listen, whatever you do, I don't want you getting into trouble just for helping me.” When she didn’t reply to that, I changed the subject. “We haven't talked much about those celestial energy surges so far. I can't get them out of my mind. They might be behind whatever happened to Gus, and maybe to me and Lauren, too."

"I haven't been looking into that event. I was pretty much out of things last Friday night, you know. Do you suppose that these energy waves could have had some sort of trans-dimensional effect, sweeping you out of one universe and into this one?"

I shook my head. “The timing seems wrong. Whatever hit me, it hit me on Thursday, not Friday. But maybe calendar dates in one world doesn't sync with the dates in the other."

"I wouldn’t dare to start speculating on the fabric of time and space without some serious study. Time is a lot trickier than most people think."

"I only know enough science to get along," I admitted. "I just hope that our two worlds are very different. I'd hate to think of my Gus ever suffering the same fate as the Gus Blake of this planet."

The scientist shook her head. "Well, first things first. We need to get the full story about Friday night from Evie. You ought to bring her over as soon as possible.”

"She's awfully fragile, Pin. You'll be asking her to remember the most terrifying night of her life."

Pinnacle grimaced. "I know how to take precautions. And it can actually be good for a child to talk things out. A trauma that’s held inside for too long at that age can twist a youngster’s psyche into knots."

We discussed that subject until she assuaged my misgivings. But I immediately felt selfish? Would I be giving in so easily if the tyke in question had been my true daughter, and not just her doppelganger?

"I think you'd always try to do the right thing, no matter which world you found yourself on," my companion reassured me.

I looked hard at Penny. “Are my thoughts always that easy to read?"

"Not always, but please don’t try to hold things back. I need to know your psychology in-depth. I wouldn't blame you, though, if you didn’t trust a nutty professor."

"Aren't you getting past that insecurity shtick?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Twelve hours ago, the only thing I had on my mind was my next liquor delivery. I appreciate you coming here; it's made a difference. Helping people with their misery gets my mind off of my own."

I didn't want Mother and Evie to worry, but calling them at that time of night would wake them both up. Instead, I slept in Penny's guest room and made the family call-in a little after 8:00 A.M. When Evie came on the line, I told her that I would be seeing her and her grandma soon.

We each used our own car. I left Penny with hers, killing time at a nearby mall. Meanwhile, I drove back to the motel and let Mother know that Dr. Lammars might be a good choice to treat Evie for fear trauma. Naturally, my ever-loving mom launched into a counter-argument.

"Are you sure that your friend isn't just angling to collect two fees, instead of just one?" she asked pointedly.

"Mom," I said, "do you distrust Penny just because she’s my personal friend? Whatever doctor we pick, we can't leave Evie the way she is. I’ve only delayed taking her to a psychologist so far because we’ve been forced to do this relocation. It’s time to reprioritize. My federal health insurance at the C.I.A covers psychiatric care for dependent minors, so money won’t be a factor."

Her lips puckered. "I wasn't thinking about the money, Eden, but I'm glad that you're paying attention to practical matters. By the way, how did your talk go last night? Did that Penny person help you remember anything?"

"No, not really. There'll be a lot of tests, hypnotism sessions, and psychological profiles to construct. The doctor says that my memories could even come back, little by little, by themselves. Or they could return all at once."

"Hmm. She's got herself covered every which way from Sunday."

"Mother, what’s this argument about? Is it that you know of some other psychiatrist that you trust more than Penny Lammars?"

"Thankfully, no. I've never needed one; you and your brothers turned out just fine. But I do watch Dr. Rasmussen's TV show every now and then...."

"Mom" had a contrary streak -- that was for sure. Was it because sensed that that there had been something not right with me for the last couple years? Or had she treated the real Eden exactly the same way that she was treating me?

When Evie was dressed for going out, I phoned Penny to hop over and pick us up. Hopefully, Barbara Freeman would appreciate having the family vehicle to make a personal exploration of the city. Dr. Lammars, when she arrived, greeted the little girl with professional charm that quickly elicited grins from the little girl.

Then we took off for Pinnacle's apartment and, when we got there, Evie and I sat side by side on a love seat. Our hostess drew up a chair in front of us and said, "Evie, let's hold hands. While we do so, I want you to look right into my eyes."

"Are you gonna hippytize me?" the tyke asked warily.

"Something like that," Penny replied, holding back a smile. "You're not nervous, are you, not with your mommy sitting right beside you?"

"I guess not."

"That's a good girl. Okay Evie, take a deep breath, relax, and let me look into those pretty blue eyes of yours."

Though not myself the target, I thought I felt the backwash of the ultra’s powerful brainwaves projecting into Evie's mind, soothing and calming her. I sensed the tension going out of the tyke. Penny started speaking, softly and slowly: "Evie, you're drifting off to sleep, but you'll be able to hear your mommy and me asking you questions. You'll be able to talk just as if you were still awake. What you’re having is a good kind of sleep. You won't be afraid of anything at all. You'll be able to think about the most ugly Halloween mask or the creepiest monster movie that you ever saw without being scared. Relax, relax, relax. You're completely asleep now, Evie. Tell me how you feel."

"I feel good."

"Excellent. First, tell me, do you know that your mom has lost some of her memories?"

"Yeah. I know," answered Evie, her voice clear and soft.

"If you could help her remember some of what she's forgotten, wouldn't that be nice?"

"Uh-huh."

Pinnacle glanced aside to me. "Okay, Eden. I think she's ready. It will be for the best if you did most of the talking."

I nodded and kissed the youngster on the top of her head before beginning my interview.

"Evie, I want you to tell me all about what happened last Friday night. Begin the story just before any of the bad things started to happen. You don't feel scared about doing that, do you?"

Her glance were soft and dreamy. "No, Mommy. I don't feel scared."

"That's my brave little pumpkin. Okay, tell us what happened. You don't have to be in a hurry. Just do the best you can. What do you remember happening after I got home from work?"

Evie took a deep breath. "When you got home I was playing Mantra with Mr. Paws."

Mr. Paws, I knew, was Evie's favorite toy, her teddy bear. I had seen it in our motel room. How odd it was that such a small detail as the name of a toy could be duplicated in another reality, while so many other factors were different.

"I was being Mantra, an' Mr. Paws was pretending to be me," the little girl explained. "I was telling him about how I'd turned into Mantra right after breakfast so I could go out and spend the whole day saving people. Mr. Paws got really excited and wanted to hear all about it. That's when you came in. I told you that Grandma had to leave a little early 'cuz she was having dinner with some nice old man."

I bit my lip. Back on my own world, Barbara Freeman had, indeed, told me on Wednesday evening that she'd only be able to baby-sit until six-thirty on Friday night because a retired gent from her genealogical club had asked her out. Maybe the two worlds weren't very different -- and that worried me. A lot.

"That's when we heard Gus yelling and throwing things at the wall," continued Evie. "You an' me went to his room to see what was wrong. Gus's face was red, he was so mad. He said that Daddy'd called to say that he couldn't take him to the ball game, even though he'd promised. Gus started using naughty language about Daddy and you said he shouldn't say such bad things. That made him even madder and so... so he did something really awful!"

She had emphasized the word “awful,” I squeezed her hand. "What did he do, Button? I quietly braced myself, prepared to hear something appalling.

Evie was glancing down at her knees, biting her lower lip. The memory was clearly a disturbing one. I squeezed the little girl's hand and asked, "What did he do, Sweetie? Can you talk about it?"

She nodded and whispered, "Yeah, I can talk, Mommy. Gus grabbed Mr. Paws and tore his head off! He shouldn'ta done that. I didn't say anything bad, and Mr. Paws didn't say anything either. We both felt sorry that Daddy wasn't gonna keep his promise. When Gus did that awful thing, I started to cry. You got so mad that you slapped him and told him to stay in his room until he 'pologized to me and Mr. Paws. He told us to go away, that he hated everybody.

"I was feeling just awful 'cuz Mr. Paws was dead. I couldn't stop crying. I asked if you couldn’t fix him and you said maybe you could. That's when Lauren called."

"What did Lauren say, Honey?"

"I didn't hear, but you said she could come right over. Then you and me talked some more about Gus. You felt bad about slapping him and said you were gonna tell him how sorry you were.

"After that, you heated up soup for Gus and put it on a tray with some other things. I asked if I could take it in to him. You said okay and Mr. Paws and me carried it to. I figgered that when Gus saw how hurt Paws was he might say he was sorry. But when me and Mr. Paws went in to see Gus we couldn't believe it! There was fire and smoke all over, and Gus was glowing green! He was floating up in the air, like those bad-guy wizard guys do in the cartoons. I was scared and asked him how he could do that. He said he could do anything. That's when he saw how sick Mr. Paws looked and used his magic to fix him, just like – magic."

“Did I heat the soup in the kettle or in the microwave?” I asked.

The question took Evie by surprise and she blinked. “In the microwave, Mommy.”

“Was it thundering outside?” I pressed.

Again bemused, Evie shook her head, “No.”

“Were there any kind of noises outside at all?”

“Jes’ cars going by.”

From her answers, I reasoned that would have taken only a few minutes to have opened a can of soup and heated it in the microwave. That meant that between the time that Mantra and Evie had left Gus's room and the time that Evie returned to it, only minutes could have passed. In that very short space of time, the energy from space must have struck. The newspapers had said that it happened at about 7:12 P.M. Evie had heard no atmospheric noise, so the event apparently occurred with silence. But how was it that Mantra, who was sensitive to magical manifestations, had also been taken unawares? All I could think of was that if the energy had had anything to do with magic, it must have been a very strange form of sorcery.

Evie started talking again: "I was so afraid that I yelled for you to come, but when you got there, Gus made a big octopus monster jump out and grab you. Gus tied you up and put a gag on your mouth. A minute later, you turned into Mantra and got loose, but then Gus made a couple of big giants 'pear and they started punching you. You cut off their hands with your sword and then shot some magic at Gus, but his magic stopped yours. Then he zapped you so hard that you fell down into a big pit full of monsters."

I had heard about monsters in our home before. They materialized at Gus's command! Had he really taken out Mantra out with one “zap”? How could a novice magician have overwhelmed Mantra, who must have already assumed full battle mode? The protective shield that I habitually kept around myself during a magical duel could protect me from all but the most powerful forms of magical attack. The local Mantra must have fought the same way I did, or else she would never have survived as long as she had. Evie's description of Gus's attack would have been hard for even one like Boneyard to match. And that necromancer had been studying and practicing black sorcery for centuries. How could Gus have fought so effectively “right out of the cradle”? It had to be that his use of magic was tied into, and instantly responsive to, his imagination. In that sense, he was like an Olympian god.

“It was horrible!" Evie exclaimed. "Gus'd never acted so mean before. He wanted the monsters to eat you up! I begged him to stop hurting our Mommy, but he yelled that he had to kill you, udderwise you wouldn't let him use magic anymore. I said real quick that if he took away your mask and other stuff you'd be weak and wouldn’t be able to tell him what to do. He said okay to that. Suddenly, he made you disappear and all your armor fell down on the floor.”

It sounded like he had teleported me with mere concentrated thought. What tyro wizard could have done that? Unbelievable!

"I didn't know where you went and I was afraid that he'd disinnerated you. But then Gus went to the cracker box on the table and talked into it. I heard your squeaky little voice yelling back at him. You were inside the box, and you were even smaller than Mr. Paws!"

I couldn't suppress a shudder. So far, Lauren's account had been dead-on true.
.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 9

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 9

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Comic Book

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Revised Mar. 26, 2021
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ALL ABOUT EVE

Edited by Christopher Leeson

Chapter 9

"Thy fear has made me tremble,
Thy terrors have surrounded me.
All love is lost. Terror succeeds,
And [there is] hatred instead of love."

William Blake
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"This talk isn't too frightening for you, it is, Precious?" I asked.

"No, Mommy. I'm jes' sorry that Gus hurt you. He was bad! You were nice to him, except when he did naughty things."

"So, what happened next?" I coaxed.

"Lauren knocked from outside. I wanted her to keep away, but she came in real fast, an' Gus wouldn’t let her leave after he came up floating in the air. He said he was glad to see her, an’ he always liked her. He also said he wanted to be her boyfriend, but Lauren said she didn’t want that. Gus got angry then an' made her float in the air.

"That’s when you started yelling at Gus from the cracker box, telling him not to hurt Lauren. You warned him that it would be too awful if he put her into Mantra's cloak.” She smiled. "I think you wanted him to put her in there, an’ you were jes' fooling."

According to both Evie and Lauren, Lauren would vanish into the cloak for only a few minutes, before Gus brought her back. The little girl was surprised to see her babysitter return dressed in armor and looking like some sort of ultra. Evie begged Gus not to harm Lauren, but he seemed to hate everyone -- except, for some reason, his little sister.

Gus and Lauren started fighting and Lauren’s magic hit him hard, more so than had Mantra’s. I could only suppose that the inexperienced Lauren had been instinctively fighting in the kill mode and Gus hadn't been prepared to receive such a strong attack from his babysitter. Or was it possible that Gus had been tired out from all the other super-sorcery that he’d been flinging around?

"Then,” said Evie, "you yelled for Gus to stop hurting people and be nice. But 'stead of saying he was sorry, he zapped you again, super-hard. You fell out of the box an' I thought you were dead. I started telling Gus that I hated him. When he was looking at me, Lauren tried to sneak up from behind, but Gus was quick an’ knocked her down into the monster pit."

"I told him to stop, but he said that everybody’d been mean to him an’ he was gonna get even. He promised not to hurt me, but I knew that was jes' talk.

"When he looked back at Lauren, he could see that she’d already beaten up on all his monsters. So Gus jumped into the pit to sock her himself. That's when I grabbed Mr. Paws an’ you an’ all three of us ran outside to hide!”

I took her into my arms and rested her cheek upon my shoulder. "Where did you go, darling?" I asked.

"We hid in the flower bushes next door, but I got worried that you'd be dead forever if I didn’t find some grownup to make you all better. I ran to Mrs. Walker's magic shop ‘cuz I thought she could do some really good magic to fix you."

I knew that shop. It was all herbs, trinkets, tourist items, and New Age books. There was no real magic in the place.

"I banged on Mrs. Walker's door," said Evie. "'Cuz she lived upstairs she heard me. I showed her how sick you were an' asked her to use magic to help. She called me a 'poor baby' an' told me that she didn't know any magic that big. Jes' then, Gus showed up, like a ghost on a TV show. He told me that if I didn't let you be dead he'd break his promise an’ hurt me, too. He said he was gonna smash your little body so you could never get better. Mrs. Walker was really, really afraid an' told me to do what he wanted, but I said I wasn’t going to.”

I didn’t want Evie to see my tears, but it was too late. She put her arms about my neck and said, "Don't cry, Mommy.”

I also felt Pinnacle's hand take mine right after. I didn't want people feeling sorry for me so I tried to buck up.

"Gus doesn't really hate you, Mommy,” urged Evie. "Mrs. Walker says no kid really hates his mom. Gus jes' went crazy, like lots of people do in the movies. He can stop from being crazy, can't he?"

I gazed into her blue, hopeful eyes. "Of course he can, Evie,” I told her, and then asked what happened next.

"Jes’ when Gus was gonna put the zap on me, you made some kinda ultra lightning come out of my eyes an' it knocked him out. That’s when Mrs. Walker pushed me ouside, saying that we had to run away before he woke up.”

This was more confirmation of something that I didn’t understand. Why had Mantra been able to use magic, both from the cracker box and from the spirit plane, but became unable to use it once she had gotten back into her own body? It had always been my understanding that the magic power she possessed had been passed down through Eden’s family line. I’d always thought that Eden’s physical body had been the focus for bringing in and utilizing magic. After all, hadn’t my own ultra powers come from Eden Blake’s physical body? The spirit part of her hadn’t been a factor; it had vanished into the Otherworld.

Evie was still talking hurriedly. "Mrs. Walker an’ me ran into the street. There was this big green car parked out there next to a man in a red suite. Mrs. Walker asked if he was a policeman. He said he was there to help people, an’ so Mrs. Walker started telling him about Gus. Jes' then, Gus came out of the shop, looking really sore that he’d been hit. The policeman wasn't afraid of Gus an’ walked straight at him, like he was going to give him a good scolding.

"Gus told the policeman that he looked jes' like an action figure. The policeman didn't let Gus come up close, but zapped him with a flash of light. Then more policemen ran at Gus an’ they started squirting him with smelly gas. They also had a funny kind of gun that shot out wires an’ made a crackly noise. The wires got all over Gus, an' I could see that they were hurting him. That's when Lauren flew out of the sky. I saw a big, ugly ultra chasing her." Evie leaned closer and whispered, "It was really Heather and her friends, after some bad magic’d turned them into a monster."

Evie's description of Gus getting loose and fighting with Coven coincided with Lauren's. It of course ended with Gus getting captured and Heather and her friends returning to normal.

The little girl in my arms made a sad throat noise. "I was scared that Gus'd be in trouble 'cuz he’d let the police see him misbehaving. I asked the red policeman if he was gonna to punish my brother, but he said he wouldn't. He was jes' gonna Gus stop hurting other people. I figgered he meant he was gonna put Gus in jail.

"Oh, Mommy, Gus looked so beat-up! He was sleeping, but I said goodbye anyway an’ said I hoped he’d get better soon. Then I put Mr. Paws on top of the box that Gus in, so when he woke up he would have Mr. Paws keeping him company. That was all right, wasn't it, Mommy?"

"It is, if it was Mr. Paws who asked permission to go along with Gus."

"I think he did. But when I saw Lauren talking to the red policeman, I ran over an’ gave her your little body. I told Lauren that she had to find a way to make you alive again 'cuz she was an ultra. Then I started to cry. I couldn't understand why so many bad things were happening. Lauren hugged me an' said that I'd been good and brave."

I drew the tyke closer. "Honey, you did the right thing. When Lauren took me away, she pretty soon found some really big magic to make me better. How could you have been so smart to know just exactly what you had to do?"

She sniffed. "I don’t know."

I dabbed her tears away with my handkerchief. "What did Lauren do next?"

Evie took a deep breath. "She flew away. Then the red policeman asked me who Lauren was an' I fibbed and said that she was Mantra. At night I stayed with Mrs. Walker. I couldn't sleep much, so I prayed a lot. An’ my prayer really worked! In the morning, you and Lauren came back to the shop!"

I was guessing that Mrs. Walker must have gotten an eyeful at that reunion, seeing Evie's mother wearing a strange black costume. But the shopkeeper promised Mrs. Blake not to start spreading stories. After we left and went back to the Blake home, Evie described the house as looking a mess, especially Gus's room. Fortunately, the monster pit was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened then?" I pressed.

"A message boy knocked on the door,” said Evie. "You went to talk to him, but Lauren didn't want a stranger seeing her, so she flew off through the ceiling. You came back an’ said you had to go to Sanfrisco. I asked if you knew where Gus was an’ you said you didn't, but that maybe the people in Sanfrisco might know."

"Did I find anything out there?" I asked.

Evie's little mouth pursed. "You didn't come back till it was dark on Sunday. You said then that somebody called 'Laddin' had put Gus in jail. I started crying 'cuz Gus couldn't come home. That’s when you said we should go and live in Sanfrisco, so we could visit him lots and lots of times."

I held on to Evie while thinking about Gus's miserable condition. Fate had cruelly victimized the boy and, just as bad, Aladdin had used it as an excuse to snatch him into their clutches. Ruthless people were running Aladdin back on my world, and their local counterparts were probably no better. Somehow, I had to get Evie's brother freed, legally or illegally, but I didn’t know how to control him once I did. It seemed like I had to totally count on Pinnacle, who I knew had some promising-sounding ideas about fixing his disfigurement and removing his dangerous powers.

Just then, Penny put on a chagrined expression. My earnest and hopeful thoughts must have sounded cringy to her.

We had more questions to ask the little girl as we checked and rechecked the details of her story, up until the point when Evie's tone became sleepy.

"She needs to rest,” I told Penny.

"Evie," Pinnacle said, "when I clap my hands you'll fall asleep. When you next wake up, you won't feel sad and you won't be afraid. You'll remember how nice it feels to talk things over with your mommy when you're afraid or unhappy. Wouldn’t you like to keep on doing that whenever you need to?"

"Yeah, I will," the little girl affirmed with a weary nod.

Clap!

Evie dozed off and I got up to arrange her comfortably on the love seat. Then I stretched my muscles and looked at the clock. It was lunchtime already.

Penny and I snacked and talked about the interview while Evie slept. A little later, when my daughter opened her eyes and yawned, we drove her back to the Budget Motel. Mrs. Freeman was out, unfortunately, so I gave her a call and she said that she could get back in a half hour. The three of us passed the waiting time at the nearby Jack-in-the-Box, letting the tyke fill up on burgers and fries.

Soon, I spotted my car turning into the motel driveway. Once Evie was once more under her grandma's care, Penny and I went back to her apartment. Pinnacle returned to the subject of conducting a deep probe into my subconscious mind. She claimed to want some confirmation that I really was from a different plane of reality. While I could understand her need to avoid taking important information for granted, it struck me as irksome that she still had doubts that I knew what I was talking about.

Also, I couldn’t help but be uneasy about entering into a deep trance. I didn’t like being so completely in another person’s power.

Suddenly I was taken aback by a slap in the face!

"Hey, what's that for?" I demanded, touching my stung cheek. The smack had been light and playful, though, and my hostess didn't look angry.

"That was for imagining that I would use my mind-probe to make you fall passionately in love with me," she explained.

I frowned. "So what if the idea crossed my mind? I don't need a romance. What I need is a friend."

"Even with my mind-reading ability, I still can't figure you out, Lulu! You don't seem to be hot for the girls -- at least not were I’m concerned -- but you don't seem to have the hots for the boys, either.”

"Why do I need to be hot for anyone?”

"Can you blame me for being curious about how you see yourself after two years of womanhood? Sexually I mean."

I replied testily. "Sex has nothing to do with our problems. And why are you so committed to asking grotesquely personal questions?"

"I like being a psychiatrist especially because it lets me ask rude and prying questions. Anyway, your sexual anxieties aren’t hard to discover; they sit at the very top of your mind. But to give you credit, I honestly can’t understand why you haven't gotten even crazier than you are."

"Maybe you’re only hearing what you want to hear. What I remember thinking about was finding a way to keep from breaking a little girl's heart, in the event that I’m not able to bring her brother home."

"I picked up on that train of thought, too. Explain to me how a hard-headed commando and barroom brawler like Lukasz Theodoricson can simultaneously be carrying around so much compassion and tenderness?”

"Can’t we just drop this sexual curiosity and get on with that testing of yours?”

She nudged me toward a soft chair. "All right, we'll come back to the fun emotional stuff later. For now, I'm going to put you under, just like I did Evie. I’ll have to go much deeper with you than I did with her, though. It can get rough, but you're a tough guy. What you really have to worry about is how effectively I can seduce you."

"Are you still harping on that?” I asked.

"Hush. We’re going to start. Concentrate on my thumb...”

I glanced at the thumb and, the next thing I knew, she was on the other side of the room.

"What happened?" I asked sleepily. "Aren’t you going to start?”

"Can’t you remember anything? I found out something important."

"What was that?"

"I found out that even though you're as gentle as a lamb around kids, you can be a real tiger in bed!”

"Quit clowning, Pin. Did you really finish? What did you find out?"

"You almost made me believe that you actually do come from another world.”

"What did I say?"

"A lot. We talked for more than an hour."

"You say 'almost believe.' Are you saying you don't totally believe it?"

Dr. Lammars shook her head. "No, I'm not saying that. I'm convinced that everything you're telling me is something that you believe to be true. At certain points, though, it did seem like you were remembering certain other details that don’t fit in.”

"What kind of other details?”

"Details that only the Mantra of this world should have known.”

"What things?”

"Like things about the Night of Terror, as you call it. Those memories are very deep ones. It’s like they’re come out of your personal experiences, and are not something that you've merely heard about."

"Do you suppose that I might be picking stored memories from the local Mantra's physical brain?"

"Possibly. Or maybe it's something else."

Oh, great! Now I had 'something else' to worry about!
.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 10

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 10

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Comic Book

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Revised Apr. 21, 2021
Revised Apr. 24, 2021
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THE BOY IN THE GRAY COCOON

Edited by Christopher Leeson

Chapter 10

And this he always kept in mind
And formed a crooked knife
And ran about with bloody hands
To seek his mother's life.

William Blake
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“I sympathize,” Pinnacle said, “but there is always something else to worry about.”

“You’re reading my mind again?” I said.

“I’m your doctor. I get to do things like that. But as for problems, I’d say that they’re part and parcel for living. Or is my double back on your home world so much more optimistic than I am?”

“Not at all. You two are so much alike that it’s scary. But there's one important difference between you and your double.”

“What's that?”

“She's never opens up to me, especially about how much she's hurting -- not the way you have."

“I hope it means that she hurts a lot less than I do. But, that aside, this whole idea of the multiverse is fascinating. Oh, sure, I know the theory that goes with it, but meeting a person from another reality has really nailed things down for me. I wish I had time to research the phenomenon right now,” Penny said.

“I hope you make a study. But until then, I have a more urgent question. Why did Mantra have magical abilities as a disembodied spirit on the Soul Walk, but lost them as soon as she got back into her physical body?”

Pinnacle rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "The subject of magic is Greek to me; I’ve got only guesswork to go on. Like, maybe Mantra strained her magical potential by doing spells outside of her body. On the other hand -- Well, I’m not sure what, exactly, is on the other hand.

"It would be nice if you figured it out. Necromantra wouldn’t be so close to Canoga Park unless she intends to murder me and capture Evie. If draining my daughter of her potential for magic kills her, that bitch won’t give a damn."

“And that is the person who you used to think of as your best friend?”

“Thanasi has become a homicidal paranoid. I don’t understand it, but something made him snap."

"Well, how do we fortify you against a witch so powerful as that? You already know about those companies that specialize in turning big spenders into ultras. And I know that the science has been getting better and better. As I understand it, your own friend Wrath started out as an ordinary man until he was enhanced by Aladdin."

“Yes. They did it with nanites and serums. Wrath was made tougher, stronger, and faster. But I don’t think he’d be up to taking on Necromantra, not unless he knocked her silly with his first blow.”

That reminded me of the fact that Aladdin had recruited a new Wrath. I was able to get along with Thomas Hunter because he wasn’t a good company man. But if Aladdin had turned some amoral scoundrel into the "new Wrath," the odds were heavy that he’d be a piece of work that I'd have to be wary of.

Just then, my cell phone ran. The screen told me Dr. Sarn was calling. I didn’t trust the doctor just because she was a real company person, but I very much wanted to find out whether she had anything new to say about Gus.

"Blake," said Sarn, "your boy is awake again. He's.... Well, he's crying. The child psychologist hasn’t been able to settle him down. I’d think that a visit from his mother would do Gus a world of good right now. I recommend that you to come over immediately."

She then told me where my transportation to Alcatraz would be waiting.

"I'm on my way!" I said.

I turned to Pinnacle. “I got a call from the office.”

“I overheard.”

“Is this going to cause any problem -- for our planning, I mean?”

“Not really. I have enough to do for the next couple days. If you hear more about that recent power-surge from outer space, let me know.”

“Yeah, I’d like to learn about that, too. Maybe Aladdin has updated information. Whatever I find out, I'll pass on.”

“It's always great having a spy on the inside,” she said.

“Say, would you give me a lift to where my helicopter ride will be waiting?”

“No problem,” Pinnacle answered, “but I’m not going to let those bastards see me. They’ve got a thing for turning people into mind-controlled slaves, and I've already done enough slave-time over at NuWare.”

Just before she led me down to her car, I called my “mom,” letting her know that I’d been summoned into work to see Gus again. She said, “Fine. That’s one good thing about having someone with CIA clearance in the family, I suppose.”

I had never been free to tell her that I actually served with an outfit that was even worse than the CIA.

With dusk coming on, I arrived at my helicopter rendezvous. Pinnacle’s car was parked out of sight and I walked in alone. Our destination, as my officious pilot confirmed, was Alcatraz Island.

That name has made me wince ever since the Thirties. Archimage had put me into the body of a career criminal. In the course of things, I was arrested and judged guilty of breaking “my” parole. That meant doing time in Alcatraz. The wizard nixed the messy idea of a making a prison-break attempt and had his lawyer bring me a coded message. I was supposed to get myself out by committing suicide! God, I hated orders like that. No matter how many times I’ve died in the last 1500 years, the pain of it is always a bummer. I carried out my order in a stereotyped way, by hanging myself inside my lock up.

The guards working on “the Rock” were actually encouraged to be brutal. They were allowed to shoot to kill every real or suspected escapee at their own discretion. Besides the penitentiary's actual physical torture, Alcatraz was also custom-made for psychological torture. Many inmates were driven insane.

The prison was finally shut down by the Kennedy administration, in 1963, as a failed experiment and a national disgrace. That must have upset a lot of the Deep Staters in the Swamp. JFK was assassinated that same year. A coincidence?

After 1963, the island prison was kept as a tourist attraction. Then, suddenly, it was declared off-limits again. The media gave vague reasons why that was done and quickly dropped the subject. But the simple truth was that Alcatraz had been converted to be an Aladdin black site for the internment of ultras, some of them illegally kidnapped.

Eden Blake had visited Alcatraz on Saturday the 16th, shortly after her son had been incarcerated, but I didn’t know what she had learned. I would have to bluff my way along. If I did or said something wrong, I’d try to excuse my cluelessness by pretending to be distracted and distraught. Sarn knew that Blake was on medical leave, but I didn't want to act like a basket case unless I absolutely had to.

As we hovered over one of the most evil sites on Earth, my pilot called in our arrival. A voice “welcomed” us to the “Alactraz Ultra Confinement Center.” Upon setting down, I recognized Sarn on the tarmac. Tall, Teutonic, blonde, and hard-bodied, Sarn had quite a rack, too. Though pushing forty, she looked to be in excellent physical shape. Rumor had it that she’d started out as a sizzling “honey-trap” agent during her early intelligence days. That was before she’d been recruited into Aladdin. I wondered how Sarn could have convincingly pulled off the seductress role. I always saw here as cold and calculating – all business, all the time.

I stepped outside the whirlybird and she came up close, curtly instructing me to follow her. I looked about. Things had changed a lot in the look of the place since my lock-up days. As Sarn led me along, I did my utmost to memorize everything I was seeing. If I couldn’t get Gus out of there peacefully, I might very well need to to mastermind a prison-break from Alcatraz Island.

The doctor led me along, until we paused before a sealed portal as formidable as a bank vault. Gaining entry required Sarn to provide both a thumb-print and an eye scan. Once we got into Aladdin’s inner sanctum, we proceeded down a corridor past a long row of cells. I saw prisoners, captive ultras, probably. Then I recognized a face I knew.

The sight of Blythe Ashwin as an inmate of Alcatraz slammed me with memories, some of them guilty. We were coincidental doubles, and due to her disappearance on assignment, I’d been drafted into a scam that involved impersonating her. While living her life, I’d learned that she had been involved in some illegal dealings. I had felt justified in exposing the woman, while doing myself a bonus favor by leaving false evidence that she was me – that is, that she was Mantra.

Ashwin was looking overwhelmed and beaten up. She didn’t seem to have energy enough even to get angry at the sight of me, the person who had done so much to ruin her life. Clearly, the woman was being driven to her breaking point, which bothered me, since she had seemed as hard as nails when I'd known her. I had already been having second thoughts about what I had done and now felt sorry for her. Also, her fate gave me an appalling preview of my own would be if I were ever found out to be an enemy of Aladdin.

My supervisor continued leading along bleak corridors, until we at last paused at a heavily barred door. Sarn moved aside, allowing me to peer within. I saw armed guards and a medical team that was directing its attention toward a large cocoon-like capsule. It looked partially metallic and partially organic. Sarn swiped a key-card in the security lock and punched in a short code, causing the door to swing open. Several faces turned our way.

"Doctor, how's the prisoner been?" my top-brass guide addressed one of the medics.

"He was awake and very distraught a half hour ago," answered a white-clad middle-aged man. "Then he lapsed back into sleep."

“Go to your boy,” Dr. Sarn told me.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped through the cluster of people until I stood next to the machine, looking down at the patient's face.

It was hard not to react to Gus's changed appearance. His radically different look jolted me.

He was utterly unrecognizable, not just as August Blake, Jr., but not even as a little boy. Only his head and shoulders were left unhidden by the capsule, but the prisoner looked like a hardened adult criminal. His brow was overdeveloped, his nose and chin angular, making him more resemble a movie dwarf’s than a child. Corded muscles made his neck thick and his hair was a blue-black shag. If on a street, his look would have caused people to move aside. It must have been hell for a child to have to be so repulsive in public. No wonder Gus doubted that even his own family still loved him. He must have been riding on the edge of an emotional breakdown for months by now.

I knew that Aladdin had ultra power-draining technology and, clearly, this capsule was part of that. The boy had was forced to wear some sort of helmet with a conduit extending into the ceiling. What was its purpose? To read his thoughts? To place new thoughts into his mind?

This was hard sight for a parent to take in, but it was logical from Aladdin's POV. Gus had gone toe to toe with a prepared tactical team in Canoga Park and only failed to rout them due to his lack of combat experience.

Suddenly, the lad stirred.

Gus was trying to move, but his straps only allowed him to turn his head from side to side. My quiet indignation was at the explosion point, but I knew that Aladdin had secured him excessively because they didn't dare do less. Gus was, if truth be told, a frightening being. He had god-like powers, powers that he’d abused with thoughtless malevolence. He had attempted murder, too, and had nearly succeeded.

But, despite all, this was still Gus, a twelve year old boy.

"I think I should talk to him alone," I told Sarn flatly.

"Are you sure?" asked the spy chief.

"I won't try to free him, if that's what you're worried about. It's safe to touch the capsule, isn't it?"

Sarn glanced at her chief physician. The doctor shrugged. Sarn said to me, “Go ahead, Blake, try to perk him up. We'll be waiting outside."

The doctors, medics, and guards all followed her out. Even with the door shut and the staff out of sight, I still felt spied-upon. And of course I was. Aladdin’s surveillance protocols were over the top. I'd have to be careful about every move I made and every word that I said. My emotions just then were as tight as a bowstring. Why, I asked Heaven, had all these terrible things happened? Why should the Blake family have to endure so much tragedy?

The boy pivoted his head to looked squarely at me.

"No..." he murmured. "It's not you!" Tears filled his eyes.

I leaned closer, resting my hands on his gray capsule. "Are you in pain, Gus?"

"Go away! You're not real!"

That voice sounded deep and harsh, but also weak and rasping.

I swallowed hard. "I'm here to visit you, Gus. Why don't you believe that I'm real?"

"I k-killed you!" he replied.

His flowing tears were large ones.

Was the boy weeping in remorse? But if so, was it for what he'd tried to do, or was it only for having been caught and punished?

“You're dead!" he said.

"Gus! Stop thinking like that! I am alive. You didn't hurt me. You've never hurt anyone. You've been having terrible nightmares, that's all. I'm here because I love you!"

He shook his head. "No, you're part of the nightmare!"

He was right about that much. I was part of this nightmare.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 11

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 11

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Serial Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Comic books

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Revised May. 20, 2021
Revised May, 21, 2021
Revised May, 22, 2021
.
.
.
.
.
ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.

Chapter 11

In the universe, there are things that are known,
And things that are unknown,
And in between, there are doors.

William Blake
.
.
I touched the boy’s shoulder. "Gus, it really is me."

Like a light switching on inside his skull, his eyes gave a verdant flicker. Both Evie and Lauren had described seeing something like that when Gus channeled magic.

"Why do you think that I’m dead, Gus?" I asked softly. "Did you dream it?"

"Y-You are dead," he insisted. "I shrunk Mantra and shot her -- you - - with ultra power!"

"So, Mantra was in your dream?" I was trying to sound innocent.

"You're Mantra. I hate her! She promised to change me back, but she never did!"

“Mantra is a wonderful magician," I explained, "but she can't do everything. I'm sure she never realized how difficult it is to break spells cast by fairies."

"She always liked Evie better than me!" he declared bitterly. "She saved Evie, but didn’t save me! Evie wasn't even in any bad trouble!"

All I knew about the fairy affair was what Evie had said. “Gus, Mantra didn't know what sort of trouble you and Evie were in. Mantra must have chosen to protect Evie first, because she's so little and weak. As soon as Mantra found Evie, she came to help you, didn't she?”

He twisted his glance away, his hard-looking lips tightly shut.

"I also hate you because you hit me!"

"What?"

"You slapped me for no reason!"

"Oh, that," I said with a head-shake.

This was a bum rap. The local Mantra had struck him, not me.

"Grownups sometimes get angry,” I told the boy, “just like children do. I’m sorry, but what would you have done if some bully at school had grabbed Mr. Paws from Evie, tore his head off, and made her cry?"

Just then, my foot touched something soft; I glanced down. Evie’s favorite toy, her teddy bear, was lying there. I picked up the little fellow, thinking how inappropriate was the bland smile on his face.

I showed the stuffed animal to Gus. "Look, here's Mr. Paws. Evie couldn't come herself, so she sent her best friend to stay with you."

"Is Evie okay?" Gus asked.

I regarded him, glad to hear the lad say something that didn't sound angry. "Evie is fine. You didn't hurt her at all. She hopes that you get better soon and can come home with Mr. Paws."

He changed the subject. “I hit you hard. How come you didn't die? Is it because you're Mantra?"

I tried not to wince. Aladdin was surely running a video recording of our entire conversation. If they took what Gus was saying seriously, I'd soon end up in a cell next to Blythe Ashwin!

“I’m not Mantr, Gus.”

“I tied you up with magic, then you suddenly turned into Mantra!”

"Mantra was only a part of your nightmare. How could a little boy like you beat up on someone as powerful as Mantra? Did you dream that Evie was an ultra hero, too?"

"Yes! She hit me with a shot of magic once. I don’t know how she did it. But Lauren was an even tougher ultra than either one of you!"

"So you dreamed Lauren Sherwood was an ultra, too?" I asked.

“She was wearing a costume and zapping me with magic that hurt a lot!"

"Wow, Gus! Me in a cracker box? Lauren an ultra hero? Evie using magic? Darling, Evie and I are only your family. And Lauren is your babysitter. I know for a fact that she was at home with her dad all Friday evening."

"It happened!" he insisted.

"Yes," I said, "some of it is true. You did get magic. It was just like when Hardcase and the Strangers got -- zapped – by ultra lightning and got super powers! That same lightning made you into an ultra, just like them. When Evie went to your room and saw you using sorcery, she was so surprised that she called me in. You used magic to tie me up and then stood there shouting angry things. That was very naughty of you, Gus."

"You turned into Mantra! Your clothes changed!"

"Gus, being full of bad magic is like being full of bad drugs. While you were standing there, I saw you get a funny look on your face and start to talk to people who weren’t really there. As soon as that happened, all those magical ropes you'd put on me fell off and I got loose. Then I took Evie and the two of us ran away. We were afraid to go home until the police sent us a message saying that you'd gone out into the neighborhood and started a fight with a patrolman. Because of that, you were arrested and put into jail."

"Mantra was there!" he exclaimed.

I was still thinking about the Aladdin's eavesdropping when I said, “I have a super secret to tell you, Gus. Mantra couldn't have been at our house Friday night. She was arrested and locked up last month. People said that she robbed a museum and now she's in jail because of it. That's how the world is, Gus. No matter how good and famous an ultra is, he has to obey the law like everybody else, or else he gets into a lot of trouble."

"It wasn’t just a dream!" the boy said.

I stroked the lad's hard, sunken cheek and kissed his beetling brow. The more the two of us spoke, the more he seemed like the old Gus. "I know how good you usually are," I told him, "but when that magic zapped you, it made you angry and wild. I’m so sorry, because if you had behaved well Friday night and used your magic to help people, maybe the UltraForce would have already come by to ask you to join them. According to what they wrote in the Ultramate Source, they’ve been wanting to find a powerful wizard for their team."

The look he flashed rended my heart. "Do you think they'll still ask me?"

I squeezed the lad's hard shoulder. "Oh, honey, UltraForce has a rule not to recruit any ultra who get angry easily or get into trouble. You were an ultra for only a little while before you misbehaved and got arrested. Now all those heroes are going to think you’re a bad guy and you’ll have to be good for a very long time before they’ll ever trust you enough to let you on their team.

“What were you thinking, Gus? No matter how powerful a little-boy ultra is, a grownup officer is always going to get the better of him. There's lots of bad ultras in jail right now because they weren’t friendly and respectful around the police.”

"Is this a jail? They said it was a hospital."

"It's both. I'm sorry, Gus."

"When can I go home?"

I made a needed effort to control of my voice. "I wish I knew, precious, but the police have rules. You either have to stop being bad, or else you’ll have to stop being an ultra. Otherwise, people are going to keep saying that you’re a bad ultra."

"No! I don’t want to stop being an ultra! I always wanted to be one!"

I blinked, my burning eyes. "Gus, there's still a chance that things can be fixed, but it’s going to take time. We’ll have to talk to a lot of lawyers and see what they tell us.”

Gus now began to cry. He had asked his mother to get him out of trouble, only to be told that there was nothing she could do except see a lawyer. For a boy his age, that would be a giant step toward understanding how the world worked.

"I'm going to visit you just as often as I can," I promised. I didn't dare hold out the hope that Evie, his grandma, or his dad could come, too. Aladdin would only allow what it felt like allowing.

"Gus, is there anything I can do to help you feel better?"

He didn't answer.

The cell door rolled open and Dr. Sarn came back in. Standing over the capsule, she studied the face of the child who scarcely still looked like a child.

"I think that's about all you can do for the little guy today," Sarn said. "If the psychoanalysts decide that your visit has had a positive effect, we'll have you come and talk to him again soon."

I nodded dully. What did Aladdin’s top brass know about broken and suffering families?

"Can the boy's sister visit him, too?” I asked. “She's four years younger than he is -- just a tyke."

"This is a high-security installation..." Sarn began. Then the hard-as-nails director stopped sounding like a brass wind-up toy for an instant. "Well, if she's really that small, we'll consider it."

As a departing gesture, I placed Mr. Paws atop the capsule. I hoped that the stuffed toy would remind Gus that he had a family waiting for him and they still loved him very much.

“Please don't throw away this bear,” I asked Sarn. “It's my daughter's favorite pet. If you can’t permit her brother to keep it, I'd like to take it back to her.”

“Are you up to turning in your report now, Blake?" she asked without addressing my request.

"Report? Ah, no. Sorry, Doctor. My mother came in last evening. Then a friend called, wanting to be filled in on what happened Friday. She took me out to lunch, and then I got your call. It's all too much."

Dr. Sarn nodded. "Stay a while, until you settle down. Get the report written as long as you’re here. You can sleep over and we’ll line you up with a helicopter ride back to the city in the morning. This place has plenty of beds, at least."

"Sure, why not?" I replied resignedly.

But my insides were in a roil. I wanted to pound my fists against the walls and yell. A family was getting hammered by grief and Sarn was obsessing over some meaningless bureaucratic report!

We went out and the doctor had me linger near the cell until an aide came and led me across the complex. We went into an office in the administrative wing, where he left me alone with a word-processor. Wanting to get all the silly paperwork behind me, I sat down and stared at the interface, trying to concentrate my thoughts. Gradually, using Lauren's testimony as a guide, I managed to input a page of self-serving fiction before I lost my train of thought. How was a young boy expected to endure doing time in a place like Alcatraz? I wracked my brain trying to puzzle out some means of making this disaster a little less disastrous.

I didn't know it then, but I was only about ten seconds away from being lambasted by another disaster.

I suddenly saw two sets of hands in front of me. The one pair was striking the keyboard, causing everything that I had written up to then to disappear. I tried to rise from my swivel chair, but couldn't. In a flash, the office around me was filled with people moving at blurring speed, everyone running backwards. Then the whole scene blanked out.

The next thing I knew, though I was still sitting, something was cramping me. A man was speaking, but I could hardly hear him, so loud was the whirring noise around us.

"Mrs. Blake?" he was saying. "Are you feeling faint?"

I sat up and manged to make sense of what I was seeing. I was inside another helicopter and a seat-belt was holding me in place. Outside, I saw a sunlit harbor trimmed by a cityscape. Who had put me into another helicopter? Had I blacked out and was being taken back to the mainland -- for medical attention, perhaps?

"Mrs. Blake? You're as white as a ghost."

I looked the pilot’s way. He was a short-bearded man in his twenties, and definitely not the same pilot who'd escorted me to the island a couple hours earlier. My disorientation was like a smothering blanket. How much time had passed? Was this my morning ride back to the mainland? Had I passed a whole night on Alcatraz Island?

"Ah, I f-felt woozy for a moment," I stammered, playing for time while my mind raced. "Please, excuse me. I've -- I've gone through hell lately. It’s almost more than I can take."

The young man nodded. "Some pretty bad things went down last night, they say, and not just here in San Francisco. The only thing that I saw myself was that the sky had a crazy color to it. As usual, the brass isn't explaining anything.”

When I looked out the window again, the water and the city were still there. Why was my memory full of black spots? What bad things was the pilot talking about?

"Uh, excuse me -- what -- what day is this?"

"Ma'am?"

"What day is this? I'm a little confused."

"It's Saturday."

"Saturday? The 23rd?"

He blinked in surprise. "No, ma'am. It's the 16th."

The 16th? My head spun. I had gone out to the prison on Thursday the 21st. Now it was five days earlier! Had I experienced another time-shift! If the young serviceman was right, I had slipped five days back into the past -- sort of. As a matter of fact, I was still two days ahead of the date where this craziness had first begun, at the Mall on Thursday the 14th.

What had shoved me ahead in time, and then dragged me back --partway?

All I could think was that some kind of unknown force was still messing with me. What was it going to do next? I didn’t have a clue.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 12

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 12

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Serial Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Comic books

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Revised June 21, 2021
Revised June 22, 2021
Revised June 23, 2021
Revised June 24, 2021
.Revised June 25, 2021
.
.
.
.
TERROR PLUS ONE

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.

Chapter 12

I see the Past, Present and Future, existing all at once Before me;
O Divine Spirit, sustain me on thy wings!

William Blake
.
.

What's happened? Think, Lukasz, think! I told myself.

I tried to keep from shaking. I had shifted from Thursday back to Saturday. It was another leap of five days, but this time I’d gone into the past instead of the future. But had I returned to my own reality, or was I still in the gullet of the same strange alternate world? Even worse, was this a whole new parallel dimension filled with crazy inconsistencies that I would have to learn about one by one?

If it were option Number Two, this was the day when Eden returned home from Mrs. Walker's house, accompanied by Lauren and Evie. Gus had been arrested by Aladdin the night before. And today was also the day when Mantra had been rendered powerless, right after her escape from the Soul Walk.

Looking out over the Bay, I tried to get my mind around the information that I'd so far gleaned from living Wednesday and Thursday in the future. Basically, after Eden arrived home with Evie and Lauren, a messenger from Aladdin had brought Eden an airline ticket along with a message from Sarn -- an order to report to San Francisco’s HQ ASAP. I supposed that Mantra had flown on a commuter aircraft and was picked up at an airstrip by a helicopter pilot sent from Alcatraz Island. So, here I was now, on that Saturday the 16th helicopter ride, with my feet in the shoes of this world’s Mantra.

Across the dusky sky and water, I sighted the rocky prison isle dead ahead.

Physically, I felt dragged out in a big way. Unfortunately, I had to look sharp when I met with my supervisor. I especially couldn’t let her know that I was an involuntary time-traveler. I had to make it look as though this was the first time that I’d ever set foot on Alcatraz Island.

Focus, Lukasz! I knew that Dr. Sarn would take me to see Gus. But when I'd met Gus on Thursday, I found out that he didn’t remember anything about his mother’s Saturday visit. That told me that he must have been kept under sedation while it was happening.

I’m a hard case, but I’m not made of stone. I wasn't at my best. My mental strain and my body’s physical strain was a heavy load to carry. But the stakes were high. If I looked and sounded like a nervous wreck, it would be bad. Having Sarn rate me as unfit for duty could mess up everything. I would be able to learn a lot about what my crooked colleges were up to so long as I pretended to be as right as rain and raring to go.

But, Lord, my fatigue had me just about floored. As it happened, the body I was occupying had been dead less than twelve hours earlier. Okay, I’m used to being brought back from the corpse state, but its still not an easy row to hoe.

"You look uneasy,” my pilot said. “Lots of people get jumpy on their first 'copter ride. You'll be yourself once you plant your feet back on solid ground."

Yeah, and I bet you'll be glad to be rid of a flaky-acting dame, too, I thought.

We made the approach to the Alcatraz hanger just as I’d experienced before. I saw Dr. Sarn waiting on the tarmac, dressed in a lab coat and brown slacks -- different from what she’d worn on Thursday evening. I now realized that not only was Sarn dressed differently from before, but I was, too.

But clothes didn’t concern me so much as did the general situation. Was this my last stop in time, or had I become a floating bottle tossed from continent to continent by storms? Would I become like that dude in Quantum Leap, who never got home, but faced a lifetime of temporal shifting? I’m not the suicidal type, but an existence like that character’s would really put me to the test.

First and foremost, I was wondering what had happened to the borrowed body I'd just left behind in the future? Had the soul of the missing Eden automatically reclaimed it, or had it slumped dead across the keyboard where I was typing? What a sad thought! That would mean that the Gus and Evie of this world had lost their mother.

But I had an additional disquieting thought. Would I be kicked out of this body by a younger version of myself on Wednesday, coming across the dimensional barriers from the world of my origin, fresh from visiting the Kid’s Club at the Mall? Would being supplanted in that way kill me?

The ‘copter door was now opening. I tried to look steady as I descended the landing ladder to the pavement. Sarn strode up, her Teutonic features tightly set.

"Hello, Blake. Thank you for coming on such short notice. From reports, you’ve had one hell of an experience."

"I did, but I’m here to help," I answered noncommittally. My best bet for making it through this setup without a fumble would be to be a good listener and say as little as possible.

She motioned me to follow.

"How much does Aladdin know about what happened to the world last night?" I asked.

"Well, we're still gathering the details. By the way, I want you to know that your son is in the best possible hands."

I made no reply to that absurd statement and simply followed her to a cell occupied by Gus. It was a probably a temporary holding cell, not the large one that I’d already visited. There was no troop of medics on duty, only two muscular guards with electronic rifles. The boy lay in a similar capsule for containment and monitoring, though, looking catatonic.

"Can anyone explain what's made him this way?" I asked.

Sarn's brows knitted. "Many people were harmed or changed last night, at a rate that we've never seen before. But we’ve known for a long time that ordinary people can become ultras when struck by some unknown energy originating in outer space."

"Did -- Did you find out anything new at all?"

"I can’t say that we have. But lunatic things always happen when ultras are around."

"I don’t follow. Are you saying that the ultras were somehow involved in last night’s craziness?"

She shook her head. "I can’t say that, either. But wherever those people get into any picture, bizarre things happen. You’ll be glad to know that we're not just monitoring anymore. We’re well along in activating a program to proactively do something about the menace they present."

I didn’t care for the sound of that. "How so?"

"We’ve established protocols for capturing powerful ultras. We've been readying an operation with a certain target in mind, but we changed plans abruptly because of the chaos that happened last night.”

“Do you mean we have a new target? Who’s that?”

“Mantra.”

"I don’t understand,” I said. I had almost blurted: “You've already got Mantra," but my plan was to play things close to the vest while taking in as much information as possible.

"Blake!? Blake, is that you --?" a woman’s voice called out to me.

I turned to see Blythe Ashwin locked up, as before. I stepped tentatively toward her, only to have to dodge the hand that she’d shot out to throttle me with.

Taking in a deep breath, I regarded my erstwhile foe from a couple paces back. I had deliberately made the Company think she represented the secret identity of Mantra. The ugly truth, unfortunately, was that Blythe was suffering the punishment that had been intended for me.

Seeing Blythe’s bad treatment confirmed me in the idea that I should get her out of prison, while allowing Aladdin go on thinking that she was Mantra. Okay, I’m no paragon. If I ever let anyone read these memoirs, my best defense has to be that there are no lily-white people, not even among ultra heroes. But I honestly try hard not to be worse than light gray.

"You framed me, you slime!" Blythe starting yelling. "You trapped me here, ruined my career!"

In all fairness, that hadn't been me, but the other Mantra. But this was a distinction without a real difference. Before I could say a word to calm the prisoner, Sarn flashed a hand-held object and assured me, "Don't worry, Blake, she's not hurting anyone except herself!"

Ashwin started screaming to the crackle of electricity. It was like a sound effect from an old-style horror movie. The prisoner fell to the floor, moaning with pain. Because I'd learned a little about Aladdin prisoner-control technology, I knew that she'd been implanted with a pain goad, one that her keepers could turn on with a push-button remote. I hated even pretending that I was one of these Aladdin people. I only hoped that someday I could do something that would hurt them even worse than my actions had already hurt them.

In every way, Aladdin was over the top. In my world, I'd discovered their participation in a plot called "Operation Powerhouse." Until then, I’d known that Aladdin had some bad elements in it, but the Powerhouse experience started me wondering whether the whole outfit wasn’t corrupt. The information I had so far was leading me to think that the agency was a henchman organization for a dirty group of trillionaires and all-around moral degenerates called “the International Cabal.” Back in the Eighteenth Century, they had referred to themselves as the “Illuminati,” a name that still keeps appearing in popular fiction. And to think that it was these people whom I had to depend on to "help" Gus.

"I take it she's still denying that she's Mantra," I remarked in a neutral tone.

"Yes," the doctor affirmed. "She’s confessed to a lot of things, but when it comes to her work as Mantra, she gives up nothing. In one way, though, she’s telling the truth -- she's not Mantra."

“How can you say that?” I asked.

"She’s locked up, she’s old news. There's a new Mantra, one who might possibly be just as dangerous! One of our men took a video of her rampage last night."

I assumed that they were talking about Lauren. I knew that if she were captured by Aladdin, she’d be treated as badly as Ashwin. People with the totalitarian mindset seem to have a compulsion to torture.

Sarn led me into a meeting room containing an audio-video console. At the punch of a button, a slide lit up a wall screen. It wasn’t Lauren in the picture, but an image of Necromantra!

"So that’s the new Mantra?” I asked. “And does this person have anything to do with the reason I was called in to San Francisco, Dr. Sarn?"

"It's got everything to do with it, Blake," Sarn affirmed. "It can't be coincidence that this new Mantra has shown up so soon after we captured the old one. We don’t want a new version of that troublemaker remaining free for very long. I want you to be the Aladdin HQ liaisons with the task force that we're sending to corral this Mantra wannabe!"

"The headquarters contact? Who’ll be the field agents?" I was assuming that I was about to meet the new Wrath.

"The A-Team, along with two very powerful operatives," Doc Sarn replied. She jabbed another button and a sliding door glided into a recess, revealing a room occupied by an ill-matched pair.

"The new Wrath and --" Sarn began.

"NM-E!?" I broke in. "That thing murdered the Squad!" My incredulity wasn't a put-on. One reason that so few ultras have been known to history is because N-ME has been operating for centuries as an automated hunter-assassin, striking them down almost as quickly as they appeared. So far, it was still a mystery as to what group was controlling the metal monster. It had to be a group, since what individual mad genius could have stayed alive for so long?

My supervisor shrugged. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend, Blake."

I shook my head. "That thing will kill anything in its path. It has absolutely no loyalty!"

"It does now, Mrs. Blake," "Wrath" chimed in -- though the word chime doesn't properly describe the powerful baritone resonating from the man’s deep barrel chest. He looked as Lauren had described him, right down to his mostly-red action suit.

The tinny voice of NM-E also clicked on. "Hello, Mrs. Blake...I'm glad we'll be colleagues."

I stared. Was this mechanical recitation coming from a super-weapon actually supposed to reassure me?

"We have to move swiftly," Sarn said, "before the new Mantra heads out. If she's really a novice, she'll be easier to catch now rather than later, after she's gotten seasoned. We have a transport waiting to take you three and the A-team to L.A. Your specific orders, and the equipment you'll need to support the mission, are waiting onboard."

I had read the basic copy that Aladdin made available to insiders about the A-Team. It was the best attack and capture squad in Aladdin’s box of toys. They had subdued and brought in numerous ultras. But their success record left me underwhelmed, since most of their arrests had been of innocent people who had just lately developed super powers. Gus was a good case in point.

"So what are you going to do?” I asked. “Use a false attack by NM-E to bring Mantra -- the new Mantra -- out of the shadows to combat it?"

"Very astute, Blake," nodded the doctor. "I’ve already told you that you were wasting yourself remaining for so long in the data-analysis department."

I ignored the compliment; I was too ticked off. On one hand, Aladdin knows that many ultras are good people willing to step up and unselfishly defend strangers, but they still broadcast the idea that super-powered beings were a “menace.” I think what the Cabal doesn’t like about ultras is the fact that they're wild cards. People aiming to enslave and impoverish the population of the entire globe don’t like wild cards getting in their way. I didn’t think that it was any coincidence that the Washington Swamp choked up a dedicated anti-ultra agency like Aladdin to help with their world-conquest plot.

I changed the subject. "Does Ashwin know anything about this red-headed babe who appeared last night? Can it be that she and Ashwin are sorority sisters in the same cult?"

Sarn frowned. "We interrogated the prisoner intensively to plumb her knowledge, but she’s as hard as nails. We’ll have to put our questions directly to the half-dressed bitch, once we have her locked up.” The doctor glanced toward Wrath. “Escort Mrs. Blake back to the hangar; there's no time to waste."

Our task-force was shuttled to the mainland by boat. A string of vans carried us to a corporate airfield. This collaboration between government and international corporatism was typical. The International Cabal -- often called the Deep State in the U.S. -- operated under a complex organization. A cadre of mostly-independent interests were colluding together in the manner of the Mafia. The central banks provided the brains, while the government kept the common people in order and fleeced them so that the super-rich wouldn't have to spend their own money. With control of the Justice Department, they could nullify the whole American law enforcement apparatus.But it was the international corporations that were proactive in the dirty deeds department, doing the things that were too risky for government bureaucrats to undertake. These included mass censorship, election fraud, organizing riots and insurrections. And backing up this dirty combo were the foreign despotisms. These wanted to take by force what the American people had built through honest labor. The worst of these foreign vultures was, to no one's surprise, China.

The transport assigned to our operation was ready and waiting by the time we arrived. With Wrath watching me, I had to carry on in a business-like manner, just as he was doing. But my fatigue was coming back; I could barely stay awake while reading the mission book. My own role in the operation, fortunately, turned out to be relatively simple. I would monitor the action and keep HQ appraised in detail. Wrath was the hotshot wrangler who would be ramroding the scam.

But had to keep on top of things if I was going to protect people I cared about. This mission was supposed to be aimed at Necromantra, but I knew that it was going to veer off target and go after the wrong person. I needed to warn Lauren and get her out of danger. Sure, my interference would change “future history.” But if I could keep her out of a fight with N-ME, it had to be a positive thing.

Naturally I couldn't call Lauren by phone, not as long as I was in a beehive of Aladdin agents. Instead, I had to try to contact her by means of a telepathic link-up, the same way I had reached Pinnacle. Because she and the local Mantra -- whose body I possessed -- had been in mental contact previously, and because her Mantra powers were so strong, I thought the mind to mind linkup would work with her. I'd only began to enter the necessary trance state when Wrath came over with a cup of hot coffee.

"Nervous about flying?" he asked.

I glanced up and accepted the java. "No, it's not the flying. The fact is, I've gone too many hours without sleep and some terrible things happened to me last night."

"I met your daughter while things were at their hottest. She's a cute girl."

"Yeah, I think so, too. But what has me most on edge is riding with that machine. I jabbed my thumb toward N-ME. It feels like I'm on a tour buss with a ticking bomb. How do you control him, Wrath?"

"Wrath is my working handle, Mrs. Blake. My name's Tunney, Greg Tunney. I feel privileged to be working with you."

"I guess you're referring to that European operation I did. I'm only glad I got back alive. In the interest of staying alive, I hope your method of controlling N-ME is fool-proof."

He answered my question affably enough and actually hung around for chit-chat. Wrath had a down to earth charm that might or might not have been genuine. I had to remain wary, though, lest his conversation was really an interrogation. He mentioned that his dad had been one of Aladdin's earliest recruits after its founding. As for Tunney himself, he had served with the Marines right out of high school.Once out, Aladdin recruited him, probably on the basis of his father's repressive record with the Company. Greg's sounding so gung-ho on all things Aladdin creeped me out. In fact, he said that if he ever had a son, he'd want him to join Aladdin, too. Well, I just hope my own kids can do better than that. A lot better.

When I fell into a yawning jag, Tunney left me to my rest. I lay back, mulling over the many possible scenarios that could lead to disaster during the next twenty-four hours. And then I fell asleep.

I just couldn’t help it.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 13

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 13

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Comics

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted July 21, 2021
Revised July 22, 2021
Revised July 28, 2021
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DATING THE N-ME

Edited by Christopher Leeson
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Chapter 13

Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings
To his strong bones, strides o'er the groaning rocks:
He withers all in silence, and his hand
Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.

William Blake

Our party made landing at a restricted field next to L.A. and were taken elsewhere by van. It conveyed us to a corporate site, basically a Deep State safe house. There we conspirators would organize and ready ourselves for the day ahead.

With Wrath directing the A-Team in every detail, there wasn’t much for me to do. I was among the first who were authorized to go get some sleep. My assigned quarters were Spartan, offering fewer amenities than a cheap motel. Again, I couldn’t make use of my cell phone since the premises were protected by energy-field dampeners, making calling out impossible. To use a land line required permission from above, but I didn’t want to ask. The house phones would absolutely be monitored.

Lying back on my bunk, I tried to establish mental contact with Lauren. My concentrated effort seemed to get me close to Lauren's mind, but that consciousness of hers was like a ringing phone that just wouldn’t pick up.

So, I turned my attention to my friend Strike instead. Tomorrow was Sunday. The future history I knew told me that some catastrophe would turn New York City into the new Hiroshima and Strike would be blamed. But my contact attempt never got close. It was as if he were nowhere to be found on the entire planet. Why? Was he dead? Maybe.

Blocked in every direction, I did my best to relax. I’d been dealing with fatigue all day and by now it was shutting down my higher brain functions. I closed my eyes, intending to try to reach Lauren again, but the next thing I knew it was morning.

Wrath wakened me with a tap on the door, calling that I should come down for breakfast. I yelled back, “Okay” and took my Aladdin action suit out of its plastic bag. It was very like what the A-team wore and I didn’t doubt that this was the same outfit that Lauren had seen me sporting at the Mall. Or, maybe I should say, would see me sporting at the Mall.

The morning meal would have been bested by hospital food in any foot race. It’s like government can’t do anything right, nothing at all, except when it comes to causing trouble. The whole A-Team was chowing down and Wrath briefed me on my specific orders. He emphasized that I would not be coming with him and the others to the Mall, but would deploy in a safe area and keep in contact via a com link.

That didn’t sit well. I wanted to get into the action right out of the gate and urged Wrath to upgrade my role, specifically asking permission to go with the team to the Mall. He shook his shaven head. "Can't do that, Ma'am. Protocol says that we've all got to follow the plan. Bad things happen when a plan is laid aside."

So, I was transported to an empty lot near the Mall along with a few others who composed my monitoring team. Then Wrath and the A-Team moved out, with N-ME in the back of a truck box. The thing really filled up the available space. I supervised the work of my helpers readying the equipment. When everything was shipshape, all I had to do was sit quietly in a folding chair, waiting for something to happen.

In fact, I was a pathetically minor piece on the a game board, like the pawn or rook that doesn’t move at all before the checkmate. From what I could tell, the more I tried to change the future, the less traction I was gaining. I wasn’t even sure that history could be altered, but until I knew for sure I wasn’t going to give up. To try to reach Lauren again I needed privacy, something I didn’t have where I was. So I went to the portable toilet that had been dropped off for us and, once alone inside, made another effort at nailing down a psychic link.

"Wha---?!" I heard the teen’s thoughts exclaiming. "Eden, is that you?"

"Yes," I said, projecting as forcefully as I could. "Didn't you hear me trying to reach you last night?"

"Oh, I was having trouble sleeping, after what I’d gone through with Gus, Coven, and Necromantra. So, I took a full dose of Unisom and it clicked me off like a light, until Dad got me up for breakfast."

"Well, I’m calling to warn you. Aladdin is back. They’ve set up a sting operation trying to capture any ultra who takes the bait. They’ll be at the Sherman Way Mall this morning. That guy Wrath is already there with a hit team. Don’t go anywhere near the Mall today."

"You’re talking about the big bald dude in the funky red spandex?"

"Yes. Take it from me, these guys are deadly. Remember how easily they took out Gus? And this group is even better trained than that one was. If you hear news about a giant robot endangering people, don’t try to help. It’s only a government false flag. I mean, it's just a buff to draw in unsuspecting ultras and capture them. The robot is programmed not to hurt anyone."

"You mean Aladdin and a robot are at the Mall now?"

"Yes. Stay home!"

"But I'm almost there -- at the Mall, I mean. Mom and I are meeting at the bookstore. If she sees a giant robot clanking around the place she might have a heart attack! I have to get her out, and quick! Maybe I can breeze in and breeze out with her before the dirty dozen barges in."

"No! Lauren, you can't risk it. You'll be in the middle of a hurricane. Your mom will be all right. If anyone attacks NM-E -- the robot, I mean – it will shift into combat mode. The Aladdin people think they can control the thing, but I know they can't."

"I can’t take chances with Mom. She has a really low melting point. Look, if the robot shows up, all we have to do is play it cool and head out the back door. Right?"

"Wrong. Getting close to that monster is like juggling lightning bolts!"

"Bye, Eden. Gotta go! Every second counts!"

"Lauren, no!"

She was gone.

Teenagers! They're all idiots!

Again I wondered if it was possible to change history. Maybe I was worrying about nothing. Possibly, the fight between Lauren and NM-E, along with its successful conclusion, was foreordained. But I wasn’t sure.

It’s not in my nature to sit around hoping that things would turn out for the best. I’d already meddled with Lauren’s encounter with N-ME by contacting her ahead of time. There's a theory that should a person move even one pebble on a beach, all of future history is going to be changed, not just here on Earth, but all over the universe. It was just possible that merely by being on a planet where I didn't belong had randomized all of its future events. That would include any fight that would be waged between Lauren and N-ME.

The trouble was, I lacked freedom of action while inside this nest of Aladdin agents. It also bothered me that I didn't have a plan. I wasn't sure what I could do at the Mall even if I went there. If Wrath was no match for N-ME, I was only a straw in the wind. Feeling rotten, I went back to my team and asked for an update report on Greg Tunney’s operation.

Tunney had, in fact, been sending in play-by-play reports via his remote. He had just released NM-E and the robot was advancing across the mall tarmac. Already hundreds of panicked shoppers were fleeing by car or on foot.

I wondered if the killing machine had been programmed to say, “I’m from the government. I’m here to help you.”

According to plan, the robot would roam about looking scary and Tunney was under orders to recall it as soon as local authorities started to arrive. If Necromantra or some other ultra got into the mix before that, the A-Team would rush in with nets, gas grenades, and stun guns. If captured, the hero would be spirited away for interrogation and brainwashing, à la Blythe Ashwin.

Whomever they caught, I knew it wouldn’t be Necromantra. A bitch like that couldn’t care less if innocent people were being terrorized just a mile away from her!

If forced to leave the Mall without a capture, the team would move the operation to an alternate site – a multiplex movie theater in an adjacent suburb. I kept my fingers crossed, hoping that Lauren had already gotten in and gotten out.

But I was almost equally worried about Warstrike – or Strike, as he was called in this twisted world. I’d already verified that his phone numbers were not duplicated on this planet. It was like I was walking around in a dream; I knew something awful was coming, but couldn't do a damned thing about it.

And then there was the problem of New York. It was useless to give anyone in authority advanced warning about the coming disaster. Government functionaries don't pay attention to concerned citizens claiming to see the future. Worse, after 911 the USA had become a surveillance state. If I sent in a call and something happened, law-enforcement bureaucrats would hunt me down, thinking I had to be part of the plot. If the FBI found out who I was, they would tip off their buddies at Aladdin, too. Both agencies would slam me with questions that I wouldn’t be able to answer. As much as I hated it to admit it, Fun City was on its own, and so was Brandon. I only hoped that he could survive being smeared as a mass-murdering international terrorist fugitive.

An electronic voice interrupted my dismal thinking. It was Tunney, saying that NM-E had made contact with an ultra opponent! I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, hoping that – this time – that the robot had run into someone other than Lauren Sherwood.

"What does the opponent look like, Wrath?" I asked, my throat tight.

"It's not the red-headed chick from the picture," he replied. “I'm seeing that same bouncy cheerleader-type I ran into Saturday night -- the one that your little girl called 'Mantra.' She's coming on strong! That kid's got real power!"

Worst-case scenario! Why was Lauren doing this? But that was a dumb question. Why did kids her age do anything?

“Ah! The little blonde just got a good haymaker on NM-E..." Tunney was saying. "He's staggering. I'm checking his damage readouts...No, it's good! Old Nuts and Bolts must have the constitution of an Abrams tank.” Then I heard Wrath give the order: “NM-E -- intercept and detain....”

Then he yelled "No!" and went silent.

I sucked in a breath. That outcry could very mean that Lauren had trashed the equipment van – the very van that Aladdin depended on to keep control of the situation. NM-E's hard drive would now be rebooting to its original program -- a psychotic algorithm that had somehow been written ages ago, long before the human race had conceived of software. It was a program that had been telling the robot to hunt down and kill ultras for thousands of years.

Wrath would intervene to help Lauren, I knew, which would result in getting himself seriously injured to no good purpose.

I turned to my subordinate officer. "Try to pick up Tunney's lieutenant on the A-Team,"

A moment later, he'd raised a woman's voice.

"Smoke is coming from Wrath's van," she reported. "Tunney doesn't respond. There's an ultra-battle going on in front of us; we can’t head in directly. I'm sending a squad to circle around and get a visual!"

The situation had already spun out of control. Plainly, I had to let Aladdin know that we had a disaster on our hands. I sent in my message and the far-end monitor answered, “We hear you, Agent Blake.”

"We think that Mantra has attacked the mobile mission van," I said. "There's a good possibility that Wrath has lost control of NM-E. This could turn into a civilian massacre. The A-Team has to be ordered to put the robot down. And I recommend that additional heavy support be dropped in ASAP."

“Measures will be taken, Agent Blake,” a different voice answered back. “Maintain your position.”

I sat for a few minutes with no further contact.

Even though I didn't know how I could make a difference by intervening, I couldn’t stand the idea of Lauren fighting alone against a monster that had already made mincemeat out of squads of ultras. I was on the edge of going AWOL and heading for the Mall when a headquarters colonel came on the air. I knew him only slightly, a hard case called Colonel Smekes. "Agent Blake. Move your monitoring operation closer in. We need better information.”

I didn’t give a damn about the monitoring, but I could use Smeke’s words as an excuse to go to the Mall personally. I took about five seconds to tell my communications team to move our station to within sight of the A-Team's activity focus and I’d join them there. Then I took off for the shopping center at a sprint.

I actually made better time on foot than I could have in a vehicle. Every car at the Mall was trying to get out at the same time. But swarms of other motorists were going toward the lot -- thrill-seekers alerted by broadcast news that they could go witness a first-class ultra brawl. Horns blared as the opposing streams of traffic ran afoul of each other, bringing everybody to a halt.

I had to weave between a hundred mostly-stationary autos. Upon reaching the parking lot, I saw something jetting into the sky like a giant bottle rocket. It was NM-E, making his escape by air -- just as future history had foretold.

I’d already known that Lauren's fight with NM-E was fated to climax inside the Toy World store, a location I knew well. I set out and, when it was just ahead, Wrath came staggering from of the wreckage, holding his shoulder and limping. I got goose-flesh. He should have been in a much worse condition than this. History had been changed! But if Tunney had lucked out by being hurt less than he should have been, could Lauren have been even more hurt?

"Wrath," I yelled. "Where's L -- Mantra?"

"B-Back in there," he gasped.

I scrambled through a gaping hole in the Toy World wall. Inside, it looked like a herd of buffaloes had rumbled through its aisles using flamethrowers. Broken and scorched toys were strewn everywhere. A headless action figure of Mantra lay at my feet. The poor thing looked about as ruined as I felt.

With my eyes burning and tearing from the stinging smoke, I scanned what was a chaos of ruination. Tunney touched my shoulder.

"She's -- she's over there, M-Mrs. Blake. B-Behind those boxes," he stammered.

I went where he pointed and, amid a pile of crumpled cartons, I saw Lauren. Blood covered much of her slim body and her peaches-and-cream flesh was torn in many places. The gray magic armor she had on had been heavily scarred. Even if the girl could have survived such a battering, her open throat wound made all the rest of her injuries look irrelevant.

I dashed to the teenager and gripped her bloody arm, feeling for a pulse. I detected not hint of life. She was still warm, but....

But she was dead.

Lauren was dead.

The fatal injury of a young person would have been hard to deal with under any circumstances, but in a fiasco like this I had very good reason to suppose that I was responsible.

CONTINUED IN 14

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 14

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Malibu Comics

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted 08-21-21
Revised 08-22-21

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.

Chapter 14

THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION

“Excessive sorrow laughs.
Excessive joy weeps.”

William Blake
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"It -- It got outta hand," Tunney was yammering. "She trashed the controls. The thing went wild. The harder she fought, the faster the robot attacked. She was just a kid -- no match for that kind of monster. I tried to kick in my berserker thing and take the pressure off her, but NM-E knocked me head over heels with one swipe. By the time the world stopped spinning, it was too late."

I nodded morosely, emotion having taken my voice away. Lauren had been more than a younger friend; she had loved Mantra in an endearing fannish way. Two nights earlier, she had risked everything to save her. With time and seasoning, she could have been one of the world's greatest ultras.

So why had the girl pitched into an insane fight after I’d told her it wasn’t necessary? Was it just bravado? The thought of Lauren’s parents visiting her graveside sliced through my breast. How could they -- how could any parent -- bear the sudden, violent death of an only child?

And then there was Evie. She would soon be finding out that her friend, the same friend who had rescued her mother, had been killed in a terrible way.

I shook my head. I didn't want to see Evie cry. Not again. Not so soon.

Tunney put his arm around me. I swallowed hard, struggling to get a grip on myself.

"I know. This is bad," he said. "I feel like crying myself."

I looked away from Lauren’s corpse. What was I supposed to do now?

I squared my shoulders and raised my head. What I needed to do was to channel the old Luskasz. I needed his toughness, his calloused acceptance of the world’s brutalities. Though his eyes I'd seen countless people die over the centuries. I had seen many children die, too. The loss of friends, even lovers, was no new experience for Lukasz. I had to accept what life was, a messy and confusing thing whose flip side was death. Here, in a wrecked toy store, I didn't have the luxury of giving in and falling apart -- not with Aladdin standing there looking at me.

I stood up; Tunney backed off a step. My first duty as an Aladdin agent was to make a report to HQ. My emotions were screaming "to hell with headquarters," but I had to follow the plan. I needed to show them that Eden Blake was a strong and steady agent. I wanted to be seen as a dependable operative who could be phased by nothing. I needed to con the leadership into trusting me with more and more crucial projects, so I'd be in a better position to screw them up. Also, being able to help Gus later on might depend on the impression I made with them on this terrible day.

Okay, what next? The perimeter had to be controlled, of course. The girl's body had to be gotten out of sight; as long as it lay out out in the open it would serve to define the narrative. Aladdin wouldn’t like that. They would appreciate a quick thinker who kept their options open. What they most wanted to avoid was being boxed in and facing the music for their own incompetence.

And through it all I had to remember that I was in a personal battle for survival. Sarn and Smekes were soon going to learn who this new Mantra had been. And Lauren Sherwood had been Eden Blake’s babysitter. How could they ever think that such a glaring fact was no big deal? How was I going to wriggle out of such an incredibly incriminating situation? How was I going to stay outside of a prison cell?

But what else? Tunney. He needed medical attention.

I looked up. By now some of the A-Team were barging in. The squad was loaded down with more weaponry than G.I. Joe. I turned and faced them, my chin high, my fists clenched. They were my audience of the moment and I had a role to play. I had to present myself as the kind of leader they expected, a leader who treated death and destruction as part of a good day’s work. Higher ups would soon be questioning them about how I had carried myself while working in the disaster mode. I had to make sure they gave the bosses the right answers.

"Send for an ambulance," I told the squad. "P-Put up a cordon. Keep every one out – police, too -- until a forensic team has taken over. Don't give statements to reporters. Don't add anything to what the public can't already see for themselves. And don’t admit who you really are. Any lie is better than the truth, but be evasive until you know the exact lies that HQ wants you to tell. You’ll be briefed on that soon. Standard procedure."

"Yes, ma'am," one of the faceless agents responded smartly.

It was full dark before I got back to HQ. In a crazy coincidence, Aladdin’s embarrassment was already being blotted out by a much bigger crisis. The MSM stations were all going crazy about the destruction of New York City. Usually the media clowns had it easy; they simply read whatever cover story Operation Mockingbird sends them. But New York had hit them out of left field. Television’s propagandist reporters had to fall back on their own resources, a situation which is never easy when one is an empty suit.

At first they put out a garble of pure incoherence. Seven-figure news readers and reporters were losing it right before the eyes of the nation. What made it even harder for them was the fact that so many of their network communications centers had been wiped -- including the New York Times building. They had to had to answer huge questions with no information and so gave the country wild-eyed speculation. The dumbest of them were already babbling about Russia having done it.

The situation, as bad as it was, was perfect for Aladdin. Nobody would be thinking about the fiasco in Canoga Park. The news would be about New York and nothing else except New York. The death of a new and unknown young ultra at a suburban mall would be local news. Only the ultra’s friends and family would notice her empty chair and remember who used to sit in it.

At first I dared to hope that the mass confusion would botch our mission debriefing and make me less of a target. But no such luck. The acting L.A. division boss, Colonel Smekes was, like most A-holes, an anal retentive. He’d hit the ground running, already seeing the greater L.A. district as his own turf and wanting to maximize his control of Aladdin's affairs inside it. Mass death occurring on the other side of the continent wasn’t enough to stop him from crossing every "T" and dotting every "I". All the senior personnel on the A-team, along with the ranking members of its support staff, were ordered to stay over. Smekes had to know what had happened -- so he could cover it up properly.

Wrath was the first agent to be called to the hot seat.

On the other hand, our team’s mission security level had been downgraded and I was finally at leave to call out. Evie would be with her grandma, I knew, and so I dialed Mrs. Freeman’s house.

"Hello, M-Mom," I said when Barbara Freeman answered.

"You sound awful, Eden. Where on earth have you been?"

I took a deep breath and steadied my voice. "I'm at the downtown office. I was able to...to look in on Gus in San Francisco. The authorities had him in sedation, so we couldn't talk. But a work-related crisis came up and I didn't have any choice but to pitch in. The CIA was under a communications shutdown until just now."

"Is your crisis about what happened in New York? Eden, what's going on? Are there going to be more attacks?"

Fortunately, I knew that this was going to be a one-off incident. "No, I don't think so. We don't know much yet. The New York blast came totally without warning."

“CCN is saying that the Russians did it. Is there going to be war?”

“No, there’s no proof that the Russians did anything at all. I don’t think there’s going to be war.”

She switched the topic to Gus, but I fended her off.

"It’s very complex. I’m finding out that a lot of people suffered strange effects on Friday night," I said. "Some unknown energy from outer space seems to be to blame. We've been trying to get the facts. Maybe the blast in New York was some sort of an aftershock to that event, or maybe not. I'll be home soon and tell you everything that the CIA lets me tell you."

"You should have found some way to talk to Evie before this. You know what a fright she's had and this awful stuff isn’t helping. She needs her mother more than ever."

"I'm sorry. I work for the government. Remember all those restrictions that Daddy used to be under? I’ve got to put up with those rules, too."

I doubt that satisfied her, but she changed her tone. "Eden, the A.P. was here yesterday, asking about what happened Friday. You hardly told me anything before rushing off, and Evie can't talk about it without starting to cry. But she did say that you two were separated for most of the night. What happened?"

"I couldn’t help what happened," I evaded. "I’ll give you the full explanation soon." Hopefully, I thought I could get away with telling Mrs. Freeman the same I'd told Tunney -- that I'd lain unconscious in an empty lot until morning. "Is Evie there?" I asked, wanting to change the subject.

Mother summoned the little girl to the phone.

"Mommy!"

It felt good to hear her voice. It had taking me a little while to start thinking and feeling like a real parent, but tonight I was a parent full bore. Evie’s voice was like balm for my frayed nerves. "Darling, I want you to know that I’m all right and that I'm going to see you soon."

"Are you still in San Frisco, Mommy?"

"No, Button. I'm back in the city, at the office downtown. I’m less than an hour away from you. Right now I'm just standing around, waiting to talk to my boss. When that’s done with, I think I’ll be able to get over to Grandma’s house and see you."

"You're really okay?"

"I'm very tired, but I'm perfectly okay."

"Did you get your ---?"

"I thought she wanted to ask about my powers coming back, so I quickly interrupted. "Shhh, honey. No, that didn't happen. But, please, remember that we never talk about important family subjects over the phone."

"Okay. I'm sorry, Mommy. Did you hear how a super bomb landed on New York and killed everybody? That's on the right side of the map, isn't it?"

"Yes, Pumpkin. It's terrible news. Try not to think about it."

"And TV also said that a monster attacked the mall where we always shop. Mommy, what's happening? Is the world coming to an end?"

"No, I don't think so, Evie. I think it’s one of those funny weeks when everything bad seems to happen all at once."

Apparently Aladdin hadn't released public information that "Mantra" was dead, or else Evie would have brought it up. I didn't want to give her the news before I absolutely had to. She'd be needing lots of on-the-scene hugs and kisses to pull her through.

"Did you find out where Gus is?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes, I did. The doctors gave him something to make him sleep. I'll have to go back later after he wakes up."

"Are you're going to go away again so soon? It's such a long way!"

"I know, Button. I think we'll both have to go to San Francisco and stay there for a while. Then we'll be able to visit Gus every day."

"Me, too?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure yet."

“It must be awful to be in jail.”

She didn't know the half of it. "I'll tell you all about Gus when I get home. Just don't watch TV tonight. You’ll get scared and not be able to sleep. If you’re well rested in the morning we'll see if you’re well enough to go to school."

"I had nightmares last night, Mommy. I had to sleep with Grandma ‘cause I was so afraid. My hands shake sometimes, too. When they do, I can't make them stop."

"My poor baby. You were frightened more than any little girl should ever be. I know a good doctor. I'm sure she can fix that nasty shaking. I'll see you soon, Pumpkin. All my kisses. Please put Grandma back on the line."

"Eden?" came Barbara's voice.

"I'm worried about Evie. I’m going to have to take her to a child psychologist."

"I was going to suggest that."

"I know one from college. She's working in Frisco now. She's the best."

"Okay." Mom sounded just about as drained as I felt.

"Just do whatever you can to keep Evie calm," I said. "Turn off the news for the rest of the night. She doesn't need any more bad dreams.” Most of all, I didn't want her to hear about "Mantra" being dead -- not yet. "Play her some cartoon videos until bedtime."

"I will," she said distractedly, and then added, "The news is making it sound like the whole of New York's been destroyed and millions are dead."

"No, it’s not that bad. The main business district was hardest hit. It was the heart of the corporate office district. About a quarter of the metropolitan area was scorched. We'll know more after the search and rescue teams go in. Luckily, there wouldn't have been many people working at their offices late on a Sunday night. The toll is going to be terrible, but not nearly as bad as those guys on television are making it sound."

"If you say so. But do you think L.A. could be next? Somebody on television was saying the ultras did it -- and there's more ultras around here than anywhere else."

"It’s like I said. Nobody knows anything for certain, but I don't think it was the ultras. The way I see it, for the next several days TV news is going to be a mish-mash of rumor reporting. If you want better information, check the alt-right news sites on the net. If anyone knows anything factual, they’ll have it."

"I will, darling. Just get home soon. Evie needs you."

"I'll try. Bye."

"So you don't think that ultras are involved?" broke in the strained but mellow voice that I knew to be Wrath's.

I put down the receiver and turned. He was in civilian attire and had a snowy sling supported his right arm. The man’s expression was tight and consternated.

"Just an opinion," I said with a sigh.

"A couple days ago, I wouldn't have been so quick to agree. Now I'm not so sure."

I forced a smile. "Hey, you you don’t look so bad, now that the blood's been washed off. How do you feel?"

"I'm so high on painkillers that my head's spinning. I got some abrasions and torn ligaments, they say, but over-all I lucked out. Things could’ve been a lot worse."

I knew for a fact that they would have been a lot worse if I hadn't blundered into this timeline.

“Was Colonel Smekes angry?” I asked.

“No. But that gent has ice water in his veins. Watch out.”

"What did he want to know?" I asked.

"He grilled me on everything I saw and everything I did. He's hammering on Coburn now."

I nodded sympathetically and motioned him to a chair. "Is there anything new breaking about New York?"

He shook his head. "Smekes says there's a possible ID on Strike as one of the perpetrators. He and some other ultra-looking types were spotted on the south edge of Central Park. Of what's left of Central Park."

"Is the source reliable?"

The news and pictures came from a National Guard battalion that's been on duty since the Terrordyne attack on the Statue of Liberty. They reached the edge of the destruction zone before anyone else did."

So the Strike shoe had finally been dropped, I thought.

The poor guy. I was at a loss to think how I could possibly say or do anything to help him.

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 15

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 15

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Fanfiction

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Malibu Comics

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted 09-21-21
Revised 09-22-21
Revised 09-23-21

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.

Chapter 15

CHAOS AND CONSPIRACY

"The villain at the gallows tree
When he is doomed to die
To assuage his misery
In Virtue's praise does cry."

William Blake
.
.
.
.

"It's hard to believe that Strike could be involved," I said slowly. "He's always been wild, but never a criminal or terrorist. And what’s up with Strike anyway? There hasn’t been any report citing him in quite a while. The last confirmed incident was something about a fight inside a church."

"Yes, it was a cathedral, a little before Christmas," said Wrath. "Now he suddenly turns up running with a bad outfit -- mass murderers."

I knew more about Strike than I was pretending.

Back on my own Earth, Warstrike had been mixing things up with an ultra called Blind Faith, in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. After that fight, he was whisked off to the Godwheel where he, me, and a lot of others were forced into a grueling adventure involving godlike beings. It was a damned hard experience for all of us, but Warstrike had an actual emotional breakdown at the end of it.

When returned to Earth, he’d taken a long ocean cruise to recuperate. He'd remained inactive around his home until the end of June, when I got in touch with him. That’s when we discovered an Aladdin treason plot and worked together to smash it. Naturally, “the Company” made sure that the operation didn’t get into the official records.

"Do I have this straight?” I asked. “Have we got anything against Strike except a single sighting putting him in the wrong place at the wrong time? Can we be sure that the National Guard didn’t see an impersonator? Or, maybe he just showed up to check things out, just as the soldiers were doing. The Company has to investigate, but we can’t go jumping to conclusions."

"I tell you, lady, the more I learn about what ultras do, the less I understand them."

I thought it best to drop the subject, but Tunney wasn't finished.

"Mrs. -- Eden, did you ever notice how many of the ultras are just kids?"

That was an odd question. I regarded the man keenly. "Yes. An awful lot of them seem to be surprisingly young. Some are actual children."

"How are grade schoolers supposed to figure into the 'vast ultra conspiracy,' like they’re always talking about on CCN and MSDNC?"

I grimaced. "It’s not very likely. My son was no conspirator. When he got disfigured, he went into an emotional shell, thinking himself as too ugly to ever be loved again. Then he suddenly got ultra powers and started taking his anger out on everyone around him."

"Anyone with too much power is dangerous, and I guess that would include me."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"Aladdin’s science division took me beyond the level that they’d taken Thomas Hunter,” Wrath explained. “I can work myself up into a kind of 'berserker' mode.' It multiplies my strength and my toughness, but I always go nuttier than I want to. My emotions get hyper-charged and I can veer off track and demolish more than just the target."

"'Wrath' is the perfect code name for you, then," I lamely jested.

Tunney’s return smile seemed forced. "That may be. You know, Eden, there's always been this theory in high places that the ultras are all part of some master plan. Maybe the Illuminati are behind them, maybe it's the neo-Nazis. The trouble is, whenever I’ve met an ultra ‘in the wild,' it’s never been any kind of Nazis-type.”

“Yes, that’s how I’ve seen things, too.” I agreed. Well, not really, but I wanted to encourage the new kid on the block to start thinking for himself, and not be a sucker for the Deep State's party line.

“There are a lot of youngsters out there,” he said. “What am I supposed to do? Kill wet-behind-the-ears kids or lock them up because they've started to take the comic books they read too seriously?" He shook his head. "It'll be a long time before I can stop thinking about that dead girl. I spoke to her a little and she didn't seem bad. She talked like any kid would on her way to a Halloween party. A girl her age should be grounded for pulling bone-headed, dangerous stunts, not --"

"I can't argue with that!" I put in abruptly. The less I needed to think about Lauren's death, the better. "It's going to be hard sleeping for the next few nights, I'm afraid. I should have stayed behind my CRT. Data analysis is dull but it doesn't put blood on a person's hands."

Wrath shook his head. "At least you've got a few technical skills to fall back on. I'm just a fighter. That's all I'm good at. I never minded picking off those ISIS killers, but this! I was better off chasing around the sand dunes than I am in L.A."

At that moment, a female staffer poked her head into the lounge and called my name. "Mrs. Blake, Colonel Smekes is ready to see you now."

Well, this was it. Whatever the newly-promoted Aladdin grand poobah was going to throw at me, I had to face it. I muttered a goodbye to Wrath and followed her out.

For more than a quarter of an hour, I was required to recount everything I saw, heard, and did at the Mall. I tried to make it seem like I wasn’t holding anything back, when I was actually dodging around the truth like a circus tumbler.

"There's something you're not saying," Smekes suddenly remarked.

Oops, I thought. Maybe I’ve been underestimating this professional paranoid.

I nodded. "I know. It's that girl's death. I've got children of my own; that young ultra must have had parents, too. Kids grow up accepting that someday they're going to have to bury their mom and dad. But when a parent has to bury a child...." I shook my head. "Well, that's...that's something else."

"Yes, Mrs. Blake, I understand," he commiserated without letting any sincerity creep in. "Both your son and daughter were placed in grave danger only recently."

I just looked soulful, not wanting to encourage him to continue on with the topic.

"We discovered less than an hour ago that you had a personal connection with this short-lived new Mantra."

Oh, God! Here comes the body blow.

I feigned incomprehension. The next few minutes would be pivotal. I could almost see myself in a cell next to Blythe Ashwin, with Sarn asking nut ball questions and laying it on hard with the pain button.

Step One. Feign ignorance.

"I don't understand, Colonel Smekes. Personal?"

"We've identified her as Lauren Sherwood, a sixteen year old neighbor of yours. She was also your most frequently used baby sitter. That's very suspicious, wouldn’t you agree?"

Step Two is incredulity. Make it good, Lukasz

"Lauren? Are you m--? Are you serious? An ultra?"

“I’m serious. When you saw her at the mall, didn’t you recognize her?”

“Well, no. That girl was battered, bloody. And she was wearing that crazy costume, and a mask, too.”

"Well, I don't think it's any coincidence that she's been a frequent visitor at your home."

You don't, huh? I wish to hell you did!

"What do you mean, sir?" I saw no use in panicking. Panache serves as grease in a tight spot; panic is like sand.

"You're an Aladdin agent. Because of your interest in ultras, you have to expect that ultras are going to be interested in you, too. If the ultras had a chance to plant one of their own people inside your home, don't you think they’d take it?"

I blinked. So far he wasn’t making any direct accusation. Was he on the level with his theory, or was he setting me up?

Step Three: Encourage an interrogator to go down the wrong road.

Any road he took would be fine, so long as it didn’t leave me as road kill.

"Lauren was a spy? Are you sure?"

"Maybe you can help us become more sure, Mrs. Blake. How did you first meet Lauren Sherwood?"

I took a deep breath. "Well, sir, back about two years ago, I was engaging Kelly Cantrell, a neighborhood girl, to sit with the kids. After she found a new job at one of the strip malls, she introduced me to a friend of hers from high school. It was Lauren Sherwood, who had just begun babysitting and needed more work."

"And this girl did not appear suspicious?"

"Not really. She gave me a list of families that she was already sitting for and they seemed to agree that she was a sensible and responsible young person. Her family had been living in our neighborhood all along, though I only knew them slightly. When I gave Lauren a tryout, both of the kids liked her. She followed instructions and didn't cause any problems."

Actually, as I’ve said, the young lady once went seriously Dark Side and nearly killed me, but Smekes didn't need to know that.

The officer frowned thoughtfully. "I’ve already asked some people to check out the Sherwoods."

Sheesh! Lauren's body probably hadn't even reached room temperature as yet and Aladdin was already treating her folks as criminals.

"Do you expect a report soon?" I asked.

"One strange thing shows up almost immediately. Pictures from her school show that she has changed remarkably in just a single year. She hardly looks like the same girl. Didn't you think that such an extreme transformation happening before your eyes seemed strange?"

"Well, of course I did, to a degree. But kids grow up and fill out fast. Anyway, I've was seeing her quite often and any gradual change wouldn't come off as noteworthy."

In fact, I had previously given some serious thought to her metamorphosis. Lauren was flat-chested, plain-faced, and skinny when I'd met her. By age sixteen, she'd filled out strikingly.

But I also knew that Lauren had Mantra potential. Eden Freeman Blake had herself not been a particularly attractive grade-schooler and yet she had blossomed into a stunner. It had crossed my mind that magic might have been involved in both cases. Maybe having a Mantra potential can gradually change a person, evolving her into some sort of idealized self image, even before their more active powers kicked in.

Smekes was still talking. "What you say disappoints me, Mrs. Blake. Your work demands that you be more observant than most people. But I will grant that you didn’t undergo agent training until this year. But, that aside, it’s possible that Miss Sherwood made a deal with the devil."

"The devil, sir?" That sounded crazy, even coming from an Aladdin bigwig.

"Figuratively speaking, of course. It may be that there is an ultra out there who is able to bestow beauty. It's the opposite of turning a princess into a frog. Ultras can do so many different things, why can’t they do that, too? To offer an ugly duckling like Lauren Sherwood the chance to be beautiful might have encouraged her to fall in with their sinister plans."

"I guess anything is possible,” I remarked.

"Small levers move huge objects, Mrs. Blake. Think how well-placed a babysitter can be for spying. She's very often in her target's home – and she’s alone much of the time with the children asleep."

"And you're supposing that she could have been working with a conspiracy of ultras, sir?"

He didn't really answer. "What do you know about the girl's parents?" the soldier asked instead.

"Not very much, I'm afraid. I think her father is in accounting. He and his wife separated last year. Lauren hasn’t said much about why their marriage got into trouble."

“What connections does her mother have?” he asked.

"I think her mom is in advertising. Lauren lives with her father but, as far as I could see, her relations with her mother are very good."

Then I had an idea. I could tell Smekes a thing that he would soon be finding out anyway, but by bringing it out early I could make myself seem helpful. "There does seem to be a Mantra connection involved, sir."

"What’s that?"

"Lauren was a tremendous fan of Mantra. She said that she’d even met Mantra once!"

He chewed on that crumb for a few seconds. "It fits. Miss Sherwood was calling herself 'Mantra' at the Mall Friday night and, according to Tunney, she also told your daughter that she was Mantra. The ultras might have been preparing her as a back-up for Mantra for some while.”

“What could their bigger plan be?” I asked.

“It can't be a coincidence that Lauren Sherwood stepped into the original Mantra's shoes only a month after we captured the real item. Someone must be controlling her. And I'd even speculate that the Sherwoods might not be her real parents. It’s possible that Lauren is actually related to Blythe Ashwin -- maybe even her daughter."

"I wouldn't know about that," I said. He was really on the wrong track now and I wanted to keep him there. "But I do know a little about Mantra fan activity in Canoga Park. There's one registered group and it has four steady members."

"Was Lauren a member?"

"No. I got the idea that she didn't get along with the other fan girls."

"An alienated loner? A troubled, anti-social type?"

"I can’t say that for sure. She just seemed to be more reserved and studious than the average girl her age."

I was prettying up the picture. When I first met Lauren, she was a low-self-esteem, bookish nerd with hardly any friends other than Kelly.

Smekes typed a couple words into his adjacent desktop. Then he looked up, smirking with satisfaction.

"I just searched our data base for the name 'Kelly Cantrell.' It came up with some very suspicious facts. She's had the distinction of being observed in multiple contacts with the ultra Prime. I'll have to order that the entire Cantrell family be put under observation and have their phone records checked. The young lady’s movements and communications might lead us to a nest of ultra conspirators."

What next? This country had gone so wrong! A nice, ordinary teen like Kelly had no justifiable place in any black-ops database. It seemed inconceivable that this kind of investigative abuse should be permitted in any free country.

If I could have avoided it, I never would have brought up Kelly's name. Unfortunately, they would have found out about it regardless. Everyone in the neighborhood knew about the Blake-Cantrell-Sherwood connection. The worst part of it was that Aladdin could play rough even with children, Gus being a case in point. Now I had to worry about Kelly being taken into custody for questioning. She could potentially compromise Prime, infatuated teenage boys being so indiscreet.

Smekes’ imagination was only just getting into high gear. "Mantra has known associations with Strike and Prime also. Strike was at the site of the disaster, and it’s noteworthy that Prime had been frequently seen in New York City before that. Might Prime not have been studying the area to do the early preparatory work for the New York disaster? It seems to me that we can’t just be looking at Strike; we need to look at Prime, too. But Mantra has been close to both of these rogues. Why couldn't she have been in on the early planning stages before we caught her? Miss Ashwin absolutely has to be interrogated on the subject!"

For pity’s sake! Blythe Ashwin was going to be tortured again, all because she wouldn’t be able answer a lot of stupid new questions!

"But let's stick to the matter at hand," the director hurried on. "It's possible that Kelly was the original spy whom the ultras planted in your home, with Prime acted as her controller. When Miss Cantrell gained sufficient information about your links to the Company, she was nudged aside and a more capable agent, young Sherwood -- an actual ultra -- was assigned to take her place. Whether Kelly Cantrell is still associated with a conspiracy group is a definite possibility that we have to investigate. Who knows? She might turn out to be a secret ultra herself."

Ohhh, Lord. This whole thing was spiraling out of control.

TO BE CONTINUED in CHAPTER 16

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 16

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted 10-21-21
Revised 10-23-21
Revised 10-25-21

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.

Chapter 16

THE NIGHT OF TERROR

"Alas for woe, alas for woe, alas for woe,
They cry and tears forever flow."

William Blake
.
.
.

Smekes lowered his voice. "We’re entering into dangerous days. The ultras infiltrated Aladdin with Blake Ashwin, but none of us believe that that she was working alone. There are still spies among us who have to be found out."

"What do we know that’s both solid and operable?” I asked. “What other information points to Prime being an espionage ringleader?"

"The circumstantial evidence is very good."

"If it's helpful, sir, I don't believe that either Lauren or Kelly could have found actionable intelligence inside my home. I've always been scrupulous about not taking compromising material away from the office. And I’ve been working assiduously to make my family and family believe that I’m a data analyst for the CIA."

The military man shook his head. "This is the Twenty-First Century. The old precautions aren't good enough anymore, Blake. We’re up against advanced listening devices, cameras, and computer hacking. Your house is going to need a forensic examination. Think back. Might you have let anything classified slip to your son, daughter, or mother?"

I pretended to think that over before shaking my head. "I don’t think there’s been anything. I've always refused to answer family questions that even remotely involved the workplace."

"And what about your broader social contacts?"

"I'm confident about those, too, sir. I'm good at keeping secrets."

"Very commendable." If he intended to be reassuring, his skeptical tone spoiled the effect.

All at once, Smekes fixed a hard, cold glance on me. Though surprised, I recognized the old interrogator's trick -- having confronted plenty of old interrogators. He wanted to spook me, to make me think that I had aroused his suspicions and then watch my reaction. The poor fellow. I'd been played at the espionage game many centuries longer than he had.

The colonel maintained his odd expression until, presumably, he started to feel silly. Then Smekes said, "I'm putting some additional people into Canoga Park to get to the bottom of things. You could be of great assistance, considering it's your own backyard."

"Ahh, sir," I said hesitantly, "working on the Sherwood matter would create a problem for me. I’m seriously thinking about closing my house and putting in for a transfer to San Francisco. My son is being held at Alcatraz Island and I want to be able to visit him as often as possible."

He frowned. "Have you talked this over with Sarn?"

"Not yet. When I was last with her, neither of us knew exactly what the situation was. We spent most of our time planning the deployment of NM-E."

He nodded. "I see. Well, your wish is understandable. I know that you and Sarn worked well together on the Spear of Destiny operation. If the doctor signs off on your transfer, well and good." He stood up and extended his hand.

Also rising, I accepted the shake.

"I was wondering, sir."

"Yes?"

"What will the public be told? Will Lauren Sherwood be buried as an ultra, or as some local girl who became a chance victim during the Mall violence?"

"That hasn't been decided," he replied. "Myself, I would prefer the latter. What the public doesn't know can't hurt the Company. But whatever we decide, we can count on the press and media to back us up. That's their job."

"Yes, sir. And may I also say that making the death appear to be accidental might be easier on Lauren's parents, too?"

Smekes nodded absently. "We certainly mustn't make things hard for members of America's bedrock – not until we can prove something against them."

The interview seemed to be over, but I wasn’t buying into the notion that I was off the hook. My long association with Lauren Sherwood had to look pretty bad and a man like Colonel Smekes wasn’t going to just shrug it off. When his team went into my house, I could expect them to load it up with cameras and recorders. Now I really needed to close the house and get away to Frisco. And I'd have to be careful that they didn't plant new bugs in the place I moved into. Under surveillance, it would hard to keep working against Aladdin's scheming. I couldn’t see a good way to fix this, not unless a miracle happened.

And, wouldn’t you know it, a miracle was about to happen.

And it would be a nasty one.

Outside the interview room, I couldn’t help but lean back against the hall wall, my eyes closed. It wouldn’t look good on the surveillance cameras, but I was only human and felt drained. The last few days had worn me down, put me at the end of my rope. Gus was suffering. Pinnacle was suffering. I had failed to protect Lauren Sherwood and her parents, and I’d been unable to prevent Prime, Kelly Cantrell, and Warstrike -- excuse me -- Strike -- from being investigated. Smekes' ideas were wrong in almost every particular, but an organization like Aladdin would believe what it wanted to, and even being proved wrong several times over wouldn't necessarily change their mind.

Suddenly someone rushed past me at hyper-speed -- traveling backwards.

This wasn’t my first rodeo; time was going unhinged again!

In a flash, the corridor became a beehive of activity, with dozens of people whizzing past at wild acceleration. I saw Coburn and then Wrath leaving and then entering Smekes' office. In a few more seconds things were happening too quickly for the eye to follow.

I covered my face, unable to bear it. The force that had me in its grip was moving me across the chessboard again. How had this started? Why did it keep happening?

And how long could I keep my sanity if I had to keep on living my life backwards...?

When the world finally stopped spinning, I found myself in a quiet place, leaning against a kitchen counter.

And it took only seconds to realize that this place was my own kitchen.

Unsteady, I braced my weight against the sink and stared out the window. It was sunset, but the sky appeared off-color, the trees and houses looking like they do with the heavens darkening with storm. I shook myself, trying to banish my bleariness. I knew where I was, but didn’t know when I was. I shifted towards the kitchen clock display that showed a digital date as well as the time of day. It read 7:12 p.m., September 15.

I frowned. The date seemed to mean something, but....

Then it hit me -- like a ballista bolt!

"Mommy!"

Evie's cry had echoed from across the living room but, after only two strides, I stumbled to a halt.

Idiot! This is the Night of Terror!

My heart leaped to my throat. I looked down the corridor to Gus’s door. Could the terrible thing have happened to Gus already? I automatically projected my wizard sense into his room and the impression it returned came at me like a hot puff of dragon breath. It was as bad as the nauseating miasma Boneyard used to give off, except that it was much stronger. The only equally powerful black magic aura I had ever encountered had come from Loki, the Norse god of evil.

Just a cotton-picking minute!

I had actually been using magic. That meant --

I tried something else, and in the wink of the eye I was wearing my golden armor! Whatever took away Mantra's magical power in this alternate future, it so far hadn’t occurred.

And I damned well wasn’t going to let it occur!

Move it, Lukasz! Lives are hanging on a thread!

My mind raced. Gus was lurking in his room, expecting me to come in. He'd be demented with hate and fury -- and wielding the power of a demigod to back up his temper tantrum.

I cursed under my breath. Why couldn't I have arrived just ten minutes earlier? Then I could have whisked both Gus and Evie away from our targeted house. Now Evie had become Gus's hostage, and Gus was predisposed to kill even friends and family members at the slightest provocation.

I had to stop the boy from raising havoc, but the direct approach wasn’t going to work. With his power at its peak, he could eat me for lunch. But neither did I dare to go passive. Gus's sorcery and state of mind presented a danger to the entire neighborhood. I needed a plan. I had changed history before, so why couldn't I change it again? True, I’d found out how tragic historical tampering could be, but this time I could be a damned side more careful!

I couldn't stay where I was! If Gus got tired of lying in wait and came after me, history might repeat itself. I didn’t want to fight him, not until I could do so on my own terms. This situation – not wanting to hurt either him or Evie -- didn’t favor me. I had to retreat and plan a comeback.

Turning phantom, I darted away through the ceiling and rooftop.

Forgive me, Evie.

In the open air, I hovered indecisively. Gus didn't hate his sister, I knew, which meant that she wasn't in immediate danger. I was tempted to teleport the little girl to my side, but such a heavy usage of manna would leave me depleted for hours. I had to conserve my magic for the crucial confrontation.

To keep track of events, I made for the closest church. It’s topmost ledge was narrow, but an ornamental angel afforded me something to hold on to. The Blake house, a few blocks away, remained quiet. The disorientation caused by my time-shift was fading and I could more easily focus.

Still lacking a specific plan, I gazed toward the anomalous sky. It looked worse than before, having taken on a faintly glowing, raw-liver hue. Here and there I saw rippling patches that reminded me of the Aurora Borealis. Even as I stared, a humongous green streak began to congeal like a materializing ghost. Under my wizard-sight, the energy band gave every appearance of having a magical component. Well, no surprise there. It had to be the same phenomenon that Lauren had mentioned.

Wait a minute! Lauren wasn't dead. She couldn't be. My slipping back into time would have brought her back to life -- at least from my personal perspective. I would have to make it my business to keep her alive!

I knew that she would be approaching the Blake house. If she did, anything she said might make Gus fall into an angry snit and kill her!

I sprang into the air, scanning the sidewalk approaches around my Canoga Park home.

For once, Fate smiled. I spotted Lauren's tow-haired figure strolling along Wyandotte Street, the only pedestrian in view. The babysitter must have heard my cloak fluttering as I descended from above, for she suddenly looked up, wide-eyed.

"Mantra!" the girl exclaimed.

Still lightly disoriented, my heels struck the pavement hard. Struggling for balance, I breathlessly muttered: "Lauren, you shouldn't be out tonight! Some kind of wild magic has invaded the town. Go home. You'll be safer there."

"Whoa!" the girl objected. "The Blake house is just a couple of blocks ahead. Can't I pick up my wages first?"

"Your life is at stake! Now, vamoose!"

"But Mrs. Blake is expecting me. Maybe I could help her protect the kids."

"Eden doesn’t need a third kid to worry about!” I countered sternly. “Do her a favor and go home! Your own dad might need protecting." I didn't think that was true but, hopefully, a jolt of fear might make her more cooperative.

"Okay," she grimaced, "I'll go home, but I'll call Eden up right away and tell her what you said. I'll tell her to lock up and hunker down."

I couldn't let her do that. Gus would probably answer the phone and urge her to come over. If I tried to stop her, she'd start arguing again.

"Listen, Lauren, you shouldn't be on the phone tonight. Ah...the evil energy might infect the radio frequencies. You and Mrs. Blake could get cursed!"

Oh, Lordy, did that sound as dumb to her as it did to me?

Apparently so. Lauren returned a funny look. "Uh, Mantra, I've got a feeling that there's more, or maybe less, going on tonight than you're telling me."

"No more haggling, young lady. I’ll take you home myself!" I scooped Lauren up into my arms and sprang into the air with her. The girl's surprise stifled her questions. But even firmer measures were called for. I had to make sure that this excessively adventurous and inquisitive adolescent would stay out of harm's way.

While cradling the teen close, I started siphoning away her surplus of bio-energy. And I got more than I bargained for! The mana being generated inside of her was unnaturally high and building to a crisis, probably stimulated by the night's magic-rich atmosphere. But I refused to let her go ultra. There were terrible dangers abroad and she didn't have the experience needed to address them safely. Oh, she had done well in the other timeline, but the way she had gone about things sounded too much like beginner’s luck.

By the time we'd alighted beside the Sherwoods' welcome mat, the girl, her energy brought down to a low level, was nodding off. She would probably sleep for a dozen hours. I rang the doorbell and then took to the air, not wanting anyone see Mantra at a time when she was supposed to be in jail. A backward glance assured me that Mr. Sherwood was helping his rubbery-legged daughter across the threshold. From her weak and sleepy condition, he'd probably surmise that she was coming down with the flu.

Hopefully, I had changed history enough to save Lauren's life. Part of me regretted it. She had exhibited the caring heart and audacious courage that makes for a fine ultra, but it was too soon for her to go airborne; a few more years of maturing would do her a world of good. One rash mistake could send her to an early grave -- as had actually happened when she’d clashed with N-ME.

So Lauren's situation was one box that I could check off from my list of problems. But I guessed that I'd already changed the history of Friday night so much that the series of events I knew about would be seriously altered. As things stood, I was on my own now against the Night of Terror.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 17

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 17

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted 11-21-21
Revised 11-22-21
Revised 11-28-21
Revised 12-08-21

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.

Chapter 17

THE HOUSE OF THE COVEN

Why art thou Terrible
And yet I love thee in thy Terror
Till I am almost Extinct

William Blake
.
.
.

I couldn’t rest for a moment. Heather Parks and her friends would very soon have a terrible encounter with the supernatural, but rescuing Evie had to be my top priority. Unfortunately, I needed major help to stand up to Gus. Even Lauren’s success had depended on her starting a fight between Gus and Coven to bring about their downfall.

But I would rather bring in some of the battle-tested ultras I knew. I had met many, but had established close relationships only a few. There was Pinnacle, but on this day of the month she would still be a helpless emotional wreck. To make matters worse, she was also over five-hundred miles away.

So, who was closer in? Warstrike – or, rather, Strike, as the locals knew him? He was cunning, fearless and had high tech-savvy. On top of that, Strike was psychic, possessing an ability that forewarned him of danger.

But I’d need more than just Strike to go up against a powerhouse like Gus.

I would have liked to call in the original Wrath, a.k.a. Thomas Hunter.He was a specialist in combating and defeating ultras, having been well trained by Aladdin. But he’d vanished into private life after a row with the Aladdin command and his present whereabouts were unknown even to them.

I could usually make mental contact with two types of people. First, there were those persons with natural psychic talent, and that included Pinnacle, Lauren, and Strike. Secondly, I could mind-link with people with whom I have previously exchanged bio-energy, such as Prime, Evie, and, again, Strike.Wrath fitted into neither category and so I had no means to reach him telepathically.

But just then all my attention was fixed on getting into contact with Evie. The tyke wouldn’t know where I had disappeared to and had become now Gus's prisoner – a terrifying situation. I banked in flight and rode the wind back toward the Blake house, touching down a few blocks away on the roof of the Canoga Park Elementary School. Ensconced there, I began to tune into my daughter’s bio-electrical aura. A moment later, I felt her mind touch mine:

"Mommy? Where are you?"

"Evie, darling, I'm -- I'm near your school. Are you all right?"

"How can you be talking inside my head?"

"It's on of my secret ultra powers, Button. But shhh! We don’t want Gus to hear. Does it look like he knows what we’re doing?"

"I don't think so. He's been yelling about how he wants to smash everybody. He's even mad at you, Daddy, and Mantra --"

"Hush, Evie, don't think about Mantra, not until we're sure that Gus isn't listening."

"Mommy, I'm afraid that Gus might wanna smash me, too, if he remembers all the jokes I played on him and gets mad."

“You have to be very brave, Pumpkin. Some bad magic zapped Gus and it’s making him wild. He’s even stronger than I am, so I have to call in some ultra friends to help me calm him down. Maybe we can get him to surrender without starting a fight."

"What should I do?”

"Try to smile and talk friendly to your brother. He's not thinking clearly and if he gets excited he might hurt you before he knows what he's doing."

"Mommy, when are you coming?"

"I’ll be there as soon as my help makes it in from out of town."

"Mommy! Don't talk!"

And then our mind-link broke off.

What had happened? Had Gus tuned into our conversation? If so, what would he retaliate against Evie? I needed help and I needed it quickly. Touching my gloved fingers to my brow, I concentrated.

"Brandon, this is Mantra. Can you hear me?"

I repeated this call several times.

"What? Mantra?" A familiar voice was being picked up by my ethereal walkie-talkie.

"Brandon? That's you, isn't it?"

"Sure it is, Eden. Sorry. You woke me. Jet lag.

“Something important has come up!"

"Something always does. Well, lay it on me, beautiful. What sort of sexy stuff have you gotten mixed up in this time?"

"A total disaster! I need your help."

“How bad is it?”

"It’s a megaton of trouble, Tark. Both my kids are in danger. Listen! Do you have tech good enough to cage a magician who's at least twice as powerful as I am, and do it without causing him any real injury?"

"What magician? Is Boneyard back?"

“Boneyard is dead!” I said, wondering whether this version of Brandon Tark was unaware that Boneyard had died in the Godwheel solar system.

“I realize that, but lately death has been losing a lot of its sting.”

Well, I had to give Strike that one. He was one of the few people who knew that I'd died hundreds of times myself. He’d even be aware that Eden Blake had once made a return trip from the Great Beyond herself.

"No, I'm up against someone much, much stronger than old Tall-Gray-And-Ugly."

"Who, and where exactly are you?"

"Canoga Park, a couple blocks from my house. I’m up against something that's even more powerful than I am."

"Has some enemy come after you in your own home?

“In a way, yes. I'll explain everything if we can get together!”

“And you say the kids are in danger?”

“Definitely!” I said.

“I’ll be there at hyper speed. What kind of weapons do we need to tackle this emergency?"

"Bring something powerful but non-lethal. I’d like to suppress the enemy without harming him. When we click off, I'll be contacting the Strangers, too. Do you know of any magicians who'd be available at short notice?"

"Unfortunately, I don’t have any sorcerer friends other than you. But Hardcase made contact last week. Since quitting the UltraForce, he’s been busy forming up a new super team, one that won’t let Aladdin pull the wool over their eyes -- like they managed to do with UltraForce.”

"Great! Hardcase is one of the best.”

"Your enemy has to be a bag of crap if he's threatening kids. Why do you want to be non-lethal with him?"

"It's a convoluted affair, Brandon. The bad guy is Gus."

"Gus?"

"Dark magic has a hold on him. His sorcery can do almost anything and he can't control himself."

"You're up against your own ex-husband – Eden's ex-husband – for the third time?"

"No. It's worse than that. I'm up against.. my own son."

After Strike signed off, I hurriedly sent out to one of the magic-users I knew, Shadowmage. I assumed she had psychic powers and I tried to attune to them, but I could get back no response at all. That could mean she was no longer on Earth, or some other matter that interfered, such as the fact that we belonged to two very different species.

So,I next tried to contact a different witch, one who was part of the Strangers team, an ultra group that I had worked with very well the year before.

"Yrial! This is Mantra. Are you reading me?"

After about thirty seconds of continuous appeals, I heard back,"Mantra? Is it you? I didn't know you could soul-speak!"

"I only got the knack of it lately," I explained hastily. "It’s really bad here in Canoga Park. Can you rally the rest of the Strangers and give me some backup? There's a possessed boy using powerful magic and holding his little sister hostage. Their mother seems to be -- missing," I added belatedly.

"A child? Can one so young be any match for you, Mantra?"

"He’s more than a match for me. I found that out the hard way.”

“Our team is already deployed for a different emergency. There is a mortuary in Oakland where the dead are rising and assailing all they encounter."

“That’s terrible,” I said, not mentioning that happened to know about the zombie peril. “But I'm desperate to put together a battle-hardened ultra squad that can overwhelm the boy quickly without really hurting him."

"Mantra, there are strange reports coming in from all over the world. Do you have any idea what is happening? None of us understand it.”

"I don't either, but it’s really bad where I am. Can't you split off and come down here solo? I'll owe you big time."

After a brief pause, the shamaness replied, “No.” Before my heart had time to sink, she added: “If children are in danger, you will owe me nothing. Canoga Park is near Los Angeles, isn't it?"

"It's a suburb on the north side of L.A,” I told her. “Send me a thought message when you get close and I'll be able to guide you in."

"I shall travel with all haste."

"Just one more thing, Yrial. Have you heard whether or not Shadowmage is still on Earth? I’d like to reach her, too."

"I haven’t, but I shall do all that I can to contact our sister, even while I am hastening to your aid."

"Fantastic. Strike's agreed to come in, too. He thinks he can bring along Hardcase. See you soon."

After Yrial broke off, I tried to summon Prime, the only member of the UltraForce with whom I had a close connection. But for some reason I couldn’t make contact with him. It was a crazy night.

While waiting for my comrades to arrive, I turned my attention to the rescue of Heather Parks and her fan club. If I didn't act swiftly, the monster Coven would appear at her home and add to the night’s chaos. I now made haste to the address, fearing that I might already be too late.

The Parks' two-story clapboard house seemed quiet when it came into view. Ether I had arrived earlier than Coven could, or else I was in a slightly different parallel world. I hoped that the latter was not the case. There was only so much confusion I could stand.

Sighting Heather's lighted window, I flew close enough to peer inside. Through the diaphanous curtains, I saw all four of the Mantra fans gathered, each wearing their cosplay gear – mock-up pieces of my action costume. The teens looked at ease and totally normal. I had to act fast if I was to keep them that way.

The girls squealed when I came ghosting in through the closed window, but the instant they recognized me their yelling transmogrified to ahh's and gasps.

"Mantra!" exclaimed Heather, "You scared us."

"Sorry, but we don't have a second to waste. I'm -- I'm here to rescue you."

"Heather!" a man called from downstairs. "What's all that screaming about?"

"Nothing, Dad," Heather yelled back. "W-We're just watching a spooky video on TV!"

I shook my head. Teens were always quick with plausible excuses. Sometimes – as now – that could be a good thing.

The girls, though excited by my arrival, were quietly waiting for me to explain my visit. I glanced at the clock. Not much time had passed since I'd fled from my own home, though it already felt like at least an hour. Apparently, the green bolt spoken of by Lauren hadn't struck the Parks’ home so far. But it’s impact was imminent and I didn't want the girls to be cursed by it.

Only then did I notice something on Heather's small table, half-covered by a magazine that lying open to a Mantra-themed article.

"Have you girls been playing with a Ouija board?" I asked sternly.

"We were just about to," Miss Parks replied with a wince. She was probably remembering my past admonitions against kids getting involved with mysticism. "It's only a game," the tenth grader protested weakly.

"No, it's not!” I told her. “Ouija boards are tools for necromancy. And necromancy is something that only bad wizards want to have anything to do with.”

"But we've read the instruction sheet," the girl protested. "Anyway, they sell them in all the hobby stores. I got mine at Mrs. Fisher's magic shop."

I shook my head. "I like Mrs. Fisher, but she doesn’t realize how risky this New Age stuff really is. She once gave a magical charm to a little girl who made a foolish wish with it. The wish started some nasty trouble that almost killed her mother.

“Worst of all, some kind of wild magic is loose tonight. This room might draw it in like a magnet because you girls once summoned a demon here. Traces of black magic can hang around for a very long time! I want all of you to get out of this house and stay away for the rest of the night. It'ld be best to separate, too; people who use dark sorcery can attract evil magic if they stay grouped together. Do any of you need help getting home? Who lives the farthest away?"

"Me!" said Trisha. She recited the address.

It was east of Canoga Park, in Winnetka. "How do you usually get home?" I asked.

"My parents'll pick me up at nine."

I shook my head. “That’s not soon enough.”

"They can al come to my place. It's a short trip," put in Jessica.

“Good. Samantha, Trish -- when you get there, you should call for rides home right away. But, Heather, it won't be safe for you to come back to this house until morning. The danger should be over by then. Uh, Jessica – you youngsters haven't been casting spells at your home, have you?

The schoolgirl threw up her hands. “Are you kidding? My folks won't even let me bring The Lord of the Rings into our house. I had to argue and pout for weeks before they'd even let me join your fan club."

I nodded, satisfied. “Heather, do you suppose that Jessica's folks would let you overnight with her?”

“I think so; they've let me stay before. But we'll need a good excuse as to why I should want to on such short notice.”

“Well...think hard,” I said.

"But will my folks be all right staying here?"

According to what Lauren had said, Heather's parents had suffered no effects from the magic bolt. "I'm sure they will be," I said. "So far only persons strongly touched by magic have been affected."

I sure hoped that I was right on that score.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 18

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 18

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted 12-20-21

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.

Chapter 18

THE MAGIC SHOP

[I] soon shall be in a shadow in Oblivion,
Unless some way can be found
That I may look upon thee and live....

William Blake
.
.
.
To Heather I said, “When you’re talking to your folks, don't say a word about sorcery. They just wouldn't understand.”

"Okay, Mantra," Heather nodded. "I'll say that Jess forgot to bring over her newest CD and we want to go to her place and listen to it."

"Fine,” I said. “I'll wait in the yard until I see you come out. While you’re going to Jessie’s, I'll ride shotgun overhead. But remember, once you're at Jessica's, go your separate ways. To have four witches in the same house could be enough to draw in bad magic."

Without further elaboration, I phantomed away through the wall.

Out of sight among the boughs of a backyard maple tree, I waited, hoping that my precautions would prevent Coven from being created. Without that bothersome monster getting in the way, I could concentrate solely on helping Gus and Evie.

After a few minutes, the four girls came outside. "Mantra?" Heather whispered, looking around.

"I'm up here," I said. "Let’s get on to Jessica's house. How soon do your folks want you to come back, Heather?"

"I can stay all night with Jess -- to study late for a test, I told them. But Sam and Trish are going to call home for rides."

"Just be sure that they waste no time,” I cautioned. “It could be dangerous if they hang around. Okay, move on out!”

The four of them took off at a fast trot, Jessica leading the way. The kids couldn’t help but steal uneasy glances, left, right, and skyward. The trip, fortunately, was only a couple of blocks.

Just before crossing into Jessica's home, Heather waved up at me. I returned the wave. Now, having done all I knew to protect the members of my fan club, I made an aerial U-turn and put myself on course to the Blake house.

Again I came down to roost on the rooftop of the schoolhouse. The neighborhood looked deceptively normal, except for the strange color of the sky. My wizard sense could read Gus’s aura from inside the house. He didn’t seem to be doing anything special, so I directed a cautious telepathic whisper toward my endangered daughter.

"Shhh. Evie. Can we talk?"

To my relief, she replied, "I think so. Oh, Mommy, Gus is scaring me. It's almost like he's a whole different person."

"I know, baby. But why did you end our talk so suddenly before? Did your brother hear us?"

"He started to. He said, 'Mom's around here somewhere!'"

"Listen, Button, I’ve sent out for some powerful ultras to help us. But if Gus starts acting like he's about to hurt you, just think the magic word Hogwarts really hard and I'll come save you, no matter what."

"Is Gus tougher than you, Mommy?"

"I think he may be. He's probably the toughest sorcerer in the world right now."

“Like Voldemort?”

“Yeah, a lot like him.”

"How did he get that way?"

"I think he was hit by some bad magic from outer space."

"Oh, no! Be careful, Mommy. I don' t want you and Gus to get into a fight and hurt each other."

"I’m going to try to avoid that, Pumpkin.”

Suddenly, a green jet of light came shooting up through the Blake rooftop like a miniature comet with a green tail.

"Mom! I know you're hiding somewhere out here," Gus yowled mentally. "You hit me and I'm going to get even! Then I'll fix Evie for talking to you on the sneak."

To draw his thoughts away from Evie, I leaped into the air with a great flare of light.

"Your mother's not here," I informed him. "I've been tricking Evie, making her think her mom was talking to her. I knew you'd overhear us and come outside. This way we can speak privately." This explanation didn't make a whole lot of sense, not even to me, but maybe a twelve year old would swallow it.

"Mantra! I hate you even more than I hate Mom and Dad!" the boy hollered, verbally this time.

What a battery of magic his body was! I could feel the prickle of his power despite the distance between us. Not having done any fighting so far, the lad’s strength would still be near its peak. When the first Mantra had taken him head-on, he had shut her down in seconds with a blast of power.

If a combat started, I’d be done for, unless I hit him with as much power as I would have hit a major wizard like Boneyard. The trouble was that Gus was a tyro in magic, and if he fumbled his defenses it could kill him. Rather than risk that, I created another dazzling, luminescent burst and sped away.

I didn’t care if he thought I was afraid of him. In fact, I wanted him to be bold and to chase me. While jetting away on the late summer wind, I called out, "Evie! I'm keeping Gus busy. Run and hide with that nice Mrs. Fisher at the magic shop!"

Amateur or not, the boy gaining was on me, leaving a tail of verdant fire in his wake. Unwilling to be overtaken, I assumed my phantom form and made like a killdeer, skating through the air erratically, trying to look wounded while at the same time creating an erratic target for a novice marksman.

But the barrage of magical bolts coming my way were stabbing close. I had a lot more experience using magic, but Lauren had mentioned how quick Gus was at learning to use his new powers.

Just then, another of my son's mega-bolts brushed by, this one stinging me, despite my being ghost-like. If he had already realized that he could adjust his bolt-density and hit me in phantom form, I’d be in a bad way.

So I used a little more power to throw up a protective force field. Then, still striving to look erratic and injured, I dropped into an ungainly corkscrew descent. By a stroke of luck, Gus ceased firing at me, maybe in hopes of watching me be pasted against the solid ground like a real-life Daffy Duck.

To cover my escape, I evaded of his line of sight by plunging into a dark mass of trees and hedges. Still in ghost-mode, I fell harmlessly through the branches and sank into the subsoil. Once in total darkness, I checked my plummet. Then, getting a bearing on a neighborhood electrical transformer to give myself something to aim for, I hurried away using magical propulsion – this tactic being a necessary one in the airless underground.

After what seemed like a journey of goodly length, I came to the surface near the transformer. At once I stopped channeling sorcery,considering that continuing to use magic would allow Gus to trace me. I hoped that the boy would not guess that I was his mother, since he could easily find me by simply homing on Eden Blake’s familiar bio-signature.

Through not using active magic, I could passively keep track of the boy’s movements by means of my wizard sense. Interestingly, instead of pressing his search for Mantra, Gus instead seemed to be drawing off. What new mischief was he concocting now? I wondered. Was he bent on rejoining Evie? I needed to get the girl to safety as soon as possible.

As I stepped out into the light of the street lamps, someone remarked, "A nice Mantra outfit." I looked back to see a couple of teenage boys sauntering up, oblivious to the chaos of the night. Apparently, most people were unaware that anything unnatural was occurring, except for the strange colors in the sky.

“Is there a costume party?” asked the other one.

“How do you know I’m not the real Mantra?!” I asked in return.

“Don't give us that! We know there's a Mantra fan club near here. But we didn’t know there were any adults in it.”

Ignoring the hormonal juveniles, I again projected my preternatural senses to get a new bearing on Gus. To my consternation, I felt not one but two sources of bad magic, their "flavors" distinctly different, even though both were very foul. One manifestation I knew was Gus’s, and the other, I feared, was Necromantra.

Lauren had found the latter hunkered down inside a warehouse east of Canoga Park. Out of caution, the death-witch was probably staying indoors so long as wild magic crackled in the atmosphere. If left undisturbed, Necromantra might actually remain sheltered all through the night. That would be good for me, since I had more important fish to fry than her.

Another worry I had was that Gus might be zeroing in on his dad, bent on revenge for missing the football game. The result could be heartbreaking, since the death of the senior Gus would devastate Evie and Gus might never forgive himself, once he regained his reason. But I was only guessing about Big Gus's danger. It made more sense that I made sure that Evie was safe before I did anything else. She was too young to face this sort of danger alone. My mind made up, I evoked a whirlwind gust to take me on a beeline to the magic shop.

The strip mall lay only seconds away. Mrs. Fisher's "closed" sign was already lit, but I knew she would still be there at this hour. Observing lights through the building’s rear windows, I alighted at the back door. Such was my state of mind that I almost knocked without pausing to think that I was dressed as Mantra. I reflexively flashed back into the clothing that I'd only lately shed -- a black dress suit.

Then, hopefully presentable, I beat on the shop’s back door with my fist.

An instant later, a worried face peered through the lace door-window curtain. Mrs. Fisher’s expression brightened upon recognizing me. The middle-aged business woman hurriedly fumbled open the lock.

"Mommy!" yelped Evie from the interior shadows. The tyke ran around the lady and sprang into my arms. Her excited grip about my neck nearly cut off my breathing.

"Oh, Button, I was afraid for you," I gasped. "W-Were you awfully scared?"

"Yeah, I was! Is Gus...is Gus...?"

"Shhh, darling. We don't want to alarm Mrs. Fisher."

"I didn't 'larm her, Mommy,” the youngster whispered, “I just said that a bad person came into our house and I ran away!"

Now the proprietress spoke up. "Mrs. Blake, what's been happening? The child tried to tell me, but I she was hard to understand."

"E-Evie got frightened by a burglar," I said. "He was carrying something that he stole away when I caught sight of him. I ran into the house looking for Evie, but she wasn’t there. So I came down this way trying to find her."

"Where is...the bad person now?" the little girl asked.

I eased Evie to the floor. “He’s still loose," I said. “We’ll have to be careful.”

"This crime wave is all over the metro area,” Mrs. Fisher put in. “But there’s something worse going on tonight. Did you ever see a sky that looked so strange?”

"Never. Thank you for taking Evie in, Mrs. Fisher,” I said. “She was lucky to find your shop open."

The proprietress nodded. "I usually do the accounts after closing time. I heard your little girl rapping on the door."

The child was at that moment pressing her teddy bear against my waist. "See, Mommy, I saved Mr. Paws, too! I was afraid that -- that the bad person -- might hurt him if he caught him."

I touched her little nose. "That was quick thinking, darling!" Then I said to Mrs. Fisher, "I'm taking Evie to a motel. I'll call the police and report the break-in from there."

"You're welcome to stay here until the sky clears up. I could use the company. I can't get rid of the feeling that something unnatural is going on."

Mrs. Fisher must have been slightly psychic. I felt for her, but I needed to get away from all prying eyes before the arrival of my ultra team. "Thank you, but I'm so shook up that I won’t feel safe until Evie and I are surrounded by crowds of people,” I said.

"I understand," Mrs. Fisher sighed. "May the good Lord watch over you both." Then she added, "Evie has a brother, doesn't she? Will he be all right?"

I didn't want to admit the awful truth. "Gus went to a ball game with his father. He was going to spend the night at his dad's place."

"That's lucky," the shopkeeper murmured. She was looking out one of the windows, at a haloed moon set weirdly against the violet sky.

With quick goodbyes, Evie and I scurried out of the shop. Sinister shadows hung all around us and the youngster still seemed frightened. I led her around the corner at the far end of the strip and there, in the blackness of a dense moon shadow, I took a moment to calm down and think. I couldn’t take Evie into battle with me, so where could I find a safe place for her? To take her to a neighbor would place that person in danger, too. With his magical sensibilities, Gus could find Evie at will and if Evie called me, I'd have to challenge him straight out. For the sake of my own survival, I’d have to fight like a savage, but doing that could leave one of us dead. In the other timeline, Lauren had helped Mantra and Evie. This time the teen would be sleeping soundly in her own home.

I had made no definite plan before a van drove up -- a van that I recognized.

Running toward the vehicle, I shouted and waved my arms. The van skidded to a halt and a young, bearded black man leaned his shaven head out the window.

"What is it, lady?" Greg Tunney asked impatiently.

This was an unanticipated wrinkle. For better or worse, Aladdin had made its destined appearance in Canoga Park. I didn’t trust Company men, obviously, and the new Wrath wasn’t one of the ultras whom I would have most wanted to be with just then. Even so, I recognized how narrow my options were. As they say, any port in a storm!

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 19

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 19

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted 01-21-22
Revised 01-24-22
Revised 01-27-22

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.

Chapter 19

BLACKBIRD

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."

William Blake
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With effort, I calmed myself and inquired, "You're from Aladdin, right?"

"From where?" he answered.

"Please! I know what an Aladdin van looks like."

"Well, that’s more than I know," he gave back.

"Can the comedy, fella. We work for the same people. Maybe you've heard the name 'Eden Blake'."

He frowned. "Eden Blake?! Well, if that doesn't.... We were just heading for your house."

"Why?" I asked ingenuously.

"There was an energy spike – maybe something solar. Ground zero was Canoga Park. When Colonel Smekes found out that one of his people – y0u – lived close-in, he called for an on-site report. When neither your cell phone nor land line would pick up, he sent us out to check on you. What did the impact feel like?"

"I didn't feel a tickle. But an energy strike might explain what happened to my son Gus."

"What do you mean? What happened to your boy?"

"He turned violent, like he'd gone out of his mind. He was angry at everybody, even homicidal. When he started tossing around world-class magic, I grabbed Evie and ran. We were looking for a safe place when we saw your van."

“You should have called in for help!”

“I didn't have my cell on me, and where can you find a public phone in this day and age?”

"Well, if the lad has magic or not, I don't think we’ll have trouble taking him in."

I glanced to see who else was in the van. They were uniformed Aladdin field operative, but I didn’t see any familiar A-Team faces among them. The team was elite and was always held back until some heavy-hitting was needed. They wouldn’t have been sent on a minor errand like Tunney’s.

"Easy, Wrath," I admonished. "It's my son we're talking about, not some super-criminal. He's just a grade-schooler. Something took hold of him and now he can't help himself."

"I'm with you, ma'am. But how do you know my code name is Wrath?"

Sharpen up, Lukasz. You're making mistakes.

"Well, you've heard about me. I've heard about you, too."

Tunney glowered. "So there was a leak. I guess the suits aren't half as good at keeping secrets as they think they are."

I hurriedly changed the subject. If he asked me who had done the leaking I’d be in a tight spot. "I'm worried. Gus had a total personality change. With that much anger and that much power, even a police station wouldn't be a safe refuge. Remember that precinct-house that got trashed in the Terminator movie?"

He nodded. "Street cops aren't trained to face down ultras, but we are. You and the little girl can ride with us."

"Yes, by all means take Evie, but as for me...."

"Why not you? You can't go home; that's the first place the boy'll look."

"I know the risk, but maybe if I went to him alone he wouldn't feel so threatened. We might be able to talk reasonably." I didn't actually believe that, but I needed privacy if I was going to be meeting with Strike and the other ultras.

"We were sent to find you and we did. But that youngster of yours has to be made our new priority. For the little girl's sake, you have to accept our protection. When we meet up with your son, you’ll get your chance to talk him into surrendering quietly."

"What do you plan to do with Gus?" I asked, as if I didn't know.

"We’ll get him some medical attention, of course."

Yeah, by strapping him down and letting mad scientists experiment! But, under the circumstances, digging in my heels would have made me look suspicious.

"And if the lad does come looking for his family," Tunney went on, "that's good. It will save us the trouble of finding him."

That was a cold statement. I had to be very careful while handling these people. Bending and breaking laws means nothing to a good Company man. "So Evie and I will be your Judas goats?"

He opened the van door and stepped down to the pavement. "Mrs. Blake, you know how the Company works and you know what it expects of us. Besides, you have to think about the boy's own welfare. If he's got ultra powers and using them violently, he’s going to provoke someone to start shooting at him. We've got to act fast and take the little fellow out of harm’s way."

I knew he was right. The Canoga cops were going to be jumpy tonight. They had actually tried to gun down Lauren a couple times.

He went and opened the side door of the van, inviting us to take a passenger seat. "Come on now; you and the tyke should get inside. That's an order."

I raised my chin. "I'm not sure protocol lets your grade give my grade orders, mister."

He grinned. "Whatever the pecking order, we’ve got an important job to do, and you two are obviously in danger. This is one hell of a time to start arguing about protocol."

That was another piece of logic that I couldn't reasonably dispute with. If I was going to come off like someone who had nothing to hide, I needed to go with the flow, and then slip away from these Aladdin people as soon as possible.

The red-garbed ultra helped Evie and Mr. Paws to a seat. I followed them in. The vehicle held five agents besides Wrath. All of them, except the driver, were wearing body armor like a SWAT team. They were also toting an impressive array of weaponry in the vehicle’s carrying racks. The soldiers met us with discerning eyes and stony silence. The woman among them and one of the men gave us reserved nods of welcome, but neither let out a word.

Evie wriggled up against me, intimidated by the fiercely-caparisoned warriors. I put my arm around her and touched her cheek. It was so easy to forget that this appealing girl wasn't my own Evie.

The driver now spoke up. "Wrath, we've just intercepted a police call. There's a flying ultra burning down the Canoga Park Elementary School, and -- get this -- he's doing battle with Hardcase!"

My heart did a double-flip.

"Take us there fast!" the team leader ordered. Looking back at me, he said, "Elementary school? Does that sound like something your boy might want to do?"

"Maybe. I --"

Words failed. He would, indeed. This version of Gus had been lonely and ostracized, bitterly resentful of the way that the school -- and even the students – had treated him after his physical change.

"Ow, Mommy!" Evie blurted. "You're squeezing too hard!"

I let her go and stared off into the darkness beyond the headlights. Somewhere out in this haunted night, my son was locked in a duel against one of the world's most seasoned ultras. Would Hardcase realize in time that he was up against a mere boy of twelve?

Gus versus Hardcase?

What next?

The world really had gone insane.

Ironically, Hardcase had been one of Gus's -- my Gus's I mean -- favorite heroes. He’d boasted that he had all of the man's collector cards and was always nagging me to buy him every Hardcase action figure as it came out. But the boy now seemed to hate everyone -- especially those that he formerly loved -- and would probably murder Hardcase in cold blood if he got past the ultra’s guard.

How hard would Hardcase fight back? I hoped that he had gotten enough information from Strike to understand who he was up against.

Hardcase -- Tom Hawke – had an impressive reputation, but he and I were not well acquainted. One difference between this local Hardcase and the one back home was that the local boy had quit the UltraForce in anger, seemingly because the team wanted to work closely with Aladdin. Hawke was against it and I couldn’t blame him.

"If Gus burns down the school, where will I go on Monday?" Evie suddenly asked. "Will Gus hurt the people at school?"

I hugged her close. "Easy, Button. The school is closed at night. If there’s a janitor or somebody else inside it, we'll just have to pray that he’s able to get away in time."

She looked into my face. “I think I should pray now, Mommy.”

“That's a very good idea,” I said.

She placed her fingertips together, her head bowed. To set a good example, I did likewise, but it was hard for me to find prayer words with so many sirens sounding off. If Gus had been responsible for the arson, it was an act much worse than anything he had attempted to do in the other timeline. Back then, he had been kept busy, first fighting Mantra, then fighting Lauren, and then chasing after Evie, seeking to recapture my dead body and make sure it could never be revived. Then he had done battle with Coven and was knocked out. My intervention here, so far, had allowed an even darker tableau to play out.

The two-story school building was blazing furiously. Emergency crews were still deploying and the first-responders were breaking the windows with water jets. Sensation-seekers had crowed around and were pressing against the emergency cordons. Our van slowed to a roll and our driver started honking, warning the jostling crowd to get out of the way.

A policeman flagged us down and demanded identification. Wrath shoved some sort of document at him -- which had to be phony, seeing as how Aladdin was a secret agency. The ploy did the trick and the uniformed man backed off. Just then, a bolt of green energy from above hit the turf with a sizzle. Looking up, I made out a stubby, manlike shape outlined by an emerald luminescence.

My fists tensed. Now that we had found Gus, I needed to know where Hardcase was.

"Stop here," Tunney ordered our driver. The vehicle turned into the curb and its tires bumped it with a bounce. Wrath was the first out, with four of his heavily armed teammates clattering after him. I whispered to Evie, telling her to remain inside the van. “If I don't come right back, stay with the nice policeman and I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Then I dashed off in the wake of the other Aladdin agents.

I knew that the anti-ultra hit squad was determined to capture my arsonist son. I hoped that Hardcase could evade them, too. They disliked the ultra as much as he disliked the Company. I doubted that Wrath would order an assassination, but how trigger-happy were his accompanying agents?

When no one was looking, I ducked and rolled under a television news van, flashing into my alternate hero garb before exiting on the other side. Hardly anyone on Earth had ever seen me wearing my black outfit and any local observers who saw me in it wouldn't know who I was -- as long as I avoided performing Mantra-type actions. I again made my escape by ghosted away through the subsoil, coming up a couple of blocks away. Without my magically-charged, burlesque-style golden armor being worn, I would be rendered less powerful than usual. But I needed to avoid appearing as Mantra in front of Aladdin agents, since the Company thought they had Mantra in lock-up. If they saw me tonight, I hoped they’d write me up as an unknown ultra. If anyone asked, I would call myself “Blackbird.”

Ignoring the noise, the flames, and rising smoke, I stayed on the alert for Gus’s reappearance. So long as I remained under-powered, the boy could probably crack Blackbird's best defenses like a chocolate Easter egg.

The air above the burning school was unbreathable and so I materialized a force capsule around myself, crafting it to serve as an air filter. Suddenly, I glimpsed the glowing outline of my deranged son. He was ignoring the excited firemen below and concentrating on something else, something below him.

"Look! Is that Mantra?!" someone shouted.

What I didn’t need was a blabbermouth! I cloaked myself under a dark mist to to foil the gawkers. It was then that I caught sight of Tom Hawke, darting around the hose-strewn ground, dodging from side to side like a ricocheting pinball. His fight with Gus was still in progress, but he looked like he was playing it defensively. The boy, all spleen and aggression, was shooting magical blasts at him, as if the world was no more than his private video game. I wondered how Hardcase could have stayed alive this long with no magic of his own. Could it be that the boy was going easy on his famous opponent because the thrill of fighting Hardcase was a dream of a lifetime and he didn't want the battle to end too quickly?

Nonetheless, Hardcase was formidable as a gladiator -- as strong as Hercules and able to jump about a mile. The ultra was on the ground, holding a four-foot-wide chunk of sidewalk over his head. My heart skipped a beat when he hurled it at Gus with all his strength. If I intervened, it might throw Hardcase off his game and let Gus take him out. What was a person supposed to do when he didn't want either of two combatants to be injured?

Fortunately, before the concrete weapon struck its mark, the youngster intercepted it with a flash of magic, pulverizing the concrete into a spray of sand and lime. The debris rained down on the fire-fighters below.

I had to stop underestimating Gus. My son had more than proven that he was appallingly good at being bad.

At that instant, while the lad's attention was fixed on Hardcase, I threw my mightiest burst of sorcery at his back – aiming to stun but not kill. It struck home and Gus tumbled earthward. On impulse, I dove in close, ready to do something if he couldn’t save himself.

Gus's changed his trajectory by sheer force of will and alighted feet-first. His wizard sight could see me through the mist and he raised his hands to strike. As quick as thought, incandescent bolts arced my way. They struck my force field a glancing blow.

That's when another cement projectile smashed into Gus's own protective shield, its impact startling the boy and spoiling his aim. "You're cheating!" Gus shouted at Hardcase. "Two on one isn't fair!" .

The peeved sixth grader launched himself into the sky, leaving behind a viridian trail of flame. Hardcase gave him chase with mighty leaps and I could have followed, but didn't want to force a decisive confrontation, not until my full backup of friends was with me. Anyway, the fire needed to be controlled. It posed a danger to our neighbors’ homes all around.

A bio-scan warned me that there were indeed living people inside the school building – firefighters, I thought, and maybe even trapped victims. I projected what amounted to large shells of force over the worst parts of the conflagration, aiming to strangle the blaze through loss of oxygen. Time was not on my side; to speed things along, I tapped the air inside the capsules to extinguish the flames more quickly. For a couple minutes, I maintained what was a mystical "death grip" on the combustion, until the fire started to go out.

But the effort had cost me a good part of the extra "umph" that I'd acquired through vampirizing Lauren. That would, unfortunately, make things harder down the road. My next move had to be to link up with Hardcase, and so I took off after his bio-trace – but warily. I didn't want one of the most formidable ultras on Planet Earth to mistake me for an enemy. As I drew close, I thinned my mist screen enough to let human eyes see “Blackbird.”

Alighting in front of the ex-movie star, I said, "I've been waiting for you, Hardcase." Aware that we were being looked at by bystanders, I added," We can't talk here. Can I carry you off to some place that's more private?"

"Okay," he said with caution – probably unsure of what to make of me.

The man let me take his hard mass into my arms. I negated enough gravity to make the two of us as light as helium balloons and then summoned in an air-stream to sweep us away from the smoke and steam.

Several blocks farther off, we alighted in some resident's backyard. When I released him, the ultra backed away. He was looking fit. Last winter, Hardcase had double-teamed with Prime to take on N-ME, and the latter had seared Hawke with flame. I had seen the man's whole body disfigured with burn scars – fire being the most effective weapon that one could use against him. Luckily, he possessed amazing healing abilities.

"T-Thanks," I panted, “for not swinging a hay-maker at me when I first dropped in."

He smiled tightly. "I always try to avoid hitting the prettier ladies. Anyway, I was guessing that you might be Mantra in disguise.”

“Good call,” I said. “I have to keep a low profile these days. While I'm dressed this way, you can call me Blackbird.”

He nodded. “A nice code name, Eden. Strike told me that this get-together was your idea.".

I did a double take. How in hell had he discovered my real name? My real inherited name, I mean. The Warstrike I knew would never have outed me -- not to anyone. Did this mean that Hardcase and Mantra were better friends in this world than we had been back home, to the point that we shared some kind of confidential history together?

Then the truth slammed me.

I’d almost forgotten one of the worst mistakes of my life. During the Godwheel incident, I had thoughtlessly blurted out the name of Eden Blake, both her first and last name, within other people's hearing. Too late, I found out that it hadn't only been good guys near me. Unknown to anyone, we had been infiltrated by a very evil being in disguise – the most dangerous foe whom I had ever dueled. I'm sure I only survived because I had had my friend Prime with me. Knowing what of knew of the foe, I'd be better off going up against Boneyard, or even N-ME! I’d seen the inhuman creature cross over into a different universe and, being an optimist, had so far been hoping that he’d be trapped there until he died.

But I knew that if he ever returned, he’d remember my slip. It was no secret that Mantra frequently defended the north Los Angeles suburbs and that would lead him into the vicinity of Canoga Park. The most basic metropolitan directory search would give him the address of Eden Blake! Worse, he had a very pressing reason to come after me. He wanted to claim the Sword of Fangs – preferably over my dead body!

"What, exactly, did War...? What did Strike tell you about what we're doing here?" I asked the ultra.

Hardcase shook his head. "Nothing much -- just that there was a grade-schooler running wild in Canoga Park and packing super magic. But the guy I fought with looked more like a circus dwarf than a kid."

"He's a kid all right," I said with a sigh. "Did you hear the story last spring about something that happened in Canoga Park, something that involved a local boy?"

He returned an uncertain glance.

"There was a sixth grader whose appearance had been inexplicably changed," I coaxed.

The blond man frowned. "Come to think of it, I did hear something about a youngster becoming disfigured. His name was, umm, August Blake.".

His face lit with comprehension.

"Oh, God! Is he your son?"

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 20

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 20

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted 02-21-22

Edited by Christopher Leeson
Revised 04-09-22
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Chapter 20

THE GANG OF FOUR

Four Mighty Ones are in every man.
A perfect unity cannot exist
But from the Universal Brotherhood of Eden,
The Universal Man, to whom be Glory evermore...

William Blake
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Oh, hell! Busted! I could dig in and deny everything, but it sat wrong with me to lie to a decent person, especially one to whom I’d just appealed for help.

I couldn't speak the words I needed, so I just I nodded.

"I’m terribly sorry,” Hardcase said. “I guess I don’t really know you at all. In the news, you come across as an introspective loner, not a family person."

"Can’t a person be both?” I asked.

"What happened to the boy? How long has he had ultra powers?"

"They came on him only tonight. It must have something to do with the crazy things that are happening all across the face of the world.”

“Did this happen because his mother is a sorceress?”

“I don’t know. But when magic took over, it affected his mind, too. He's been lashing out as if the whole world is his enemy."

Hardcase frowned. "And with powers like his, he can really make a career of getting even!"

"If he keeps destroying things, he’s bound to get destroyed himself," I said. "And we especially need to keep him from killing anyone. Becoming a murderer could ruin his entire life. But watch out! His power is fantastic. Even together, we aren't a match for him. Strike is coming, you already know. And Yrial of the Strangers must be getting close, too."

He rubbed his chin. "Yrial, huh? I met her along with all the other Strangers." Then, his brows knitted, he said, "You've come by yourself. Where's that excitable fellow who was with you on the Godwheel? Lukasz? He didn’t seem like the sort who’d let you go through this crisis alone."

I took a hard swallow. "He’s dead. Necromantra...killed him."

"But, you were Necromantra!"

“For a little while. When she was cast out of my body, she possessed another powerful witch.” I wanted to change the subject. "What's this I hear about you leaving UltraForce?"

He shook his head. "Aladdin came to the team talking themselves up as patriots and made a big impression on the rest of our group. I tried to explain to those novices that Aladdin was part of the Deep State and couldn't be trusted but, like most people, they don’t believe that a Deep State exists.” He trailed off, obviously not liking the subject. "You know, Mantra, I never understood why you didn't choose to join the UF. Magic has always been something we’ve been in great need of."

I shook my head. "Prime came to me with his invite at a bad time. I was within an ace of giving up my Mantra gig. I decided to stay with it, but since then I’ve been pinned down by one crisis after another. On top of it all, I’ve got a family and a secret life to protect. Every day I seem to be stretched to the limit."

"Well, if things change, we could sure use you in the Paladins."

"The Paladins?"

"That’s the code name we have for the new group. It was Choice’s suggestion."

"Ask me again after we clear up this current craziness. By the way, I see that Choice isn’t with you."

He looked off into the distance. "She’s going to be lying low for a while. Things are kind of delicate with her right now.”

There was surely some hidden subtext behind his comment, but didn't feel like prying.

“So, your boy suddenly got ultra powers and tried to burn down Canoga Park Elementary?” Hardcase continued. “Did he hate homework that much?"

"All I know is that he was spitting angry when the magic came on him and he got locked up into that emotion."

"What made him so angry?"

"I'd confined him to his room because he’d been mean to his sister."

"That’s it?”"

"Yeah. But for now, I should check in with Strike and Yrial. By the way, Tom, did you notice that Aladdin squad prowling around the school?"

"No, I didn't. I’m not surprised, though. Those guys seem to turn up everywhere."

"The leader of that particular squad is called Wrath."

He frowned. "I've heard that name before."

"The name is being recycled. This is a whole different man."

"If the new guy is Aladdin-issue, we have to assume that he can't be trusted."

"Probably true," I replied. “But I’ve seen him do at least couple decent things.”

“Good to know. If he and I clash, I’ll try not to break too many bones.”

"That’s up to you. Right now, I've got to do a little mind-to-mind communication."

With him looking on, I touched my fingertips to my temples and concentrated: "Mantra here, Strike. Whereabouts are you?"

I repeated the telepathic call twice more before an answer came:

"Mantra, I went over to one of my local hidey holes to pick up some equipment. I managed to contact Hardcase. He'll probably be showing up soon."

"He already has. He's standing beside me now. I don't know how to thank you for helping out."

"If I didn’t know you were going through hell right now, I could have some fun with a good straight line like that, Luke. But when a kid's in trouble, it's no time for joking. Where should I meet you guys?"

"Runnymede Park. That's several short blocks east of my house. We'll be waiting for you in the biggest grove. If there's a change of plans, I'll buzz you back.”

"Okay. Strike off."

I hurriedly sent out another mind-message, this one aimed at Yrial.

She “picked up” very quickly. “Mantra, I was just about to contact you. I am north of Malibu, in what is called Thousand Oaks. I wasn't able to reach Shadowmage."

“That’s bad luck.” I filled her in about the schoolhouse arson. "Try to get a fix on my aura," I said. "It'll guide you in. We'll be rendezvousing with Strike, too."

"The mercenary?"

"He's a more than just a mercenary. He's probably the best friend I have." That might have been an overstatement, at least as far as this world went. Back home, Warstrike and I were close allies, but I didn’t know about this local guy’s relationship with Mantra. What concerned me most was the technology he was bringing. I sure hoped that it was something we could use to bring Gus back from the brink safely.

Yrial descended from the sky a few minutes later. The magic-wielding Stranger was wearing a basic green costume, instead of the violet one I was used to. Different colors for different worlds, I supposed.

Her barbaric headdress looked the same, though, and so did the large gems attached to her belt, boots, and tiara. Gold gleamed from her wristlets and queen-sized earrings. Though dark-complected, she was more Amerind looking than African. The inhuman thing about her was her eyes – rosy blanks with no visible irises or pupils. They gave her attractive face a demonic cast. I could only wonder whether this ocular peculiarity was typical of her people, or something unique to Yrial herself.

The sorceress was, by the way, the only crime-fighting ultra I knew of who wielded dark magic. Like Necromantra, she drew magical power from dying persons or beasts. My history with dark sorcerers had not been a good gone, and necromancy had always made me uneasy. But I had never seen Yrial do anything cruel or evil, so I had gradually become more at ease around her. It so happened that she was one of the few on Earth who had already seen me in my Blackbird outfit, thus I didn’t need to explain why I was wearing it.

She and Hardcase briefly renewed their acquaintance and the three of us promptly took off across Topanga Canyon Boulevard, passing by the smoldering schoolhouse. Yrial and I flew side by side, while Hardcase came after us leaping a block at a time, by means of his incredibly powerful legs. We switched over to Sherman Way and followed it to Runnymede Park. I inwardly debated telling my allies about the disaster facing New York, but I kept mum, not wanting to distract them from the mission at hand. Besides, any ultras seen in that vicinity would probably be suspected of causing the disaster. What was going to cause it? As far as I knew, Nemesis had been destroyed before the NYC disaster. But if it wasn’t her, what would cause the blast? And without knowing the cause, how could it be prevented? Being unable to prevent the catastrophe, one would be wise to stay away from it. We ended our trip at the grove of maples near its center. "Guys,” I said, “do either of you have an idea about subduing a super-powered sorcerer without making him suffer too much?"

Hardcase’s face remained blank, but Yrial frowned and said, "I have a possible answer, Mantra, one gained at sad cost. Do you remember Atom Bob?"

I nodded. "Of course. He was the Stranger with some really fancy matter-changing tricks. Lady Killer’s press release said that he'd gone on a sabbatical for private study. Because gathering ultra data happened to be my business, I also knew that Bob had not been reported back thus far. The gravity in Yrial’s expression suggested that there was more to his disappearance than met the eye.

"Our group had to confront demons,” the sorceress said, “but their evil surrounding them was like a plague and Bob became infected. His powers increased to frightening proportions and he began working behind the scenes to destroy the Strangers. It took all of our ingenuity to subdue him."

"How, exactly, did you subdue him?"

"I placed him into a magical coma. He is now confined in a remote European clinic. It’s doctors are seeking to expunge his demonic drives, but have reported only failure as of yet."

"What befell Atom Bob sounds a lot like what happened to the boy, Gus," I said. "There’s a doctor who thinks she can cure him, and I hope she’s right. Is the coma spell teachable, or would you be willing to perform it yourself?"

"I prefer to do it, Mantra. It is drawn from very dark magic, but a necromancer can use it without doing additional harm to himself. My people once drew their power from life and light, just as you do, until our ancestors performed a rite of demonic sacrifice to meet a crisis. By so doing, they and their heirs became shackled to the forces of darkness. Every generation of ours has tried to climb up from the pit, but we cannot find the way."

Yrial's eyes, blank though they were, somehow conveyed anguish. This wasn’t the first time I had heard about magicians who used black sorcery could become entrapped by it. I had myself once taken a baby step into the dark spell casting but, as far as I knew, hadn’t suffered any consequences. My late master Archimage had been an S.O.B., but even he had been scrupulous in avoiding the necrotic arts -- in contrast to his brother Boneyard, who had wallowed in them.

"If you have any doubts for your own safety, Yrial, I am willing to take the risk upon myself,” I told her frankly.

Yrial meet my glance with interest. "Mantra, why do you care so much about this unfortunate boy, to risk the ruination of your own life?"

"I -- I know his family," I explained lamely. "They deserve better than this."

“As I say, it is best that I do the deed. But you can help me, Mantra. A moment ago you spoke of a doctor’s hopeful treatment for the boy. Can the same means be harnessed to deliver Atom Bob from his plight?"

I shrugged. "She'll be going into unknown territory. There's no way to prove in advance that her theory can save anyone at all."

Yrial gazed off into the darkness. "If it offers no more than a straw of hope, I would grasp at it."

Our conversation was interrupted by an engine’s roar. A custom-job was tearing up the turf across Runnymede Park. When the high-octane monster skidded to a halt under the lamplight, I saw an impressive, heavy-duty, souped-up motorcycle. But the figure in the saddle didn't look like the man I had been expecting.

Brandon Tark’s build was the same, not much smaller than Hardcase himself, but I'd never seen Warstrike wearing a costume like that one. His loopy hero suit looked like something out of the mind of a second rate comic-book artist. Beyond that, he had on red-colored chest-and-shoulder armor, along with a new-style mask with eye-holes filled by two-way lenses. I would have ribbed him about wearing a rig so trashy, except that I was in no mood for levity. At least I wouldn't mistake “Strike” for the Brandon Tark I knew. The difference would keep me on guard around a man whom I actually didn’t know well enough to trust.

Strike dismounted and my two other companions stepped up to meet him. The newcomer started questioning them about breaking events.

"Gus has already done his best to burn down his own school," I answered for the pair. "Just be on guard. He’s very powerful and shows no respect for life. I tested his strength earlier and couldn't stand up to him at all. Though he has very little experience using sorcery, he’s incredibly adaptable."

"Do you have a capture plan, Mantra?" Yrial asked.

I gave a grimace. "That depends. Strike, what equipment did you bring?"

"I've got knockout-gas and some gadgets that Gizmo designed," the masked man replied. "They’re intended to make it easier for me to bring the bad guys back alive -- instead of the way I usually do it."

I winced at his blunt jibe. The Warstrike whom I knew was a wild risk-taker, a rough and ready ex-special forces soldier, but despite the front he put up, he had been neither a brute nor a deliberate killer. I hoped that was true of his alter ego, too.

Seeing my reaction, Strike caught himself and said, “Sorry.”

He then described the salient points of his gadgets. To me, they seemed crude by the standards of Aladdin's ultra-subduing equipment. “Remember who the target is, Strike,” I said. “We’ll have to be very, very careful using them.” I pivoted and sized up the lay of the land. "This park will make as good a battlefield as any we can find around here. Here's how I think we should lure Gus in and take him on...."

A few minutes later, with everyone in his place, I stood up front alone, resolved to send out a telepathic call. The recipient would be myself.

"Mrs. Blake! Mrs. Blake, can you hear me?!" I said.

I answered my own question: "I hear you! But who are you, and how can you be speaking into my head?"

"I am Mantra, and I have many amazing powers!"

"Of course, Mantra, it had to be you. Have you found Gus yet? People say that he set fire to the school! Oh, Mantra! I didn't raise him to be such a bad boy. You have to bring him home before the police catch him and put him in jail."

"Don’t worry about that. I have with me the most effective kind of help. You can count on our team to carry out our mission," I responded. "But why has Gus been so angry and destructive?"

"It was just a silly little thing. I slapped him because he'd made his sister cry, and then told him he had to stay in his room until he apologized."

"It's sad. Children who can't control their tempers are always the ones who end up in reform school."

"Reform school? That would be terrible! Wouldn't it be enough punishment if I have him take the garbage regularly?”

"Well, yes, I suppose a severe punishment like that might be enough. If he minds his mother and does no more harm from now on, a judge might show him leniency. But for now, don't worry. My comrades and I will find your missing son and return him to you safely."

"I hope you can. Where are you now, Mantra?"

"I’m waiting alone in Runnymede Park, quite close to your own home. My ally, Hardcase, has gone ahead to gather up the rest of our team. We'll need them all if we're going to face down Gus. Don't worry, Mrs. Blake; we always get our man. If Gus surrenders peacefully, we will treat him well. The next time you see us, we will have the boy with us."

"That would be wonderful, Mantra. I so love him. I have this bad feeling that if he starts another fight, he’s going to get very badly hurt."

"It’s all in his own hands. If he's polite and respectful, nothing tragic will happen. Mantra out!"

My charade was calculated to make Gus angry enough to give up any other mischief he might be planning and come instead to “surprise” me at the park. I wasn't looking forward to the coming fight, but if we didn’t get the lad under control, it was only a matter of time before Aladdin would catch up with him and use their advanced weapons to defeat and imprison him. I wanted him placed in Pinnacle’s hands, not Aladdin’s.

A sheet of green light flashed overhead and I glanced up. The sky crawled with unnatural illumination, as if this were not the neighborhood park, but some kind of nightmare instead.

"How did it go, Blackbird?" asked Hardcase behind me.

"I projected my thoughts to Gus. I was trying to make him think that I was here alone and would make an easy target.” Taking a deep breath, I added, "Be alert and ready, everyone."

Suddenly, a mental challenge sounded – one that hit my mind strongly enough to make me lurch.

"Mom! I know you can hear me! I'm going to fix Mantra for wanting to take me to jail!

"And then I'll fix you, too!”

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 21

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 21

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted March 22, 2022

Edited by Christopher Leeson

CHAPTER 21

THE ROAD TO HELL

Folly is an endless maze;
Tangled roots perplex her ways….

William Blake.
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A magical swap put me back inside my golden armor. I was willing to fight a fire in my black suit, but it wasn’t up to snuff for taking on a magician of Gus’ caliber. I don’t wear that ridiculously erotic golden armor to make a fashion statement, but rather it's because it magnifies my mystic power. In many of my past battles, I’d depended upon such magnification to save lives – including my own.

"Here I am, Gus!" I yelled telepathically. “Come over and we’re talk about a truce. You won’t be harmed!"

"I don't want to hit a girl,” came back his reply, “so I'll let my friends do that for me!"

What friends, I wondered? The only friends of his I’d met were those nerdy kids he did video gaming with. Did he intend to send against us some hapless people whom he’d mind-controlled?

Aided by my wizard sight, I discerned a distant shimmering. At the edge of the park, a troop was congealing out of thin air. The surreal mob looked like a costume party celebrating a low-budget Nintendo game. Gus was levitating at a height of about twenty feet, shouting orders and brandishing a joystick.

Lauren told me how the boy had created such beings before. The Tibetans called them "tulpas" – pseudo live forms manifested from mystical energy. In fact, the first ultra enemy Mantra had ever fought had been that type of creature -- a mock-fairy called Kismet.

“Get at them!” the lad bawled to his soldiers and started them on their way -- ninjas, thug knights, aliens, G.I.'s, golems, zombies, barbarians, fish-men, karate babes, and something that looked seafood gone bad.

I called out to my hidden allies: “They’re not really alive. Destroy them!”

My three compatriots burst from cover. Yrial joined me up front, while Hardcase and Strike assumed positions on either flank.

Wanting to find out how tough these constructs were, I took out a pair of them using magical bolts. As soon as they went down, they got right back up again. Gus was using his power to keep his playing pieces on the game board. But that gave me an idea. We could reduce his stock of power by attacking his soldiers. I preferred that than having us all attack him together.

The tulpas came on as a ragged mob. We advanced out to meet them, with Hardcase and Strike giving the host a right and left hook, while Yrial and I struck at them head-on with magical firepower. This was set up as a sort of Indian-wrestling competition to see who could last the longest. We really tore into the tulpas, incinerating limbs and blast torsos, but the missing body parts were rematerializing with amazing rapidity. So far, I couldn’t be sure that Gus was showing any sign of fatigue.

That didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Gus couldn't possibly be the repository of so much magic; he had to be refueling by means of some outside energy source, in the way that I’m nourished by the bio-fields of living things. Logically, his energy source was the unknown cosmic energy that shooting through the skies, manifesting itself in the green bolts now crisscrossing the sky.

If that was the source of his backup, there was a good chance that he could outlast us. What then? Running for our lives? But Lauren’s earlier adventures inspired me. I launched a spell at the tulpas intended to do the same thing Lauren had done to N-ME. I enveloped the entire troop with a ghosting spell and, all of a sudden, their fists, blades, zaps, and bludgeons started passing through us harmlessly, as if we were empty air.

"Good thinking, Mantra!" Yrial shouted, but on the inside I was feeling chagrin that my idea had been borrowed from a high-school kid. Overhead, Gus was visibly reacting with alarm. The boy, an inexperienced general, now seemed unsure what to do. His confusion caused his defenses sag and – once more inspired by Lauren -- I aimed a narrow bolt at the Nintendo stick in his fist. It stung his hand and the boy dropped the object with a yowl. As it had with Lauren, the loss of his security blanket put him off his game.

"Hardcase, the plan!" I yelled.

On cue, Tom Hawke charged in. Holding a gas grenade in each hand, he bounded up to Gus’s altitude and set the bombs off. The ultra’s nearly invulnerable fists were not harmed, but the force of expansion and the knockout gas sent the boy tumbling to earth. Yet, somehow, he got command of himself in time so as to land on his feet.

The novice wizard’s resiliency continual to surprise me. But the attack hadn’t been a total loss. The gas had started him coughing breathlessly.

“Hit it!” I yelled to Strike and the mercenary launched what was a rocket-propelled capture-net. It dragged over the grass and enveloped the boy, trapping him while inflicting to a series of electrical stun-pulses.

We hurried in to constrain him, but the lad’ magical bolts shot out in all directions, breaking up our rush. But what made me more afraid were his anguished cries like a wounded, trapped animal.

"Move, Mantra, now!" Yrial shouted. She was right. We had to overwhelm the boy so we could stop hurting him.

Between the gas and the electricity, Gus had lost the initiative. His tulpa army was fading as he diverted his power away from them and his shooting was unaimed and wild. To end the danger quickly, I sent a fainting spell against the lad. Strike stood by tensely, waiting for my signal to cut the current.

But as bad as Gus had it, he was throwing at us all he had! His green energy bolts kept coming, lashing around us like whips of lightning. One of these lashed my magical force-field, bleeding through with enough pizzazz to make me cry out in pain. I persevered with my sleepy-time spells nonetheless, wishing that they could be more swiftly effective. If this wild fight didn’t end speedily, someone would surely be killed.

Suddenly, Gus’ lightning storm blinked off, as if a kill switch were thrown. Hardcase bellowed: "Strike! He's out of it! Turn off the charge!"

Yrial dodged past me shouting: "Stand back, Mantra!"

"Quick, Yrial!" yelled Hardcase. "Do your thing!”

The witch, intoning alien words, made air passes with her arms. Suddenly she cried out, "M-Mantra, something’s wrong!”

Both of us stopped spell-casing immediately and sprang toward Gus.

"Watch it, ladies!" Strike warned.

I didn’t listen. My hands went swiftly to the boy, feeling for life signs, but his bio-signs seemed as inert as clay.

The stricken child needed resuscitation! I clenched one of Gus’s arms and sent my own life-force surging into his little frame, trying to refuel his faltering life-spark. It did no good. His body was like an oil lamp that refused to draw. Like a lifeguard losing a drowning victim, I continued with my life-saving techniques beyond their point of usefulness.

My companions crowded up around me, none of us knowing what to do. At the last, the reality became so obvious that not even a mother could deny it.

The flame was out.

Gus was dead.

Dead.

Time hung in abeyance. My shoulders shook and my tears on my face felt cold. The landscape swung around like I was riding a kid-park roundabout. My mind in a fog, I felt Strike’s arm lifting me, with Yrial offering support from the other side. I tried to fight them off, not wanting to let go of Gus, refusing to accept the truth.

My plan had been a disaster.

Had I done the wrong thing?

What should I have done instead?

"What should I have done instead?!" I repeated out loud.

"Nothing, Mantra,” Strike told me.

“I hurt him!” I exclaimed.

“No,” said Tark. "It's no one's fault."

I wanted to get violent. I wanted to harm the people with me -- for helping me to harm Gus.

How could I have been so crazy as to bring a child into battle against heavy-hitting ultras? I should have done nothing at all. Even if Aladdin had snatched him away, it would not have been so bad as what I had made to happen.

"We can't leave the little fellow lying here," Yrial whispered. "S-Somebody has to call the police.”

In my state, I was hardly aware of Strike’s and Yrial’s continuing grip on me. Hardcase looked like he understood my loss and pitied me.

"S-Someone has to stay with him," I stammered.

"We'll all stay," said the world’s most seasoned ultra.

I shook the three away from me. "I can’t! I have something to do."

"Mantra...?" began Yrial.

“When a loved one dies in battle, an enemy warrior has to be killed upon his grave."

What I’d said surprised even me. I was suddenly thinking like a Dark Age warrior again. Strike understood, but Yrial couldn’t. She knew me only as a modern-day ultra. But my words must have sounded even more bizarre to Hardcase, who’d sized me up as a suburban homemaker. "Mantra, what are you saying?” he asked. “You're not thinking clearly."

I swatted his outreaching hands away. With my soul sliced to shreds, the last thing I wanted was comforting.

"Mantra," Hardcase urged, "you didn't cause this. Gus’s young body wasn’t strong enough to channel so much power. He kept fighting, kept drawing it into himself until he burned out like a fuse during an electrical surge. Don't damn yourself, and please don't do anything rash."

I shook my head. "His sister’s in danger, too. And enemy is waiting to feed off her. If that witch makes her move, Evie could follow her brother to the grave--"

Strike grasped my arms. "Easy, Mantra. This isn’t the right moment for revenge, not while you’re in such a state."

I fought free of his grip and staggered out of reach.

Tom Hawke came up again. "What enemy are you talking about, Mantra?"

"Necromantra!" I said.

Hardcase frowned. He already knew that Necromantra had killed my lover.

"Dear friend," spoke up Yrial, "the mercenary speaks sense. You will mourn, it will hurt, and it will be a bitter thing, but you will endure. You must endure. The worst possible result is to lose the person you truly are. No matter how evil Necromantra is, a good person must not use it as an excuse to commit intentional murder."

I rounded on her. "You never met the person I truly am. You’re yourself a death-witch. How do your people honor the slain?"

She shook her head. "My ancestors were unwise. They left us a terrible legacy that my people are still struggling to escape."

"I don’t understand, Mantra!” said Hardcase. "What does Necromantra have to do with anything that’s happened tonight?"

"Forget, it!" I declared. "I don't need anyone to understand. Killing her is something I should have done a long time ago."

"You already have my advice," said Strike, "but if you’re so determined, I'll go along to back you up. I only hope that you can think better of what you’re doing before it’s too late."

"Thanks," I replied. In the ghastly place I occupied, I wanted company -- as long as he didn’t try to stop me.

"I have a cell phone, Mantra," offered Tark. "Should I call an ambulance?"

I nodded. "Yrial, Hardcase, can one of you stay with the boy?" I couldn't bring myself to speak of Gus as a mere body.

The pair searched one another’s face and found accord. "We'll both wait for the medics to come," the man assured me.

"It will be most terrible for the child’s parents," Yrial remarked wistfully.

"Yes," I answered. “Losing a child is like dying inside.”

I should know.

"I need to go," I told them, "but please do one thing for me: Don't mention that you saw Mantra tonight."

Hardcase and Yrial traded glances again.

"I'm not dodging responsibility," I explained. "It’s that Aladdin was hounding me, up until they arrested the wrong person, thinking she was Mantra. She’s an international criminal, but Aladdin is torturing her to make her tell them things that she doesn’t know. If the world ever get sane again, I want to rescue her, but do it in a way that won’t put Aladdin back on my tracks again."

"It will be as you say," replied Yrial. Her tone suggested that she was humoring me. I fought down a flare of anger.

"Thank you," I said and then turned toward Strike. “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

"Where are we going?" he asked edgily.

"I'll guide you. Do you have passenger room on that hog of yours? I need a rest."

"There’s always room for a friend," he affirmed with a nod.

A quarter-hour later, Strike and I were stopped within a shadow along Hollywood Boulevard. Before us stood a decaying 1950's-style warehouse. According to Lauren, this was the lair of Necromantra. My passive senses affirmed so much; strong magic was leaking from within the weathered structure. What the nature of that magic might be I couldn’t ascertain.

"Are you sure about this, Eden?" my driver asked.

"I sense a wizard in there. It has to be Thanasi.”

“Thanasi?”

“Didn’t I tell you what her real name was? The two of us were best friends.”

"Best friends?"

He didn’t remember things he should have. Maybe the local Mantra and the local Tark hadn’t had all of the same conversations that I had had with Warstrike. “Forget it. I probably mentioned that to someone else.”

“I guess,” he replied. "Are you sure you’re up for a fight? You’ve been ground down tonight and Necromantra's no pushover – not if her new body is as powerful as yours when she had it.”

"It’s powerful, but I don’t intend to fight fair, Brandon. There isn't going to be any chivalry, no turn and fire. This is going to be simple pest control."

"If you were such friends, aren’t you afraid that you’ll choke at the wrong moment?"

"Don't worry about it. I'm past that."

Strike shook his head. “I know where you’re coming from. I ran into Necromantra just once and it left me wanting to kill her myself. I should do the dirty job. I don’t have your kind of baggage, Luke. Whenever you do something that you know is wrong, you carry a load of shame for a long time."

I balled my fists. "Yes, it’s a dirty job, but I’m the one who deserves to get muddy. If you're so worried about saving somebody’s soul, start with your own."

Strike blenched. "Actually,” he said, “I think I’m a Dead-End Kid. I won’t be getting much better than I am now."

I touched his arm and spoke as it these would be my last words to him. "Don’t think that way. You once told me that no matter how badly things have turned out for me, I was always doing the best I can."

He smiled. "I don’t remember that. Maybe you were told that by other guy you were talking to."

I shrugged and looked away.

"I've been wondering," Strike added, "who, exactly, is Thanasi's spirit possessing this time?"

He had the right to know, but I could hardly put the ugly truth into words: "My... my daughter’s."

That threw Tark for a loop. "What? Evie? You mean --?!"

"No, not Evie. Eden and I had another daughter. Marinna."

"So when did you two find time enough to make a daughter from scratch?"

"I can't talk about it now," I told him.

"If you say so. But if the witch is actually your daughter, how...how can you even consider --?"

“She’s not my daughter. She’s only using her body. My real child never had a chance to live. What Necromantra did is just another reason why I have to kill her."

Tark didn’t press the subject.

And I was glad that he didn’t. The loss of Eden Blake and my daughter on the same day has always been a thing too terrible for me to put my mind around.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 22

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 22

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

Mature Subjects (pg15)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted April 21, 2022

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.
CHAPTER 21

FRENEMIES

Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache:
Do be my enemy for friendship's sake.

William Blake
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There was something that I had to tell Strike, something that I’d been putting off for too long.

"Brandon, there’s something you have to know, but I’m not sure how to say it right. As bad as things are, there are worse things coming."

"For you?"

"For me, too. But I’m what I’m saying is that things can get very bad for you."

"What things?"

"Life-destroying things. Maybe if I warn you, you can avoid disaster."

"So tell me."

"A good part of New York City is going to be blasted this coming Sunday evening. The effects are going to be like a small nuclear missile strike."

That opened his eyes. "Who's making the hit?"

"No one knows. But right after it happens, you and some – companions – are going to be seen near the blast zone and you’ll be blamed for causing it."

"What companions?"

"The only names I saw reported were yours – as Strike -- and Amber Hunt’s."

"Amber Hunt? The nutcase who almost destroyed the world last year?"

"The same."

"How do you know this? You‘ve never been a prognosticator before. Prediction is my job."

"I’ve been in the future – as late as next Thursday night."

"You’ve got quite a story to tell then."

"I do, but that has to wait until after we get this job done.

"Not so fast! You’ve just said that something horrific is going down. Shouldn’t we be figuring out how to stop it?"

"All I know is what I’ve read in the papers. Maybe you did try to stop it, but whatever you did, it failed. I’m just telling you that it’ll be lose-lose situation if you go blundering in there. You’ll save nobody, but you’ll be treated as a world-class terrorist."

"Grim," he muttered. "But how am I expected to take this time-travel story on faith?"

"I’ll tell you everything, but we don’t have the time for it right now."

"Are you sure that you have your priorities straight?"

"If you don’t like the job, I’ll do it alone,” I said, taking another glance at Necromantra’s lair.

"We definitely need to talk as soon as possible," Strike said.

"That’s for sure. But, for now, do you have anything in your pack that could soften up Necromantra? If I have to take her on in top form, the outcome will be like flipping a coin."

"I’ve got a knockout gas," he replied. "It’s dispensed by a hose and works best inside an enclosed space.

"That should do. Bring it along."

He went to get his gear from his cycle’s carrier. I went out ahead, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. Tark, c0ming up behind, was surprisingly light on his feet for a man of his size and weight. We stopped under the dense shadow beside the brick warehouse. The windows were board-covered, but one sealed window had a knothole to see through. I took a peek, but the glass was too filthy dirty make out anything in the dark interior.

Still determined not to use magic, I started to pry off one of the boards. As usual, I Eden Blake’s muscle power proved to be pathetic. "Here, let me help," Brandon said and began tearing the nails out with little apparent effort.

"Do you have a glass cutter?" I asked.

"I never leave home without one." The mercenary took the tool out of his side-pack and cut a small disk from the windowpane. While he stood back with the tank, I manipulated the dispensing tube.

This I pushed through the perferated windowpane and then signaled Tark to open the valve. The gas came out hissing. Should the toxin knock Necromantra out, or at least reduce her capacity for self-defense, I intended to go in and slice off her head. In the eyes of the law, I would be committing murder. But I saw it as answering to a much older law than that of the United States of America.

The gassing had hardly begun before I sensed a magical surge, like a powerful generator switching on.

"Look out!" I warned Strike.

I sprang into the air and tossed a force field around myself. It was more than for my protection; I wanted to give my enemy something so strong to sense that she’d overlook Strike. The death-witch would be able to assassinate him with a single, magic-backed, concentrated thought.

I ascended with Necromantra’s sorcery sputtering behind me like an Independence Day sparkler. "You bitch!" she telepathically yelled, "You'd actually try to kill me with poison?"

"It wasn’t poison," I shouted back. "I was just softening you up."

"When did you turn into a back-shooter, Lukasz? You’re contemptible!"

"Look who’s talking," I said.

I deliberately made my ascent erratic, keeping Necromantra from drawing a clear bead on me. Once we were high enough to minimize possible damage to anything or anybody at ground level, I swung around to face her. I touched the magical ring on my belt, activated it to take the form of the Sword of Fangs.

Now I had a battle royal on my hands, but I was game for it! This feud had to be ended before the psychotic witch could do any more harm. Thanasi was a deadly foe, but a small part of me was glad that my fight would now be an honorable one.

Necromantra sent a rippling laugh through the air. "What do you expect to accomplish? You ran me through with that butter knife once already and the wound barely slowed me down."

I braced for action. I knew that Thanasi often hurled abuse at a foe, to get him off guard before his strike to kill.

True to form, that spiked whip of hers came whirring my way. My magical shield saved my life and I tossed a crackling bolt at her -- one energized by the incandescent power of my hatred. The rage of friends who fall out often rises to a psychotic degree. That’s why civil wars are so brutal.

The bolt I threw could have burned a hole through a stone wall, but – as Strike had warned -- Necromantra was no pushover. My missile flared uselessly against her concentrated force field.

My enemy – my false daughter – then came back strong, hurling a fireball like a pitcher throws a softball. I cast a sizzler right back at her. After that, the brawl devolved into a free-for-all with too much dodging, lunging and striking to remember. The kill-shots we were trading rattled the neighborhood windows with the fury of wind and storm. To any onlooker, our death-duel might have been mistaken for a fireworks display given on the Fourth of July.

I wasn't at my peak, but Necromantra didn’t seem to be either. Probably she had gotten a tiny whiff of Tark’s debilitating gas. A dirty trick, but a necessary one.

I heard yelling below. We must have looked a sight, two athletic-looking sorceresses with lots of skin showing and going at each other like a pair of foxy boxers. In the old days, the two of us would have resembled a pair of grunts from Wrestlemania. The existing situation was absolutely absurd, even to me.

Reflex and instinct guided me in my fight for life. Being evenly matched against my nemesis, a single wrong move could have ended the battle for one of us. My wild exertions were raising my fatigue off the charts. Some of the energy coming at me was bleeding through my force-shield like electrical shocks. I had no choice but to weaken my rear-side defense and reinforced my front against her attacks. Maybe she was doing the same thing.

Ours was a war of attrition, for sure. I think we both were determined to end feud here and now. It seemed like the outcome would depend on whose empowering rage was the stronger.

But I had one thing working against me. The woman I fought was the same person whom I had loved like a brother for hundreds of years. That was a fact that sapped away some of my rage and I couldn’t afford that. I wondered if it could possibly be the same for Necromantra.

Suddenly I was tossed by a jarring blast. Through my shock, I could see Thanasi free-falling toward the warehouse roof. She struck it like a sack of meal, to roll down its pitch and plummet over eve trough – to bounce upon the concrete walk below. I hung there in mid hair, too rattled to believe that the ordeal was so unexpectedly over. My deadly enemy been reduced to a pile of broken bones and I had had nothing to do with it. Was the shooter a friend or a foe?

I descended, wary of ambush. Strike was there on the ground, his rocket-launcher on his shoulder. Alighting alongside Necromantra's broken body, I saw blood running from her nose and mouth and shattered bones protruding through bruised and abraded skin. The woman looked too battered to live, but my magical receptors told me that Necromantra was still holding on to a flicker of life.

Strike’s boots clunked up behind me. "I didn't know if you'd want me to butt in," he huffed, breathless, "but like you said, we have to treat this as pest control."

I nodded, a response from the reptilian side of my brain. My feelings were entirely unfocused; everything around me felt unreal. My emotions, so overheated a moment before, now lay like a dead lump inside me. I wasn’t sure whether I was angry or grateful for what Strike had done.

Lukasz! You’re in danger! I suddenly realized.

I flashed into my Blackbird outfit. As soon as I'd done so, I felt a little weaker. People were running up. Had any of them recognized Mantra before I’d changed?

A low moan drew my attention. Aghast, I realized that Thanasi had always been able to repair what should be mortal wounds with breathtaking rapidity. Though reduced to pathetic human wreckage, she was going to be on her feet and at my throat again in a couple minutes -- if I permitted it.

"Let me finish this, Blackbird," the mercenary rumbled.

"No!" I said.

In a way, Brandon had become the friend that Thanasi could no longer be. I didn’t want to give him the cup of murder-guilt meant for me. But, at the same time, like a drowning person, I was seeing flashes from the past, images from before Thanasi had become my bitterest enemy. At that instant, it was hard to remember that those days were dead and gone. If she rose, this terrible ordeal was going to be renewed -- unless I took action.

That’s when I deliberately reached out to the barbarian that I still remained under the skin – the barbarian that I had been born to be.

I raised the Sword of Fangs, letting it hang there for a couple seconds, as if stuck to the sky. In that tiny space something told me that without Thanasi in my life there was going to be nothing left of the obscenely long life that I had already lived. His death would leave Lukasz absolutely alone in the universe, a sole survivor of a past of bewildering complexity. I didn’t want that but….

I don’t even remember striking the blow. The next thing I knew, Necromantra's head was rolling from her slim neck while her severed arteries pumped scalding gore over my thigh-high boots. My nerves crashed. I had just slain my daughter, my friend, as well as my bitterest enemy. The finality of what I had done, what I had given up left, me horrified. I shuddered to feel the splaxh of my child’s blood turning cold. I’d never felt so befouled. How I could ever feel clean again?

Thanasi, why? I mentally asked the corpse.

A collective gasp broke the stillness. The crowd had just witnessed a Dark-Age vengeance-killing and was shocked, as would be all soft modern people. Theirs was a place much different from mine. They couldn’t understand the terrible world into which I had been born, a world in which I had learned to fight at the utmost every day just to stay alive.

With dismay, I realized that these people were seeing that Blackbird was a murderer. She would always carry the foulness of my act. I had to make her disappear and create some new alter-ego and the thought of that made me sorrow for her as much as for Thanasi. I had killed a part of myself and I would mourn her, too.

I took one last look at my enemy, my former friend. What affected me even more was that I was looking down at the dead flesh of my own flesh.

Why did did it have to be this way, Marinna? I whispered.

Okay, I was in a bad state, but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t remember that Strike and I had to get away. We ran in a circle to avoid the crowd and made for our cycle. My shame kept me from looking at my comrade’s face. When we drew up on opposite sides of the vehicle, we kept silent for a few uncomfortable seconds.

"We’d better get out of here," he said.

He mounted his machine and I climbed on behind him like an automaton. He took us away, weaving through the residential streets behind Hollywood Boulevard. Before long, Strike braked in the shadow of cultivated dogwood trees.

"Feeling better?" he asked, his masked face looking over his shoulder.

"Don't be funny."

"What happens now?"

What indeed? I had vowed to put an enemy’s corpse on top of my son’s grave, but by doing that I done him any honor? I shut my eyes, trying not to see the red stains still flooding through my memory. Why couldn’t I stop remembering Thanasi as my friend? Why did he have to become my enemy? What she had told me about her motives didn’t jive and her words had made her sound mad. One thing that I did know was that Necromantra’s bloody head was going to haunt my nightmares for as long as I lived.

But even in that strait, I knew that nightmares for worse were coming down the tube.

Soon, so very soon, I would have to confront Evie and let her know how her brother had died. Would she hate me? Would that still be true even if I told her that I had taken revenge against her mother’s murderer? But what I feared worst was that it might make her smile. The last thing I ever wanted to see was that kind of smile on a child’s face.

If a child could be made to smile about something like that was one who could never be a child again.

Why was my life like this? Why did my every attempt to protect Eve Blake always go wrong?

"You really seem to be out of things, Mantra," Strike said. "Anything I can do?"

I shook my head. "I have to call in to Aladdin, but I told Wrath that I didn’t have a phone with me."

"For safety, you’d better not use mine, either. There’s a cafe. Maybe you can phone from there."

I flashed into my Eden Blake clothes in the next instant, something that Strike couldn’t do. He waited under the dogwoods while I went inside. You can’t find a place with a public phone anymore, but the manager on duty let use his personal cell phone because I said it was an emergency. Also, he must have thought that I looked like hell.

The Aladdin Outside Desk patched me through to Wrath.

"Where in hell did you disappear to?" demanded the A-Team commander.

"I-It's hard to explain," I croaked, fighting down a lump in my throat.

"Blake, are you all right?" asked Wrath.

"F-Fine," I said. "I’ve had a rough time of it."

"What happened?"

I had a lie ready to go. "After you left Evie and me in the van, I suddenly heard Gus's voice calling. He was ordering me to come to him. I couldn't hold myself back. I told Evie to stay with the driver, and then took off into the dark. I didn’t even know where I was supposed to be going. The next thing I knew, I was lying at a construction site bound and gagged. I don’t know how long it took; I kept blacking out. But suddenly I was loose. The bonds must have been magical because they’d dissolved suddenly. I got up and ran away as quickly as I could."

"What’s your location?"

"I don’t know. I’ll have to ask somebody."

Several seconds of silence followed. "I hate to be the one to tell you, Mrs. Blake," Tunney finally said. "But we've intercepted a police call. It’s very bad news."

"About Gus?" I asked, bracing myself.

"Yes." Then he told me what I already knew.

"W-Where's Evie?" I stammered.

"She's still with us. I thought it’ld be best if we kept her with the team."

"Y-Yes, thank you," I replied. "Does Evie know yet?"

"No. Telling a little girl that sort of thing is no job for a stranger. When we link up, I'll be willing to stand with you -- when you talk to her, I mean."

"How did Gus...die?" I asked.

"Two big-name ultras were waiting by his body. Hardcase and Yrial, that Indian girl from the Strangers."

"Did they attack the boy?" I asked, letting anguish seep into my tone.

"The exchanges we intercepted says that the two of them pursued the boy from the school, intending to apprehend him for arson. He’s supposed to have fought back when they were crossing Runnymede Park. Their contention is that they used no lethal force, but that the little guy passed out and died from some sort of seizure."

"D-Do you think that's how it really happened?"

"Damned if I know. For the time being, it’s in the hands of the city police. The body is being taken to the Woodland Hills Medical Center. I’ll notify the Company about what we know so far. What do you want me to do -- about your little girl, I mean?"

"Would you take her over to her grandmother's house? That’s where I intend to go next." I gave him the address.

"You don’t sound so good, Mrs. Blake. Should we come pick you up?"

"No," I said. "I can deal with this. I’ll summon a cab from here."

"What phone are you using?" he asked.

"I’m calling from a cafe." I next found myself listening to a mutter of voices in Wrath’s background. When Tunney’s voice returned, it was crisp with excitement:

"Something else has gone down."

"What?"

"There was a sighting of two Mantra-style babes fighting an aerial battle over West Hollywood. One of them fits the description of the flying woman we sighted near the school. The other one was a redhead with a snake tattoo on her leg."

"Two new Mantras? That doesn't make sense."

"There must be a whole sorority of them. Anyway, the gals were going at each other like lunatics. The snake girl was blasted out of the air by some sort of explosion. Then the one in black followed her down and cut off her head. Oh, and the killer had an accomplice, a heavily-armed male in a mask. One witness said that his outfit looked like Strike’s. We'll check that out. The suits will be glad to have an excuse to go after that guy."

"I-I’m sorry," I said. "I just can't talk anymore."

"I believe it. As soon as we can see clear, we’ll take the girl over to your grandma’s place."

"Good."

"See you soon. Out." Wrath disconnected.

I handed the phone back to the manager. I wouldn’t need a phone to contact Yrial.

I rejoined Tark outdoors, under the trees. "I need to contact Yrial," I told him.

I made a telepathic linkup with the Stranger and she brought me up to speed. She and Hardcase were still at the Canoga Park police department answering questions. Besides what I already knew, there wasn’t much more the sorceress could tell me.

I told Tark the little information that I’d learned.

He gave me a thoughtful frown. "Do you want a ride over to your mother’s place?"

I shook my head. "No, you should go to cover. One of the bystanders tipped off the police that Blackbird’s accomplice looked like Strike."

"Damn! More complications."

"But, like I’ve said, you’ve got worse problems."

I brought up New York again and told him to go inactive for the next couple days. My advice was to stay at home in his civilian identity and not go out for any reason, except to establish an alibi. And I emphasized that he shouldn’t be caught anywhere within five hundred miles of New York state.

"You still haven’t explained how you got to be time-traveling," he said.

"I’ll give you a call when I can afford the time, but right now I have to get Evie back from Aladdin. Whatever you do, be smart! I don’t have so many friends that I can afford to lose any more."

He nodded gravely, without agreeing to heed my advice. With a mumbled, “See you later,” Strike mounted and rode off. I stood watching him go, his pale exhaust darkening to invisibility within the September night.

TO BE CONCLUDED IN CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Wounded World by Aladdin, Chapter 23 The Conclusion

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Superheroes

Character Age:

Mature / Thirty+

TG Themes:

Body, Mind or Soul Exchange

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Fan-Fiction, poster's responsibility

The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted May 21, 2022

Edited by Christopher Leeson
.
Chapter 23

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

In the universe,
There are things that are known
And things that are unknown,
And in between, there are doors.

William Blake
.
.
.
.
Up to this point, I’d been carried along by pure adrenaline, but now my reserves were running low. After Strike had been lost to view, I stood there shivering, not from cold but from emotional overload. I shouldn’t be feeling what I was feeling. I had lost thousands of comrades across the centuries, sometimes under terrible circumstances. But losing a child was something new to me. One who has never lost a child of his own doesn’t know the meaning of tragic death.

But I had to hold together; others were still depending on me. I clicked into automatic and mounted the air currents, gliding across them to Barbara Freeman's home. There, after switching into civilian garb, I entered via the front door.

With the first words out of her mouth Mom asked me who was taking care of the kids. That broke the dam and my cover story came out in a jumble. The flinty old lady, the leather-tough army wife, was shaken. But as bad as she was having it, I knew that the news would come even harder to Evie. And I was the one who would have to tell a second grader one of the worst tidings that she would ever hear for the rest of her life.

The grandmother, sobbing, sagged to the couch. With no words to comfort her, I drifted to the window. Along the street, I knew, I would soon see the lights of the Aladdin van. Part of me was hoping that they wouldn’t show up before the next calendar year.

What now?

I needed to go home. I didn’t belong here. As long as I stayed here I could support Evie in her grief. But there were other hearts that would be broken if I couldn't get back to them.

Dilemma!

The street outside looked so empty. The moon was casting its glow through a mask if green vapor, but for the first time I spotted a couple of e bright stars blinking through verdant occlusion.

Did that mean that the evil blanket of magic was ebbing away?

But the next thing I saw was myself backing away from myself.

Not again!

I was time-shifting again!

My last shift had come only a few hours earlier. Was my condition worsening? Was I totally losing my anchorage in time? Would I be a leaf in a hurricane, blown about helter skelter – a few minutes here, a few minutes there – until something – maybe even my own hand – would finally intervene to put an end to the madness?

The next thing I knew, the lights were bright. Everything changed. I was surrounded by a crowd of strangers. Startled, my lurching left arm struck something.

"Hey, Mom, be careful!" someone said.

I recognized the voice and glanced back.

I froze in place.

Gus was alive again.

I was seated across from my son. And Gus wasn’t a deformed dwarf anymore. He was simply Gus!

And he was scowling.

"You're looking spacey, Mom! You’ll make people think you're spooky."

Evie was there, too, to my right. Then it dawned on me. We were back in The Mall in Canoga Park. I had on the same shirt and jeans that I’d worn there on Thursday the 14th.

Had I really come home? I was afraid to let that hope escape – afraid that I’d jinx myself and make a perverse universe snatch me away again.

I extended shaking fingers to touch my little girl's arm, wanting tactile proof that she was really there. Her flesh felt soft and warm. Barely able to speak, I asked, "B-Button, what d-day is this?"

"Ahh... it's Thursday, Mommy."

"Thursday the fourteen?"

She looked to her brother. "It's the fourteenth, isn't it, Gus?"

"Yeah, it is," the boy said.

I was suddenly sensible of a cold, clammy spot on my lap. Coca Cola was dribbling off the table. I pushed my chair back, stood up, and attacked the wetness with a Kid’s Club napkin.

Evie let out a little coo of sympathy. How different she was from the totally different woebegone, tragedy-plagued tyke I’d left behind in that other world.

"Mommy, why are you looking that way? Are you mad about something?" Evie asked.

Shaking my head to clear it, I said, "No, Pumpkin. H-How could I be mad? Here I am with the girl and boy I love most."

She gave back an uncertain smile.

"Kids," I began slowly. "I think I must have blacked out for a few seconds. I'm still a little mixed up. We were just shopping for school supplies, weren’t we?"

"Yeah," replied Gus, looking at me like some odd amphibian specimen from his nature-studies class.

"And then we got into the lunch line, right?"

"Yeah! Mom,” said the boy. “Are you putting us on?"

"Have I been with you the whole time, or did I go off somewhere for a while?"

"You were with us, Mommy," replied Evie. "You said, 'Let's eat at this one,' and we all sat down. Then you looked around and spilled your drink."

For the two kids, no time at all had passed. But hadn’t I lived for days in an alternate world? What did it all mean? What did anything mean?

Whatever you do, Lukasz, keep calm. Don't scare the kids.

"Umm,” I began, “have I been acting funny at this table, or saying things that didn’t make sense?”

"Not until now," Gus opined.

I took a deep breath.

This was incomprehensible.

What, exactly, had happened?

"If you're going to get another Coke, Mommy, can I have one, too?" Evie asked hopefully.

Though still in a daze, I forced myself to answer. “I don’t know, Evie. You drank the first one so quickly. If you do the same with another one, you could get a tummy ache.”

“No I won’t!” she said emphatically.

“All right, but I’m only being lenient because this is a time for celebrating.”

"Celebrating what, Mom?” asked Gus. "Are you talking dopey because of PMS?"

Ignoring his question, I said, "Gus...you're so handsome. How do you stay so handsome?"

"Uh?"

Don’t lose it, Lukasz. Wake up. Act like nothing’s happened.

"Ah, how long have we been at this table?" I asked Evie.

"Not too long."

Suddenly, paranoia clutched at me.

"Evie, Gus," I said, "do you two know who Contrary is?"

Gus made a face of bemusement, but Evie answered politely. "Yes, Mommy. She's the UltraForce lady that all the fourth graders like so much. Don’t you remember when we talked about her before? Is that something you forgot?"

I exhaled with relief.

Then a chill coursed through my blood.

Tomorrow would be the Ides of September. I couldn’t give up the idea that what happened to me in that other world had really happened. What if I’d had a premonition of events that were soon to happen in the world I knew?

I glanced up. "Gus, are you and your Dad still going to go to the Sharks' game tomorrow?"

"Yeah! It's going to be great!"

I didn't like it. I didn't like it. I didn't like it.

In that other world, it had been Gus Sr.’s reneging that appointment that had sent the other Gus over the top. To keep that from happening, I had to prepare Gus for possible disappointment. "You know, Gus, it might be a waste to go to the first football game of the fall. The teams won't be in shape yet. Those kids’ll have a ton of summer fat to work off before they start playing well. Wouldn’t it be better if your dad took you to see the Sharks next month? That will leave tomorrow free for all of us to take a really fun trip over to the Universal theme park."

"Universal?" chirped Evie. "Yay! Can Daddy come with us?"

Gus frowned. "It'ld be nice, but let's do that Saturday morning instead. That’ll give us the whole day there. I really want to go somewhere with Dad. It’s been months since we‘ve done anything important together."

The boy was always desperate to have a closer relationship with his father. But my concern was that there might really be some sort of unknown energy sweeping in from outer space. If that happened, I didn't want the Blakes to be anywhere near Leadwell Street at a quarter after seven on Friday.

"Gus, I have to tell you’re something that I’ve been putting off. I called your father while you were at school today, to talk about our usual business." This was a fib, of course, but I was angling to prevent disaster." He mentioned how excited he was to be taking you to the game, but he was having a problem."

"What?" Gus looked like I'd just given him a hotfoot.

"An important client of his is giving him mixed signals. They'd been planning to visit a sale property on Saturday morning. But that was before the fellow got a call about an emergency back in Chicago. Now he doesn’t want to stay in California that long and wants to take a Friday night flight home. He’s asking your dad to show him the property tomorrow afternoon instead. It's a very important deal and a lot depends on your father bringing it off. But your dad is worried that if things don’t go smoothly, if delays happen, he might get tied up with the client for hours. That could make him too late to attend the Sharks game."

"No!" Gus declared. "He's not going to cop out again!"

I took his wrist and squeezed it. "It might not happen, precious. Your Father said he’s doing everything possible to make things work out, but he's just not sure if they will. He wanted me to warn you ahead of time. It would break his heart if you got mad at him for something that he simply couldn’t help."

Gus set his jaw resentfully. "There's probably no client at all," he muttered. "I bet he met some slut he wants to go out with."

"Gus, it's not nice to call strangers bad names. Anyway, I'm sure that there's no lady involved. Bad things just happen sometimes.”

The boy’s face, glowering down at his ketchup-smeared paper plate, was a mask of disgruntlement.

"Gus, you can't believe that your dad would fib about anything so important."

"If you think Dad's so great, why did you divorce him?" the boy suddenly challenged.

Always that question. In truth, the divorce had been Eden’s idea and it had happened a year before I’d ever come upon the scene. That was at least one guilt trip I didn’t have to bear.

"Grownup love is something hard to understand,” I explained. “I don't know why, but too often married people stop loving each other after a while."

"Dad didn't stop loving you!" Gus declared. "He says he wanted things to stay the same, but you made him go away."

I didn’t know a lot about that divorce, so I had to ad lib. "That's true. But a marriage isn't good if it doesn't make both people in it happy. Your dad and I were having grownup-type problems. We tried to fix them, but nothing we tried worked. I’m sorry that everybody ended up getting hurt."

"Were those problems about sex?" Gus asked.

"We'll talk about sex when you get older, darling," I punted. "But when moms and dads stop loving each other, they almost never stop loving their kids. The two of you mean as much to us both as you ever did."

"Then why doesn't he come see us every other Sunday? Did you tell him not to? Jeff said at school that his mother told his dad to keep away -- or else she'd lie to the judge and have him put in jail."

"I'd never do that, Gus," I assured him. "I want you and Evie to spend lots and lots of time with your dad. He loves you both hugely and I know how much you love him back."

"That’s what grownups always say," groused the younger Gus. I glanced to his sister to see how she was reacting. The tyke was wearing a serious expression and I felt sorry for her. Girls need a father at home just as much as boys do. Back in the Dark Ages, a terrible world outside made people stay together and family meant everything to them. Now people were ready to divorce for the pettiest of reasons.

I decided to mollify him with bribery.

"You know what, Gus? Your dad told me that if things don't work out tomorrow, he’ll pay for show tickets for me, you, and Evie. If I can get off early, we’ll all go over to the Van Nuys multiplex. We can take in two movies, if you feel like it. Your Dad made it very clear that he'd want to make it a really big night for you. Like, there'd be no limit to the candy, soft drinks, and popcorn that you and Evie can buy."

Fluttering eyelids told me that Gus was weakening. I gave him a coaxing smile and squeezed his hand. "Well, think about it -- just in case. And remember, the ball game might come off after all. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought up the subject at all.”

Fat chance of that! I was going to have to get in touch with Gus Sr. lickety-split and find out what exactly his intentions were.

The children, made somber by the topic of our conversation, resumed their dining in silence. The lull gave me time to think. It was a no-brainer that I had to get the two of them away from Canoga Park. In fact, even if Gus Sr. was still planning to come on Friday night, I thought it would be smart to get the kids out of the house as early as possible. I could take Gus and Evie to a restaurant near the ball field and have Blake Sr. pick Gus up there. Then I’d go to the movies with Evie and take her home to bed when I was sure it was safe.

But wait a minute! Gus wouldn’t be the only one in peril. I had to keep Heather's fan club from turning into the monster Coven. Nor could I forget about Lauren. If she got empowered at her excitable age, she might get herself killed fighting some ultra-villain – maybe even N-ME. On top of that, Necromantra might also be coming to town. Then, too, there was the threat hanging over New York City. Warstrike had to be warned not to get involved in that!

What a multiplicity of quandaries! How could I juggle so many threats while giving priority to Gus and Evie?

But hope springs eternal. There was still the possibility, even the probability, that there wasn’t going to be any worldwide catastrophe. But for safety's sake I had to be prepared.

What I needed more than anything just then was a drink. "Evie," I murmured, "I'm going to refill my cup. Do you still want more pop? "

"Yeah! Only, can I have Sprite this time?"

"You surely can, Dumpling!"

That night, with the kids abed, I lingered in the living room, still anxious and haunted. I stood over the phone, needing to call up Gus Blake Sr. Regardless of how the conversation went, I doubted that I’d be getting much sleep afterwards. How could I could breathe easily until the Ides of September had come and gone peacefully?

My perplexed glance fell on Mr. Paws, across from me on the easy chair. He had fallen forward onto his nose. Usually, Evie went to bed with her stuffed pet tucked in beside her. Tonight, unfortunately, she’d come home with a bellyache and so I’d put her to bed immediately with a spoonful of bicarbonate.

Contemplating the teddy bear, I remembered the wrenching events that the other Mr. Paws had undergone with his family. On a whim, I crossed over and transferred the little fellow to the couch in front of our smart TV. In the morning, Evie would find her friend sitting there and probably make up an imaginative story about how teddy bears like to watch secret bear-only streaming services that only play after midnight, the hour when all the teddies come alive.

It occurred to me then whether I shouldn’t first get in touch with Warstrike. With his psychic talents, he might be able to look ahead and see whether something wicked was coming our way. With all the federal phone surveillance, I would have to contact him telepathically. Both of us needed to be careful about keeping the feds off the trail of our secret identities.

But Warstrike wasn’t the only friend at risk. There was the matter of Penny. Had she emotionally crashed in this world the way she’d done in that other? Was she in a near-suicidal state? If she was in crisis, I’d I have to go up to San Francisco and give her some moral support before something tragic happened.

Suddenly the front doorbell rang.

I turned about and went to answer it, but my hand refused to touch the knob. It was as if some inner voice was warning me that if I opened this particular door something very, very significant was going to happen.

And that something wasn’t going to be anything good.

But when the bell chimed for a second time, I told myself that I was just being silly. My enemies certainly weren't of the type that came ringing doorbells. Nonetheless, I wrapped myself in a sturdy force field before peering through the door’s small security window.

An attentive figure stood on the welcome mat, a hopeful smile on his fleshy lips.

I gaped, goggle-eyed.

It was the Little Man Who Wasn't There.

Only, he was there.

I was looking at the same stranger who had jabbed me at the Kids’ Club before, inexplicably, disappearing.

I hate to say it, but we’ve come to the part of the story where things really get crazy.

The End

To the Mana Born

Author:

Christopher Leeson

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Magic

Character Age:

Teenage or High School

TG Themes:

Hypnosis / Mind-Control / Brainwashed

Other Keywords:

The Mana Universe of Christopher Leeson

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

To the Mana Born: The Commodity

By Christopher Leeson

Revised 12-19-14

Author's note: This story takes place in the same universe as my earlier tale, The Dark of the Moon. The mystic forces that were at work behind the scenes in that story were kept veiled from the reader. In this entry, much of what happened to Darrell and Loren can be placed in context. But this is not a new Darrell and Loren story; it explores the universe from the perspective of other characters. Many TG stories before this have featured wicked stepmothers, but few of them have focused specifically upon the stepmother character, exploring her dilemma and explaining why she does what she does. But though Elisa Ardens is not necessarily typical of every wicked stepmother, we hope that her story is a good one, and that it shall both interest and entertain.

This story has appeared elsewhere, but it has undergone significant editing and polishing for this BC posting.

* * * *

Chapter 1

Mrs. George Ardens was speaking to the intercom: "Okay, good, Polly. Try to get the email out before you go home." She glanced back at her computer screen. The next appointment up was Jethra Courtindale, from Wizards Law Office. "Send in my two o'clock now."

'What a strange name for a firm,' Elisa thought. 'Some ex-Dungeons and Dragons kids must have gone to law school." She shook her head. It took all kinds.

She hoped that the subject of the visit wouldn't be about her stepson Langdon. There had been threats that some angry parents would go after her for alleged parental neglect.

Elisa hadn't been willfully neglectful, but too late she had awaken one morning and realized that she had lost control. Damage to public property, damage to private property, petty theft, rumbles -- Elisa didn't even know if gang fights were still called "rumbles" -- assault and battery, misbehavior with girls, shaking down kids, and, worst of all, Langdon had been charged with trafficking hashish oil, enough of the illegal drug to earn a sentence of up to twenty years and a fine of $250,000. Worse, it had happened over the river in Iowa, where Langdon was a legal adult.

The squeak of the knob made Elisa turn. Jethra Courtindale was wearing a dress suit that looked expensive, but it came off as being somehow eccentric. The businesswoman also noted that the woman had a mouth and big, light blue-gray eyes that reminded her of Angelina Jolie.

Elisa, standing, offered her hand across the desk. The other took it.

"Please, sit down -- Ms Courtindale."

The attorney complied. "Call me 'miss,' she suggested. I'm old-fashioned."

Her diction had an undertone of foreignness. Not Latino, not British, not Scandinavian. East European, maybe. Elisa got down to business. "I read your email. It was very brief. May I assume that your visit concerns real estate?"

The lawyer smiled. "It involves a far more valuable commodity than real estate."

Elisa sat down. "I don't follow you, Miss Courtindale. We don't deal in commodities."

The woman nodded. "Not as you would define the term, I'm sure. But, according to our information, you have legal control over a valuable commodity that our clients seek to purchase."

"I still don't grasp what you mean. Are you hinting at something -- unethical?"

The stunning attorney smiled. "Neither unethical nor illegal. Our clients scrupulously respect the letter of the law."

Elisa regarded the stranger closely. "Do they also respect the spirit of the law?"

Jethra smiled again. "Whenever possible. Their business sometimes operates in realms where the laws of man simply do not extend."

Once again Elisa suspected that she was dealing with a Dungeons and Dragons player. "Please come to the point, Miss Courtindale. I have much else to attend to."

The lawyer nodded. "This is the point. Your stepson is failing in school and, after years of minor offenses, he appears to be on the fast track to adult prison. Much worse, we foresee that he will die of a knife wound while incarcerated."

"A knife wound? Who's threatening his life?"

"No one; not at the moment."

Elisa bridled. "Of what concern of yours is my stepson?"

"To our firm, none at all. But he is of concern to the people whom Wizards represent."

"Is this another lawsuit threat? And what do you mean by 'foresee'?"

"It is not a lawsuit; it is a prognostication. Our clients are mindful of the portents."

"Your clients consult -- astrology?"

Courtindale took the question with apparent amusement. "That is an inaccurate term used in popular culture for what is actually an intricate science."

"If you say so. Who are these clients of yours?"

"They are the local chapter of a concern called the Starry Order."

Elisa frowned at the unfamiliar name. "And this order is what? It sounds like a mystical lodge, or a New Age publishing house."

"Neither. They serve a specialty customer base."

"What is their business?" Mrs. Ardens asked pointedly.

"Sorcery."

Elisa looked askance. "This has to be a practical joke, Miss Courtindale. Is there a candid camera hidden in your attache case? Or is this interview leading to something even more absurd?"

"I will be frank, Madame. As I have stated, my clients deal in magic. Wizards works solely with clients who seek to attain their business objectives through supernatural practices. We manage necessary negotiations and see to it that they keep within the strict laws of magic. We also take care that local jurisdictions are not offended."

"The laws of magic?"

"My firm represents wizards belonging to -- let us call it an 'ethnic group' -- that refers to itself as the People. Magic has its own code of ethics, set down many centuries ago by our ancestors. Sorcery is complex and its practice generate a great deal of work for legal consultants."

Elisa rolled her eyes. "There is no such thing as sorcery, so please…"

"It is natural that you should think so," Courtindale interrupted. "Formerly, as everyone knows, sorcery was widely recognized as being real and its was strictly against the law. Since then, wizards have learned how to conceal what they do from people – muggles is what people without magic are called in the current parlance. Without objective proof of the operation of magic in the world, people who considered themselves sophistocated stopped believing in it. Fortunately, many such people were in government. The prohibitions that were preserved in law books from earlier gradually became dead letters."

"You're claiming to be a -- a witch, too?"

The attorney glanced down as a show of modesty. "I'm a very minor practitioner. The issues of magical law are rather more congenial to my talents."

Elisa shook her head. "Please. Whether you are playing a role for a reality TV show, or are not in your right mind, I would appreciate it if you would state your business plainly, so we can end this conversation."

Courtindale did not seem at all perturbed by such bluntness. "I would be glad to, Mrs. Ardens. Case in point. Did you see that film with James Stewart -- Bell, Book, and Candle?"

As a matter of fact, Elisa had seen it. She had been deeply affected by the ending, when Kim Novak is weeping in the arms of Jimmy Stewart and he asks her to stop. "I don't think I can. I'm only human," she tells him.

"I've seen it. You don't believe that all that stuff about witches is true, do you?"

The lawyer shrugged slightly. "The movie decently presents the general idea of the existence of the People, but the details are all wrong. Witches are not the ne'er-do-wells of the sort that are depicted in the movie. You would be surprised at how many societal leaders in this day and age are actually witches. It takes magic to get ahead in the world; it always has."

Elisa stood up. "Please, Miss, this has so far been a pointless interview. I only want to know why you seem so interested in my stepson."

Jethra Courtindale sighed. "You must first concede that magic is real, otherwise nothing I say can possibly lead to a productive discussion. A free demonstration of sorcery is usually the deal-maker. If you are willing, I shall provide you with ample proof that magic does indeed exist."

The hair on the back of Elisa's neck prickled with unease. "I'd rather…"

The lawyer raised her hand. A tingle ran through the realtor's body. "I must request that you sit quietly and do not speak until bidden."

Elisa wanted to exclaim, "How dare you!" but to her shock, she couldn't utter a word, nor keep herself from sitting down. Though the businesswoman struggled against the compulsion, she could barely even wriggle.

"Don't be concerned with your paralysis, Mrs. Ardens. This is only a demonstration."

Elisa's expression had already changed from one of bafflement to one of fear.

Courtindale spoke concernedly. "Please be calm -- if you wish to, of course. It will make you a better listener."

Elisa's feeling of being trapped at once disappeared and she could regard the lawyer objectively.

"Your boy is the major problem of your life," Jethra continued. "It's bad enough that he's facing juvenile justice in Nebraska, but we're aware that he's up for drug charges in Iowa, too. Things will only go from bad to worse. A charge of date rape will soon be filed, also."

Elisa wanted to demand how she knew that, but couldn't make reply.

"People have different destinies," said Courtindale. "The trend of an individual's destiny can be read beforehand, but the soul walks along an aisle with many doors. Prognostication is the process of probabilities. A few doors lead to happiness, many to mediocrity, and a few to utter catastrophe. It takes wisdom and a moral compass to find the best way through, but Landon is not well endowed with either wisdom nor morality.

"Sometimes magical aid can save a person from his own folly. In this case, your best hope is, indeed. magic, unless you don't care that he will soon die violently, and probably do so in prison."

Elisa already knew that Langdon was a kid on the wrong road, but she couldn't believe that he was so far gone. He hadn't killed anyone, at least not yet.

Miss Courtindale continued. "Your own destiny, by the way, is to suffer ruinous civil lawsuits stemming from the fact that the law makes parents and guardians responsible for damage inflicted by a minor."

Elisa again tried to reply, but couldn't.

"Excuse me. You may now converse normally," declared Courtindale.

"W-What do you want?" Elisa stammered. The sudden return of her power of speech startled her. If there was such a thing as a witch, this woman was one.

"Your name has come up as a good potential negotiating partner," Courtindale said. "We almost never deal with happy families. We are looking for families in breakup, distressed parents, and especially stepparents and guardians who feel that they have been driven to the wall."

"What do you want with me?" Elisa asked.

"My clients are offering to buy Langdon's mana."

Elisa looked confused. "What's that? It sounds like that food they mention in the Bible?"

"The substance you're thinking of is spelled M-A-N-N-A. Mana, M-A-N-A, is a type of supernatural energy. The term comes from the Pacific islanders, but the concept goes back beyond the beginning of preserved history. It has commonly been interpreted as "the stuff from which magic spells are fashioned." The word is amusingly ironic in English, given the circumstances. There are different types of mana, but the one we are interested in constitutes the vital essence that makes a male out of the generic human clay. The basic human is female, of course; a male is only a female who has been born with a prenatal connection to a free flow of mana."

"It sounds like some foreign religious idea. You say it's Hawaiian?"

"The word spans many cultures, but the concept encompasses the universe. In a world of muggles, the concept of mana actually bridges both science and magic." Courtindale folded her arms and rested back. "Scientists usually don't believe in deities, but their theories of quantum physics is actually all the proof of divine creation that any well-educated mind should need."

Elisa looked puzzled. Divine creation? She was very afraid this was more than what she was up to dealing with.

Chapter Two

"My clients are among the leading brokers of mana," said Courtindale. "They seek the sexual-type mana, which is the easiest to acquire without the loss of life. You see, most of the other types of mana are more basic to preserving reality; harvesting them would lead to death or even non-existence.

"Just as a wool merchant buys wool from a farmer's sheep, my clients buy mana. Mana ebbs naturally with age and beyond the age of thirty, it has so dwindled in a male's aura that is not worth harvesting at all. We can and often do buy mana directly from younger males, but, unfortunately, youths in the flush of their virility are rarely willing to sell it.

"Our law does not allow the People to acquire mana from anyone under eighteen, not even if they were willing and had the consent of their parents. In most places, a boy of eighteen is a legal adult and so we have no choice but to deal with him directly, but our success rates are low. Fortunately, in Nebraska a boy of eighteen is still a minor. That means that, as his legal guardian, a parent or legal guardian may ethically contract for the sale of his ward's mana. If you are yourself willing to come to an agreement, we shall not only pay you well, but we can also arrange to take Langdon off his path of self-destruction. I may add that we can also lend you valuable assistance in protecting the security of your finances."

The attorney looked deeply into Elisa's amazed eyes. "But I suppose that you are still refusing to believe anything that I'm saying."

The realtor blinked. Was this strange woman actually telling her that she could sell Langdon for profit?

"You said that taking mana kills. That's murder."

Courtindale shook her head. "The loss of sexual mana does not kill, nor does it even endanger the donor's health. We harvest mana safely every day. We're like tree farmers. The logging company is not in business to kill trees; it replants its crop scrupulously. When we take mana, we commit ourselves to looking after the welfare of the young person who yields it. No doubt, that is where all those stories about fairy godparents first began."

"You mean, like in Cinderella?"

"Yes, exactly. If she was a historical character, Cinderella must have been a mana donor."

"Magic is real? Fairytales are real? Is that what you're saying?" Elisa muttered.

Courtindale smiled charmingly. "If you enter into agreement with the Starry Order, Mrs. Ardens, your guardianship endures. The after-sale department of the Order will be ever on call to assist you through the crises of parenting. If necessary, they will even protect Langdon from you, should you fail to do you proper duty of support, guidance, and protection. Helping Cinderella to deal with a bad stepmother is really what the old story is all about."

Elisa's doubt became incredulity. Were these people calling her a bad stepmother? Were they trying to usurp her guardianship?

"Now, Mrs. Ardens, do you have any questions?"

"This all sounds insane," Elisa said.

"Do you still disbelieve? The fact is, the universe couldn't operate without what we call magic. Magic is simply the intelligent use of the ancient creation energy that makes life and physical reality possible."

"You can do things, I admit, but you may have me hypnotized or something."

"I can hypnotize you, and do it very well. But I haven't."

"How does it hurt a person to lose this…mana stuff?"

"What happens is remarkable. Without the energy that keeps a male in his reproductively-viable form, he will revert to the low-energy state of a human being."

"Is that dangerous?"

"Not at all. The default energy state for a human being is female."

"Female? In what sense?"

"In every sense. A gynecologist would find nothing amiss in a boy's female physiology after the loss of his mana."

Elisa let that soak in, then she scowled. "You have to be crazy. Nobody can change a person that way!"

"We do not actually profit by the alteration. Sex change is simply an unavoidable byproduct of the process of mana harvesting. It happens because the loss of mana takes the linchpin out of the subject's reality as it affects his sex. It happens, so we deal with it."

"I must be dreaming…." Elisa murmured.

"You will not be forced to contract with us, but we can make it well worth your while, should you choose to do so."

"I have to ask you to leave, Miss Courtindale."

"I have convinced many skeptics before this, Mrs. Ardens. Let me demonstrate a magical transformation. Suggest something. For example, would you like to have a functioning third eye in the middle of your forehead?"

"N-No!" Elisa declared.

The lawyer regarded an object upon the desk. "I might turn this paperweight into gold, but without expert opinion, could you tell true gold from an imitation?"

"I suppose not."

"Would you like to experience being an animal of some variety? I do a very nice golden retriever."

"No, thank you!" She felt like she had fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.

"Or would you like to be -- a woman who is younger and much more beautiful than you are?"

Elisa looked fixedly at Jethra. "Is -- Is that why you have movie-star good looks yourself?"

Courtindale nodded. "This is not the shape I was born with. I am over three hundred years old. I have benefited from a physical-change spell, and it takes but little mana to bring it about. In fact, I have worn several shapes over my lifetime. Tastes in beauty evolve with the changing epochs. As you would put on fresh clothes, we change our appearance. In Rubens day, a decidedly plump woman was considered the epitome of sexual appeal. Now many women will actually go bulimic in order to achieve a shape like my present one."

Elisa regarded the lawyer warily. "All right, then, prove what you say by making me a... a beautiful and youthful woman. Something like that would convince any reasonable person."

Jethra raised a finger. "There are many kinds of beauty, Elisa. Always take care when you are seeking for advantage through magic Out of carelessly worded requests comes the story of the Monkey's Paw."

"What's the risk?"

"Minor, if it is left to the experts and the wizard is not deliberately trying to trap you. Just remember that the old warning holds: 'Do not try this at home.' Magic is power and power corrupts. The children of the People are trained in its ethical use very early. The training process is very like what is shown in the Harry Potter movies."

"I tend to be very cautious about unfamiliar things," Elisa said.

"Caution has its value, but we take risks every time we step into a car or bus. If you prefer to risk nothing, I will walk out of this room and you will never need to hear of the Starry Order again."

Elisa thought about that. "You've gotten me very curious. How long would a demonstration take?"

"Less than a minute."

"Then I would want lustrous blonde hair, and to be only twenty years old. A face like a magazine model. Slim, with perfect skin."

The attorney nodded and said, "You can now move, Elisa. Go look into the mirror."

Suddenly the businesswoman the magical chains fall from her. She held up her hands and saw that they had become more slender and smoother. Had the promised change already occurred? She stood up.

There was a decorative mirror on the wall and she stepped unsteadily toward it. A shiver ran down her spine when she saw what she saw. Her reflected face looked like a college girl's. Her gray-green irises had turned azure. Her graying, unruly hair had become a flow of pale, golden silk.

"You must be using hypnotism," the realtor muttered.

Jethra had gotten to her feet also and was arranging her attaché case. "You decide. I've placed a stock youth-and-beauty enchantment on you. Every stranger in the world will see you as you are now, because your present appearance is, in fact, the physical reality.

"To avoid complications, though, your secretary and any other person who truly knows you, such as Langdon, will see you in the illusion of your natural shape. Go out on the town, have a good time. I shall come back to finish this negotiation after you've had time to experiment. How long would you wish to remain as you are?"

Elisa's mind was in a whirl. "I-I don't know." Something deep inside of her was already whispering, "Forever!"

The other woman smiled. "Until Friday, then. I shall return at two upon that day and, with your permission, we shall continue our discussion."

Elisa felt dazed. "What exactly are you offering me, if I let Langdon become a girl?"

"Whatever you desire, within reason. To be empress of the world? I don't think so. The wish of the People is to disrupt the lives of innocents as little as possible. Money is no object. Would you like to be old money? Royalty? Electronic documents confirming your new age and appearance are easy to alter. If you remained as you are, you would need a new identity, of course."

"You're saying that I could stay this way?"

"You could, if we come to terms."

She replied haltingly. "If I dealt with you, would -- would Langdon look like a real girl?"

"Yes, but because he is not an attractive boy, he would not make an attractive female either. Fortunately, as I've shown you, magic can make a plain person beautiful. Beauty is good for a boy turned into a girl because it boosts his emotional health at a very stressful time. What person could hate the shape that invokes his vanity? Beauty leads to popularity, also. Most people see popularity as something positive."

Courtindale just then placed a hand on the doorknob. "Think about what would make your life happy, Mrs. Ardens, as well as what you want for Langdon."

Elisa didn't know what to say.

Jethra Courtindale never opened the door. She simply faded away like a movie witch.

* * * *

Though the sorceress was gone, the mirror told Elisa that she still remained a vision of lovliness. But the thought flickered through her mind that she had become a stranger to herself. She was frightened at the thought of being seen by acquaintances and going unrecognized.

Elisa needed some sort of proof that she wasn't mesmerized or dreaming. 'People can fly in their dreams,' she thought. 'I'll try to fly.'

She could not fly.

'Well, that's something…' she whispered.

What would happen when Polly saw her?

She walked stiffly into the reception area. Her secretary was at her desk. Against the wall sat her next appointment.

Polly glanced up, but did not change her expression.

No reaction? Elisa wondered whether her appearance was only imaginary. Still, Courtindale had warned that those who already knew her wouldn't be able to see any change.

Then Elisa shifted toward the client, a man whom she had never met before. He was staring with great interest.

"M-Mr. Dunware?" she stammered.

"Ah, yes! Miss Ardens…" he began.

"Mrs. Ardens," she corrected him, her smile tense. "I'm a widow. You are here representing the Saunders firm in regard to that industrial lot in Hayrack?"

"Yes," he affirmed absently. "But call me Harold. No one told me that our realtor was so young and attractive."

Elisa heard Polly grunt, "Hmmm."

The transformed woman was taken aback. The idea of looking different to two different people at the same time was very disorienting. Of the pair, she preferred to be alone with the client.

"I think we should discuss our business over lunch. I'm famished," remarked Elisa.

Dunware smiled broadly. "There's a fine little Scandinavian restaurant not far from here."

"I know of it. I'd be delighted."

Elisa looked back at Polly. "I'll be back before my four o'clock appointment."

Dunware was holding the door open.

'Being treated like a beautiful girl isn't thumbscrews,' Elisa was thinking. 'Even Langdon could learn to like it.'

* * * *

Chapter Three

Elisa hadn't hadn't been in the company of an admiring and attentive man for a long while, and found herself wanting many more repeat experiences. Elisa realized that she had less than three days to enjoy the body that a strange destiny had granted her. After that she would turn back into a peasant -- unless she cut a deal with Miss Courtindale. But what she was asking for amounted to human sacrifice.

She had once loved Langdon. When his father was still alive, the boy had been bringing home glowing teachers' reports. He also seemed to be missing a mother's attention and had welcomed her into their home in a friendly way. That had changed suddenly when his father died. He didn't seem to understand that when bad things happen one just had to be strong and go on. Instead, he had gotten touchy and seemed to hate almost everybody. Since the age of thirteen he had learned little in school, except about attention-getting misbehavior.

She wanted to put her stepson on a better course, but she had been able to do nothing with him. She could almost believe that changing him for the better would require magic. But Elisa's instincts told her that dealing with the shadowy People could not end well for anyone involved.

Harold Dunware asked her out to a client's party he was attending that night. After a friendly goodbye, Elisa returned to the office, her excitement high. Her present situation was too good to waste, and so she took her four o'clock and then told Polly to reschedule her upcoming appointments. She would be busy until Friday afternoon, she said, but would be able to come in and catch up with work on Saturday. Elisa offered to give Polly either Wednesday or Thursday off if she'd help with the weekend work and the young woman agreed.

When her secretary left, the realtor called around for a salon appointment. She wanted a beautician to see her new appearance, and consequently looked for a place where she wasn't known. Elisa found an open slot in a beauty parlor that stayed open to seven and catered to downtown businesswomen.

Before her appointment, she hurried to a boutique to buy something youthful and trendy. At the salon, she told the cosmologist that she was going to a posh party and wanted an appropriate look.

After her hair was arranged and her face done, she barely reached the office before Mr. Dunware arrived to escort her. Some of the men there were very attractive and the blonde on Mr. Dunware's arm didn't have any trouble detaching herself and addressing younger attention. After about a half hour she noticed that Mr. Dunware was nowhere to be seen. That made her regret that she'd been thoughtless, but not for long.

Elisa was wined, dined, and able to dance with her choice of several spontaneous admirers. The realtor realized that if she could only hold on to her incredible new looks, she could anticipate an excellent new marriage into the wealthy set of Omaha's elite.

'Comfort, prestige, and millions of dollars, too,' she was thinking. But the cloud on the horizon was the certain knowledge that keeping these things would have to come at Langdon's expense. Still, each time she looked into the mirror over the bar, the wicked stepmother inside her, like a serpent at her breast, would whisper, 'It isn't so bad being an attractive girl. Anyone could learn to like it, even Langdon."

But doubts continued. Could any course so overtly self-seeking lead to happiness? How well could she trust the People? Could holders of such superhuman powers be trusted to do what they promised, and do so in an honorable spirit? What recourse did she have if they decided to discard her as a pawn no longer needed?

All through the next day Elisa's depression alternated with elation. Calling her new identity "Daphne Harrison," the businesswoman went to a "glamor" photography studio, the sort that staged “special" pictures for women to give to their lovers and husbands. She paid $200 for a shoot that featuring her wearing her new club dress. Then, falling more into the spirit of the fantasy, she put on items of lingerie that the photographer had on his rack. Some of the shots were out-and-out cheesecake. 'I could have been a Playboy centerfold looking like this,' she realized as the camera clicked.

During her hour in the studio, Elisa was able to play at being a sort of girl that she hadn't been in her youth, the type who got all the attention and had all the fun. The set of photos she anticipated would be the proof of this experience's reality, one that she would treasure afterwards.

But she was currently living on an emotional roller coaster. Elation always gave way to trepidation. Elisa was being asked to sign a contract and the idea reminded her of the story of Faust. What if these people had not only inspired stories about fairy godparents, but also created memories of a tempting Satan? What if they were demonic beings pretending to be mere wizards? Maybe they not after this mana thing after all, but souls?

At home on Wednesday evening, Elisa checked her answering machine. There was a call from her lawyer. It shocked her to learn that the family of the girl that Langdon had got mixed up with were trying to get him arrested if she didn't pay them off. Courtindale had predicted that this would happen. How much more of what she said would turn out to be true, such as Langdon's imprisonment and murder?

Fortunately, when she called the family attorney, Mr. Owlsley, the next morning, he tried to reassure her. The litigants had waited too long to hurl this new stink bomb and he didn't think that an impartial court would let them get very far with it.

The more Elisa thought about this new problem, the more incensed she became. Why did this have to happen now? She could have been enjoying these last two days to the fullest, but the news had ruined her mood. Would the torture of being a failed parent ever stop?

Langdon was foolish and reckless, but in her heart she didn't think that he deserved prison -- not yet, not for what he did in a world so corrupt that judges let drug cartels and serial killers walk merely on thin technicalities. But he surely didn't deserve to get off scot-free, either. She suspected that his grief and anger about his father's loss, once real, had become a cold, cynical excuse for getting away with bad behavior. In her sympathy, she had, for too long, allowed him to get away with it. But against the boy's stubborn defiance, his six-foot height and great strength, what could she do?

Elisa didn't think that she liked the answer.

* * * *

Friday afternoon, Miss Courtindale sat quietly while Elisa paced and talked, not always coherently. Every glance into the mirror told her how awful was her present reality, now that her days as Daphne were over.

"I understand,' said the lawyer. "But everything that you say tells me that a big change would be for the boy's own good."

"Don't patronize me!" Elisa snapped. "I'm weak! I can't resist the temptation. I don't just want a new look. I want a new life. I want to throw my old problems out the door like rubbish. I've been bought and Langdon's is being sold. If I deal with you, I deserve your contempt. Say it! I'm contemptible!"

Courtindale shrugged.

The realtor's hands were clenched into fists. How could the woman be so nonchalant while she was such a mass of emotion? "If all we have left to do is haggle over the terms," she suddenly said, "I want to know what the payment is going to be. Start with the money."

Courtindale regarded the window thoughtfully. "We could afford billions, but could you afford it? One loses the value of money if he has too much of it.”

“What do you call too much?”

“I've never met anyone whose life was ruined by, say, a mere ten million dollars."

Elisa glowered. "That doesn't sound like so much, not in this day of the Warren Buffets, who can buy any government they want. But…." She threw up her hands. "If that's the limit, I would insist that not a penny of it should be wasted on taxes. I want ten million, free and clear."

"No problem. We can give you a paper trail to justify your immunity to taxation. It's done all the time. Would you like to be a trust-fund baby?"

"Is it ethical to help me avoid taxes?" the businesswoman asked.

"That's the way of the world. Once it was only the peasants who were taxed. People who had the right social standing, the right friends, paid not a thing. Nothing has really changed since then. Only now it's the earnings of the working class that keeps the party going."

"There won't be anything suspicious that governments could pick up on?"

"Electronic data systems make even the most outrageous financial fictions very easy to prove. Again, it's done all the time."

Elisa's mouth felt dry. She went to the coffee pot and took what was left. Then, cup in hand, she said, "Now, let's talk about Langdon. He's going to go out of his mind when he sees how he's changed."

"True, almost all the new girls undergo a dreadful shock," Courtindale agreed. "We have ways to help minimize their upset, though. Do you have any ideas in that regard, Mrs. Ardens?”

"I want the punishment to fit the crime."

Courtindale shook her head. "The Starry Order is not in the business of punishment. We regret that mana loss bring a little emotional suffering. But so much of the modern world's problems come from the fact that politicians promise people people that they will protect them from suffering. Suffering is inevitable, and suffering builds character. A disproportionate number of history's most successful men suffered the loss of their fathers in youth. The pain gave them the inner strength they needed to accomplish great things. Tell me what you would prefer that Langdon should confront. I will let you know whether our code prohibits it."

Elisa took a deep breath. "Langdon has been a bully. That has to stop. It has gotten him into a lot of trouble and it's made most of the kids hate him. As a girl, I wouldn't want to see him pushing around smaller girls and little children."

Her mind was racing. "He should be only about five-foot five, light of build, and without much upper body strength. But he shouldn't be frail or sickly, either. I want him to enjoy robust health all his life, freedom from all genetic defects, and to be extremely resistant to disease. Think of a cheerleader type, vigorous, active, but attractive." Her own mother had been anemic from childhood, and the woman's frequent illnesses had robbed much joy from her family.

Courtindale didn't change her expression.

"When I was Langdon's age, I wasn't pretty and I hated it. I want Langdon to be as attractive and well-fashioned as a girl can be."

The lawyer lifted her chin. "Any specifics?"

"I don't know. I think that he'd be happiest if he looked like the type of girl that he admires most."

"What sorts are that?"

"He collects Playboy centerfolds. He used to hide them from my view; now he puts them upon the wall of his room for all to see. I think that if given a choice, he'd most want to look like that sort of girl."

Jethra Courtindale seemed to consider the prospect.

"But I don't want him to be classically perfect, not a goddess. I've read that the extremely beautiful women complain that they frighten the decent men away and only egotistical rats have the gall to hit on them. Langdon should come off as a girl-next-door type, obviously pretty but not intimidating. In short, I want him to be the kind of girl that nice boys will ask out." 'Like I wasn't asked out,' she almost added.

"Attractive girls often have problems with sexually aggressive boys," Miss Courtindale warned.

Elisa shook her head. “I would have accepted that kind of trade-off. The worst problem a girl can have being ignored by boys."

Lawyer nodded congenially. "What do you want for Langdon in the long term?"

"I want him to gain in character, become wiser, and contribute positively to society."

"And what, in your opinion, would serve to make him wiser?

"It's the Golden Rule. I want him to learn to treat people the same way that he'd like to be treated."

"I see. And what would you like his sexual preference to be while he's learning this important lesson?"

She paused a moment. Straight or Lesbian? "I'd like him to be attracted to boys," she said. "Could you do that?"

Courtindale's pursed her lips. "We have rules against mind control. But sexual preference is usually a factor of of brain structure. Magic can alter a boy's physical brain to match that of a heterosexual girl. Also, girls are attracted by male pheromones, and vice versa. We can take care that Langdon will be strongly stimulated by the nearness of boys."

"A pheromone is a kind of a scent, isn't it?"

"Yes. Some very hetero boys I've encountered have became mothers in less than a year after their mana siphoning."

Up to now, Elisa hadn't thought about Langdon getting pregnant. Would that sour him on being a girl? Would that sort of thing ruin his life? What, exactly, did she want for her stepson?

"I wouldn't care for Langdon to be starting a family before marriage," she said out loud.

The lawyer was leaning forward, gathering her gloves from the desktop. "It all comes down to free will. From the reports, Langdon is by nature oversexed. If this quality were not toned down, that could make him sexually overactive as a girl. Too strong a sex drive creates problems. There are precautions, though. We'll discuss the subject next time. The attorney stood up. “Well, I believe that we've carried this discussion far enough for one day. Our clients will be happy to know that we have begun serious negotiations."

"I've been wondering, where does the mana go when it's taken?"

Courtindale paused only briefly. "It feeds into a mystic receiver for storage, a sort of 'mana battery." It's called a 'mana bank'. Almost every member of the People has a mana account. We are not paid in money. We are remunerated with mana."

"Fascinating, I suppose. We still have a great deal to discuss."

"Definitely. But your emotions are running high just now. One can't always think clearly when angry or excited."

"Have I suggested anything that -- that goes too far?"

"Nothing that I've heard. By the way, I understand that Langdon is still only a junior, despite being eighteen."

The businesswoman nodded. "Yes. Most schools won't place a child in first grade unless he is at least six years old when school begins. Because Langdon was born in mid-September, he's almost a year older than the other juniors. Is that an issue?"

"No. I was just thinking that it would be easier for him to adjust to his school companions if he and they were at the same stage of physical development."

Elisa nodded. "Langdon did get big and strong early. He's always hated looking older than the other children. He's always thought that it makes people think he's stupid and that he's been set back a year. But being the biggest boy in his class has helped him become a bully, though."

"Some girls look younger than they are; I suggest that for Langdon. We can hold back his full physical blooming as a pretty girl until he is a senior."

"It sounds like a plan," agreed Elisa.

The lawyer paused at the door. "Do you have anything else to add before I leave, Mrs. Ardens?"

"More than anything, I just want my stepson to be a good learner and a smart student. I want him to train for a career he likes and make a success of it."

Courtindale rubbed her chin. "We can give him a efficient and high quality physical brain, but how a young person does in school comes down to attitude and motivation."

"Langdon started out as a high-achieving child."

"Maybe this experience will be just what he needs to bring back the person that he was meant to be," suggested the lawyer. "May we get together again at two o'clock, Monday?"

"I'll keep that hour open," Elisa assured her.

* * * *

Chapter Four

For the next week, Elisa Ardens and Jethra Courtindale met frequently, going over draft agreements, editing, deleting, and fleshing out the salient points in detail. What they were doing was a standard contract negotiation, lawyerly in the extreme. For the most part, they were establishing the formal language needed to convey the general ideas set down at the very beginning.

Today they were meeting in Elisa's condo. The realtor's expression betrayed her concern. "How can this be done without Langdon realizing the part I've played in it? If he ends up hating me, what kind of a parent can I be just when he needs one the most?"

"We'll address that question soon, but remember, this change will be permanent. When Langdon realizes he has to be a girl for the rest of his life, he will either go into a long funk, have an emotional breakdown, or…"

"Commit suicide?" Elisa put in anxiously.

"I was going to say, he might actually feel relieved."

"Relieved -- to be a girl? Langdon?"

She nodded. "Many boys are surprised when they find out that being a pretty girl can be very pleasant. And if they've started to like boys as well, why would they ever want to be male again? Unfortunately, male psychology is programmed to reject the feminine in themselves, even while admiring it in their lady friends. Many will not admit that they are experiencing changing feelings, not even to themselves. Honestly admitting that their hearts are singing “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” will be impossible for them. But if they realize that fate has stepped in, has forced its own choice on them, boys are finally able to stop wrangling with their inner demons, bear down, and face life anew. I've seen that many times."

"What happens then?"

"Usually they go out and party. They'll be pleasantly surprised at how much easier it is for a girl to pick a boy than vice versa. Even handsome boys have a hard time with dating the opposite sex. That's because of the differences in temperament between the sexes, and in the way that they are brought up. They want different things in a relationship.

"The danger is that a new girl can fall back on old habits, looking at sex the same way that a boy does. But sex can't be so casual for a girl. It can get her trapped and change all her plans and expectations. These days there's abortion, of course, but such a violation can scar a young woman's psyche for life. If you would prefer, there is always the option to have Langdon become an infertile girl."

Elisa looked surprised. She thought over the proposition and replied slowly. "I was told that I couldn't have children. I felt it as a hurt that wouldn't go away. I was lucky, though, because by the time that I...got the bad news that I wasn't a complete woman...I already had a stepson. I don't want to rob Langdon of any of his possibilities for a full and beautiful life.”

"Has your experience with parenthood been beautiful?" Courtindale asked keenly.

"No," replied Elisa, "but I needed to have the chance to at least try to make something good of the experience."

The lawyer nooded. "Most decent parents feel the same way.”

Suddenly Elisa frowned. "I was wondering. You changed my shape, but then turned me back. Could the People turn a boy back if they wanted to?"

Courtindale shook her head. "The great wizards are well able to make a boy out of a girl, but in practice it's almost never done. A boy has all the generic information needed to make a girl. Subtracting something takes little magic. Creating something that isn't there to start with takes immensely more.

"A girl lacks the basic building blocks that goes into making a boy. A boy, when he changes, fills our banks with mana because the extra mystical energy that is inherent in boyhood flows to us. A girl has to take in mana to change. The People have little incentive to spend so much mana just to gain one more boy for the world.”

"But is it even possible? Like, if you were paid enough?”

“Money doesn't interest persons who can turn lead into gold. But sometimes a trade can be arranged. The trouble is, I seriously doubt that either you or Langdon would have anything to offer the People in that regard."

"What would the wizards want?"

"You wouldn't have a spare Spear of Longinus in your broom closet, would you?"

Elisa looked blank.

Jethra smiled. "I didn't suppose so."

Elisa's gloom would have been obvious to any observer.

"But your contract will have an opt-out clause," Courtindale told her.

The realtor looked up. "It will?"

"Yes. After the signing, you can cancel at any time -- at any time prior to the mana donation, I mean."

"Why don't your wizards take mana from boys who want to be girls? There's lots of transvestites on those trashy reality shows. According to the news, they're in our schools and sometimes they're actually allowed to use the girls' rest rooms. They can't be hard to locate."

Jethra sighed. "If only it were so easy. Transsexualism is almost always a symptom of mana deficiency. Most boys who want to be girls start out life with as little mana as middle-aged men have. As inconvenient as it may be, the sort of boy who glories in male pursuits, who scores as an alpha male on psychological tests, and who obsesses about having sex with girls, are the ones who possesses abundant mana. That is the sort of boy that mana harvesters are looking for."

Elisa nodded, resigned. "There's something else I'd like to know. How -- how does the -- the siphoning process work? Will he have to be taken to a…a wizard's workshop? Or is it called a laboratory?"

The other woman smiled. "It's one of those things that actually can be done at home. If we have some hair, blood, or nails, the required mystic link can be established remotely, like with voodoo dolls in the movies."

"It's that simple?"

"More or less."

"Will there be any pain?"

"None at all. The boy falls into a deep slumber. When his mana has reached a critically low level, he will default into a basic female physiognomy. Before he wakes up, the managing wizards will send a bit of magic back up the pipeline, and this will refine his physical body and shape in the way that you've requested."

"I feel like I'm hiring an assassin."

Courtindale touched Elisa's arm, like a friend. The realtor didn't didn't jerk away in startlement. The witch-woman had, in fact, become her only confidante. Who else did she have to talk to about the feelings that were so raw within her. "There will be no pressure to coerce you. Just remember that your decision, pro or con, will be the most important one that you will ever have to make, both for Langdon and for yourself."

Elisa glanced away perplexedly.

"I respect you for having doubts," Courtindale went on. "Too many guardians that I've met have been so greedy or so indifferent to welfare of their young charge that my firm has recommended to our clients that any negotiations with them should be broken off. How the stepmother treated Cinderella was absolutely disgraceful."

Elisa looked up. "But Cinderella was always a girl. She didn't have any mana."

Jethra shook her head. "If there was a historical model for Cinderella, the memory spell involved would have made everyone, except Cinderella and her stepmother, forget her years of boyhood. How could folklorists know how she started out? Once she had her prince, Cinderella wouldn't have told anyone anything. And her stepmother wouldn't either, since she had been involved in something that would have gotten her burned at the stake."

Elisa raised her chin. "Is that the best that can be said about me? That I might not be as bad as Cinderella's stepmom?"

Jethra Courtindale smiled. "The People do not look at muggles as either saints or sinners; we do not call them names for the things we persuade them to do. The only offense that we cannot abide is a purposeful violation of our contracts or our ethics."

"And the victim has no role in establishing what ethics he should be subject to?"

"To us, this is essentially a legal issue, Mrs. Ardens, not a moral one. Think. The law, wherever you go, is always cold-blooded. It is the muggles, not the People, who make the laws for everyone else. The laws that the People make are only for the People. We wouldn't presume to tell those outside our own group how they should live."

"I never wanted things to come to this," Elisa said suddenly. "I wanted a son who would love me as much as I tried to love him. I wanted a real family more than anything else."

"A new start is still possible," Courtindale told her. "Remember that."

* * * *

Langdon's legal problems had made him even more sour and grumpy than usual. He rarely talked about his concerns and would simply walk away whenever pressed on such things. He seemed to be in denial. She had wanted to hear some hint of remorse from him, some reason to hope that these bitter experiences he was undergoing would turn him into a responsible young person.

Having no reason to think that such a wish would come true, Elisa continued meet with the lawyer. By now they were on a first-name basis.

"We always want a boy to think that that his girlhood will only be a temporary condition," Jethra told Elisa. "That will avoid any excessive reaction, especially in the early weeks while he's still in shock. If he thinks he'll soon be able to change back, he'll want to avoid panic and will try to hold things together. Very few will want others to know what'd happened to him."

"What do most boys do when it happens?" Mrs. Ardens asked.

"Remember the story of Pandora? All the ills of mankind escaped from her box, but because the box also held Hope, mankind retained the moral courage to struggle on. A boy behaves better as long as we we help him to keep his hope in place.”

"But isn't that a lie? There isn't any hope, is there?”

"No, but by the time he admits that to himself, that he'll be female for as long as he lives, he'll have been living as a girl for a long while. Total-immersion into girlhood has a way of getting under the skin of former boys. Don't feel sorry for them. Once they adjust, they have every possibility of finding happiness.”

“You said there was a way to keep Langdon from blaming me?"

Jethra nodded. "A boy behaves best if he thinks that his problems has been caused by his own mistakes. On the other hand, if he is able to blame someone else, he'll hate that person with a passion and things may get violent."

"But how can he be convinced that he's done anything magical to himself?"

"We've worked out excellent procedures over the years. First we have to put Langdon into a state of mind where he thinks that sex-change fantasies are extremely erotic and very enjoyable. We want him to start daydreaming regularly about what it would be like to suddenly restart life as a pretty girl."

Elisa grimaced dubiously. "He's hidden a lot of porn in his room, but I don't think that he'd ever find sex-change the least bit erotic."

"We can help him to think otherwise."

"Magic?"

"No. Mind or attitude control by sorcery is not ethical."

Elisa's curiosity was piqued, but the lawyer was not about to tell her more that day. But Courtindale had told her the date and hour for the contract signing.

It was only a couple of days away.

* * * *

Chapter 5

Despite misgivings, Elisa agreed to the appointment and, two days later, the attorney was placing a sheaf of printed sheets on Elisa's office desk.

One Mr. Crowlers, as a representative of the Starry Order, sat in one of the visitors' chair. Unlike Jethra, he displayed no Olympian beauty and was remarkably nondescript. Elisa began to wonder where these people came from, and whether they were truly human. She wanted to ask questions about the People, but Courtindale had advised her that such inquiry would prove futile. The People were very secretive.

Cowlers had just read several important paragraphs of the contract out loud. "Do you fully understand all the terms and ancillaries?" the man asked.

"Miss Courtindale and I have gone over each line exhaustively," Elisa replied. "I still can't understand how magic works, but I believe that it does work."

"Good, very good," said Mr. Crowlers. He made a few more inquiries, making sure that she did indeed understand all that she had agreed to. He seemed satisfied with her answers.

Courtindale then read the escape clause and then fully explained it. "Refusing to give the final permission for the siphoning procedure will terminate the agreement," she said. "If that should occur, no indemnity shall be exacted from either party."

"Yes," said Elisa. "It seems very generous."

"Not at all. It is a standard clause," said Crowlers with the tiniest of smiles. "How can one possibly enjoy a new life if he has the slightest doubt regarding the ethics or the rightness of the contract he has agreed to?"

Elisa didn't venture any answer.

"Shall we begin the signing?" suggested Courtindale. Crowley agreed; Elisa added her nod. "Send for your witness," the lawyer advised. Elisa according summoned Polly in and asked her to act as a witness for routine real estate contract.

With the secretary looking on, one paper after another was placed in front of Mr. Crowlers, who signed it and passed it on to Elisa Adrens. After Elisa, Courtindale witnessed for Crowley, and Polly witnessed for Elisa, though the former didn't bother to read enough to know what the contract was all about. She could do her job, but had never been interested in real estate minutia.

When the last sheet was witnessed, Elisa sent her secretary back to the reception room.

A moment later, having gathered up his copies, the wizard expressed his courtesies and took his leave. Elisa put her contract pages into order and placed them into the office safe. It occurred to her, belatedly, that nothing would be safe from these people; they could do any sort of skullduggery that they wanted to. Robbing a safe would be child's play.

She wondered whether their attitude toward her would change, now that they had the signature that they had wanted. When she glanced over her shoulder, Jethra Courtindale was still standing by the desk. Elisa regarded the woman thoughtfully. They had had no specific discussion about what was supposed to happen after the signing.

"No doubt you're feeling very tense right now," Courtindale observed. "What say we take some lunch?"

Elisa rose and looked at the clock. "Is this the last time that we'll be meeting?"

"By no means. You will need a liaison with the Starry Order, even after the siphoning. It's very hard to be the parent of a daughter who's undergone what Langdon will soon undergo. Let's get something to eat. It will be a good time for you ask any questions that may not have occurred to you before."

"Yes…I suppose," said Elisa. What other person did she have to spend time with? How could she talk to anyone else about the secrets that were burning like hot coals in her breast?

Now that she had done what she had done, what had she done, really? Was she dealing with evil people? Was this going to end badly?

How could it possibly end well?

* * * *

As they rode in the cab, the realtor began to think that she deserved to be punished. Nothing in her life had been so reprehensible before this. If an executioner suddenly appeared in front of her, she wasn't sure that she would even try to run away.

"Now that things are settled," the lawyer said, "we will want to move swiftly at getting Langdon ready. We don't want to do the siphoning until he is psychologically prepared, and that will take some weeks."

"I suppose," Elisa murmured absently. It was like she had become a stranger to herself.

The other woman smiled sympathetically.

"By now ten million tax-free dollars have been deposited electronically in your new account in Zurich. Agents will be drawing modest amounts from it in the name of Daphne Harrison, to acquire a European home for you and to make investments in your new name. They shall be establishing a complete life history for you, one that will stand up to scrutiny.

"You will receive the needed documentation just as soon as the final consent form is filed regarding Langdon's siphoning. In the meantime, you will need to consider on an ongoing basis whether the cancellation clause is something you should invoke.”

"You say that almost as if you would advise me to invoke it."

"I don't intend to. But I want you to understand that there will not be any reprisal for disappointing the Starry Order. It is against the law of sorcery to gain or preserve a contract through intimidation."

"The lawyers I've known only talk about winning, not doing the right thing."

"Yes, I know what the world is like, and I find it sad, too,” replied the witch. Then she changed the subject. "When you wish to exit this identity of Elisa Ardens and become Miss Harrison, an impostor will fill the role of Elisa until your return, while trying scrupulously to avoid creating new problems in your life. Most clients want to return to their old haunts now and then. For example, you may wish to come back to see Langdon's high school graduation."

Elisa murmured agreement, while her mind raced ahead.

As Daphne, Elisa would possess the necessary family and educational records. She would, of course, have no need for any employment history because she would be the last heiress of a family of wealth that was dignified by its connections to several houses of Central European nobility. Now that the Iron Curtain had become a thing of the past, these families were in flux, over the last decade and a half many of them had drifted back to their ancestral land, having been in Western exile. It would be possible to find herself a place amongst an aristocracy that was rebuilding itself from the ground up. Jethra Courtindale had assured her that had the false Anastasia reaceived documents such as the People could provide, she would have lived and died a royal princess.

This idea suited Elisa because she was herself mainly Hungarian and had read a good deal about the ancestral country. Apparently, a Daphne imposter would be engaged in order to put the new heiress on a rock-solid social and economic footing. Before long, she would be well known to the European cocktail set, to the exacting mavens of fashion, as well as to bankers of Zurich and other useful people. Elisa would be able to step into a life that would already be an on-going enterprise. Then her mood sank.

Fine promises. But what human being had leverage to make the People keep their word? What could a contract mean to persons who played with reality as if it were a computer game? Scraps of paper. How they deigned to treat her in the future would depend entirely on the ethics to which they claimed to be so dedicated.

Elisa squirmed. "I can't relax. I feel like ants are running under my clothes. What come next?"

"Rest; try to regain your confidence. All is as it should be. Occupy your mind with the task of making this as easy as possible for Langdon. That reminds me. I want to visit your home when he's at school."

"Why'?"

"The way into a boy's mind is through his music."

* * * *

Elisa didn't expect Langdon home for hours, so she brought Jethra into her condo right after lunch. Langdon's room was a mess, of course.

"What a depressing place," remarked the visitor, "but I've seen worse. By the way, we have a subliminal CD that will inspire a young person to enjoy living in orderly surroundings."

"Is it like sleep teaching?"

"Yes, very much like that. In the business of the People, where magic is unethical, science may serve. As we know, science has no ethics." She shifted topics. "What are his favorite CDs?"

"I'm not sure. The bands all have strange names, and all their music is noisy and absolutely awful."

"You sound like a parent," the lawyer commented lightly. "Another of our CDs improves the listener's taste in music."

The lawyer spotted the CD player and turned it on. The tray had a five-disc capacity. Of the five discs inside, all but one was by "The Gruesome Zombies."

"He seems to like this band. I'll drop off duplicates of these same CDs at your office tomorrow. You'll have to switch them with these original ones," Jethra told her.

"They'll be subliminal?"

"Yes. Their purpose will be to get him interested in listening to a different band, the Graveyard Dead."

"Why?"

"When a boy is into this kind of rock, we use Graveyard Dead CDs that have been prepared in advance. We could use any similar band, but the tech people have settled for the Graveyard Dead. Whenever Langdon brings home a new Graveyard Dead concert, you should let us know which one it is and we'll switch it with a duplicate that carries the messages we want."

"Bring one that makes him like 'oldies but goodies.'"

"Or one that that makes him want to listen to the tunes that teenage girls like?"

Elisa sighed. "Considering the racket that both boys and girls go on about, I'm not so sure."

Jethra smiled. "Just one thing more. I need to place a listening device in this bedroom. It will help us choose the exact right moment to start the extraction process."

Mrs. Ardnes shrugged. What else could she do, now that she was into this thing with both feet? Every strange request that was now made of her had started to seem so dismayingly logical.

* * * *

The next day arrived, and so, again, did Miss Courtindale.

She had brought several Gruesome Zombies discs to the real estate office, repeating her previous instructions to switch them with Langdon's originals.

"If, by the end of a week, he's is showing any enthusiasm for the Graveyard Dead, it will be a sign that he has good receptivity to our variety of subliminal conditioning."

"What message will they carry?"

"A message about woman-envy. That is basic. Their aim is to induce Langdon to develop a rich and luxurious fantasy life about changing into a sexy girl. That's usually easy. Boys are always so curious about girls. Whatever is erotic always holds a powerful allure for them."

Elisa thought it dubious. Langdon seemed totally the wrong type for enjoying that kind of fantasy.

"Will he start behaving differently?" she asked.

"Very unlikely. A male's sexual daydreams are a private pleasure, like smoking. In their everyday life, males are really quite detached from their fantasies. It's a kind of compartmentalization."

"It sounds like this process will take a long time."

"Not as long as you think. Anyway, the longest journey begins with the first step. I'll try to explain the psychology behind it all before I leave."

* * * *

It was that very weekend when Langdon came home carrying a package from the music store. His stepmother pretended not to be at all interested in his musical tastes, but checked out the bag while he was in the shower.

Bingo!

Langdon had bought back three Graveyard Dead albums. As instructed, she called Jethra Courtindale to let her know which titles they were.

The next morning, Courtindale stopped in at the office, rested her attaché case on the desk, and drew out a trio of discs. Their labels said "Graveyard Dead."

"Does it begin, really begin tonight?"

"Yes, providing the young man listens to them. One message that all of them will carry is to listen to them repeatedly, and to get even more titles by the same band."

"Well, he's always playing something. The walls never stop shaking from the cacophony."

"Good. Just let me know what new titles he buys and we'll exchange them as quickly as possible."

"But how will we know whether the CDs are having any effect?"

"Some of them are intended to give him an interest in things available on the Internet. His computer has been hacked by our techs and infected with tracker-ware that will allow us to monitor his Internet habits. One thing we'll be doing is sending him pop-ups with our ads to special tg websites."

"Teegee?"

"Transgender. The CDs will inspire him to look for tg stories and videos. Once we know where he's browsing, we'll use those sites to feed him subliminal messages to keep him thinking about sex-change and woman-envy as much as possible, even when he doesn't have the doctored CDs blaring into his ears."

"And all this is supposed to make him want to be a girl?"

"Only on a fantasy level. That's all that's necessary. Male fantasies of this kind are very common, but very few men really want to be girls. It doesn't matter. An intense and pleasurable daydream is mystically identical to a meditative visualization."

"Like in yoga?"

"Close to that. Our magic needs the subject's voluntary consent for it to work. Many computer viruses requires the operator to click a software button of consent before the virus can infect the system. Basically, it tells the computer to let its defenses go down. We do the same thing. If Langdon is frequently visualizing turning into a pretty girl, it constitutes a sort of mystical consent which will let the magic produce the transformation.”

“I thought that our contract gave you consent,” said Elisa.

"You gave us the right to take the mana. But Langdon has to give us at least implicit consent if we are to go beyond that, such as making him physically attractive and putting strong drives into his new female-structured brain.”

"Between the internet and the CDs, it sounds like he's getting battered from all sides."

"The real subliminal battering will start once he's become a girl. Once that happens, we have to keep his mind off moping. We'll do everything we can to start him thinking about happy things, boys and clothes, for instance."

"Won't all these sexual fantasies turn him gay even before he's a girl?"

"He's not naturally gay and this sort of psychological conditioning won't change that. It will all be just an enjoyable fantasy for him. Things will be different once he's a girl. Then we'll try to remove all the inhibitions that are hold him back from embracing his feminine instincts. The roots of sexual preference lies in the brain structure; he will just need a little push to start thinking and feeling a different way.”

"If you say so."

"Another thing. We'll want to make him curious about magic. He was a Harry Potter fan, wasn't he? He shouldn't have any strong prejudices against non-scientific ideas that he's presented with. Once we know that he's thinking along the right lines, it will be time to send him a small package in the mail."

"What'll be in it?"

"That would take a while to explain. We'll save the details for our next meeting. Right now, I need to get some hair and, if possible, some blood and nail clippings. His brush should provide ample hair."

"Nail clippings are all over his carpet," Elisa said. "Also, Langdon was in a brawl this week and came back with a handkerchief all red from a nosebleed. It's not laundered yet. Will that work?”

"Excellent!"

* * * *

Chapter 6

If Elisa had been expecting to see a change in Langdon over the next week, it didn't happen. There was nothing feminine about his swagger or his rough way of talking. Nonetheless, Jethra Courtindale phoned in with positive news.

"Langdon's progress is excellent. Every day he's making more and more use of the tg resources on the net. He had a Western novel on his screen only last night."

"A Western novel? I don't understand."

"It's a Western parody, about a gang of outlaws that get changed into beautiful women by a magic potion and are put to work in a saloon."

"The court hearing is Monday. I just wish I could be sure that it will go our way. I'd like to believe that he's innocent, but I really don't."

"We all wish our loved ones well. But the more legal pressure that's put on Langdon, the more susceptible he'll be to using magic to get himself out of trouble."

"Can magic get him out of trouble?"

"It can, especially if it makes him over into a school girl. No one who sees him in that shape will remember that Langdon Ardens ever existed."

Elisa was impressed. "By the way, do the stars say that your plan will succeed?"

"The portents appear good, but free will is stronger than destiny. That is one reason that the People respect it so much."

"Oh, one more thing," said Elisa, "I wanted to let you know that Langdon bought three more Graveyard Dead CD's this week." She read the titles off her note pad.

"I'll bring the replacements around to your office tomorrow."

"Shouldn't we be getting identity papers for the…girl…ready?"

"Don't worry. We'll provide them. Wizards has provided them for hundreds of boys."

"What about people who don't see the girl and still remember Langdon?"

"You should throw a party and invite as many of the important people who know Langdon as possible. Make sure they all see Langdon. And then take him around to see any significant people whom you can't invite. Don't worry about the government. Most persons in authority don't care about individuals; they see them as mere data in a server, and that will say what we want it to say. Trust me, it works. By the by, do you have a name that you'd like to give your stepdaughter?"

"No. It's always seemed so unreal up to now."

"What's Langdon's middle name?"

"Frederick."

"How do you feel about Fredrica?"

Elisa shook her head. "People would call her Fred."

"Langdon? Lana?"

"I'm not sure.'

"Donna?"

"Donna?" The realtor considered the name. "That's better. When he was small, we used to call him Donny."

"Well, let me know once you decide."

"Okay."

Mrs. Ardens placed phone on the hook and pondered the name. Donna? Pretty. Very pretty. She wondered how Langdon would like it.

* * * *

Langdon case was heard by a grand jury in Iowa, he was indicted as an adult. His trial was set for December 27. The boy's best chance for avoiding lockup would be plea-bargaining for a suspended sentence, maybe with community service. Owlsley would press for that, along with making a big issue about his relative youth, and also the fact that at home he was still a minor. It was unusual for a man on bail to be allowed out of the state, even to await trial at home, but Owlsley sounded confident that he'd win a favorable ruling once bail was made.

Elisa had little money saved or invested, so she raised the bond through a bailsman. It was strange to think that before the trial date Langdon would, most likely, be living his life as Donna. Jethra had told her that the whole case against Langdon would be wiped out by the Starry Order, and that the scheduled trial would vanish from the court calendar, probably even before a judge was assigned. They would also see to it that the bail payment would be red-flagged as a mistake and returned to the Ardens.

After sending her check to Owlsley, Mrs. Ardens returned home. Langdon would probably come back to Omaha with Owlsley the next day. Since this strange situation had begun, Elisa hadn't been able to resist searching Langdon's room for girly things, and she did so again tonight. As usual, nothing was to be found, except for a few videos, such as It's a Boy-Girl Thing and Identity Theft, as well as some sf books, including Identity Matrix and I Will Fear No Evil. All of these works of popular culture featured male to female sex changes. But, personality-wise, her stepson had seemed so utterly unchanged. Psychological science was utterly beyond her understanding.

Three days later, Jethra Courtindale phoned and asked, "Elisa, how was Langdon after he got home?"

"He didn't say much. He was sullen when he went off to school this morning, but was grinning when he came back, and his step seemed lighter."

"Excellent."

"What happened?"

"We've gotten him hooked up with a new girlfriend at school. Her name is Glory."

"Why do that?"

"She's one of our people. She started coming on to him even before his appearance at the grand jury. Now, after all that stress, he'll be eager to unwind with her. She called to let us know that they're getting together tonight."

"So that's where he went."

"Very likely."

"Is she a girl of his own age?"

"She'll looks his own age and acts like it, but Glory is actually older and more sophisticated than she appears. She's helped many boys like Langdon before. Her real work will begin after he's a girl."

"What is she going to do?"

"When Langdon returns to school as Donna, Glory will have already established a bond of trust with him -- her. He'll be looking for someone to support him, someone he feels comfortable with from his old life. Glory won't let on that she remembers his real past, but she'll act like Donna's BFF, the perfect a shoulder for your stepdaughter to lean on, and sometimes to cry on. When Donna needs to know something -- like how to dress, how to walk, how to speak, how to be popular -- Glory'll lend a hand. She'll also encourage Donna to start dating boys. She'll also be Donna's on-site fairy godmother -- or sister -- but she won't say anything about that, either."

"Aren't your People putting a lot of resources into this?"

"Not at all. It's service for value. And, anyway, it's not our policy to foul our nest and move West. We want to operate profitably in Nebraska for many years to come. The Starry Order puts its post-signing customer service very seriously. Compared to the value of mana, all this effort will cost the Starry Order what amounts to mere pennies."

"I see, you don't just make girls; you try to make happy girls, right?"

"Yes. That's what I've always said."

"This Glory, she's a good girl, isn't she?"

"As good as circumstances let her be," the lawyer replied. "She has to appeal to Langdon, and if you'll be honest with yourself, you'll know that his tastes run more to beach bunnies than to choir girls."

Elisa sighed. It was all too true.

After hanging up, the realtor wondered whether saving Langdon's mental health wouldn't depend more on the Starry Order than on her.

It shouldn't be that way.

* * * *

That evening Jethra Courtindale called to make a Friday morning appointment. Elisa met her at nine.

Jethra came in looking pleased and excited. "Lately Langdon has been downloading Lalola. Now that he's found out about the series, he'll have to watch our site, since we have the only version on the net with professional-looking English subtitles. The video that we stream is heavily underlain with subliminal suggestions. There are over a hundred and fifty forty-three minute episodes in the series, so that will amount to a lot of attitude-modification time."

"What is it? About a boy who changes into a girl?"

"It's about a young businessman who becomes a woman through the curse. He goes back to get his old job back, pretending to be his own smart-as-a-whip cousin. The story is told in almost day-by-day detail and, in the end, he – she – does everything she possibly can to keep the spell from breaking, so she can marry the man she's fallen in love with. The story ends very happily for them both.”

"I guess Langdon is starting to obsess about this stuff," Elisa observed.

"Yes, and things are going swimmingly with Glory, too."

"You're sure she can help him?"

"Most of her former protégés are already married. Some are still single but successful and popular. I just saw one of them looking incredible on the cover of a motorcycle magazine."

"Langdon's difficult and coarse, not at all the blooming bride type."

Courtindale smiled. "Did you see Three Faces of Eve? In fact, each human being has not just three, but hundreds of different personalities. All we have to do is to guide Donna's experiences along so that the personality of a congenial young lady will emerge naturally."

Mrs. Ardens shook her head. "You'd know more about these things than I ever will."

"It's now time for the end game -- the end game of Phase One, I mean. This afternoon UPS will deliver to Langdon that small box I told you about."

"I haven't been clear about how it's supposed to work."

The lawyer didn't lose her enthusiasm. "Our subliminal messages have already put it into the boy's mind that magic is something worth trying. I'm sure it will work. He doesn't have to believe in sorcery honestly, but in his desperate state of mind we're sure that he'll be willing to give it a try."

"Give what a try, exactly?"

"The package will contain a flashy-looking medallion and a note. The text will say that the anonymous sender is a Wiccan master who believes that Langdon is being railroaded into prison by a corrupt legal system. He will be urged to wear the medallion while he meditates upon summoning the Protective Forces by reciting the chant that the note provides.

"The chant is supposed to channel the Force through him while he visualizes that insurmountable obstacles will magically arise to prevent his trial from ever taking place. He'll be encouraged to think that the magic will work swiftly and that events should start to break his way after about a week. However, long before he has time enough to get discouraged, we'll have taken his mana."

"Is there any real magic in the medallion?"

"None at all."

"Then what does it accomplish?"

"He's likely to visualize something vengeful, like all the witnesses dying in great pain. But, instead, when he wakes up as a girl, he'll guess that the magic went askew. If he's sensible, he'll blame his own recklessness for playing with magic, and you'll be off the hook."

Elisa frowned. "Langdon is seldom sensible. His first instinct is always to blame someone else."

"If he doesn't come up with that reasonable explanation, the expert he talks to will suggest it to him. To her, I mean."

"What expert?"

Jethra opened her attaché case and took out a sheet of notepaper. "When Langdon finds out that he's a girl, he'll want to rush to the hospital. Take him instead to this clinic. The doctor who sees him there is one of ours."

"What will he do?"

"He'll say that he believes everything that Donna is telling him is true and that his diagnoses is that magic is at work. He'll explain that most doctors know about sorcery, but they've always had to deny it, because government wants a cover up. Then he'll send you and Langdon -- Donna -- to an expert mystic, one who, he'll claim, has already helped patients get rid of their curses.

"The spell-breaker will inform Donna that she has unintentionally cast a spell on herself. He'll explain that because she was inexperienced, her unconscious thoughts got into the way, and that these thoughts perverted the magic. The magical chant stopped the trial, but in a way that made her powerful sexual fantasies come true, just like her subconscious mind wanted."

"Then what?"

"The expert will assure Donna that he has seen many of these accidental spells. He'll say that it can be broken, but that doing so always takes a little time. Donna will be told that she has to meditate on removing the curse frequently. She'll be told that she has to focus on the idea that she wants, more than anything else, to be a boy and only a boy.

"She'll be expected to keep it up for a year, until the night comes when stars are back in the same position as they were at the time of the actual change. This is usually a short enough wait to keep a boy from despairing or panicking. But she'll be warned that returning to boyhood depends entirely on her. If she has any lingering doubt about wanting to give up her girlhood, then the magic might not work."

"Well, it won't work. What happens when the year is up?"

"With most boys, just like in Lalola, a year is enough for them to realize that they like their new lives. All this time, Glory will have been trying to get her to start enjoying being a girl, and if she's been successful, Donna won't be all that much surprised when the bogus spell fails. Donna might actually feel secretly happy, especially if she's taken up with a boy by then.

"But if, as in rare cases, if her reaction is excessively negative -- angry, or violent-- we have a Plan Two. But there's no reason to get so far ahead of ourselves."

A few minutes later, Courtindale had gone and Elisa sat alone in her office, trying to collect her thoughts. "How on earth did I get into a world where things like this can happen?" she asked herself, and not for the first time.

And she still had no answers.

* * * *

Chapter 7

The all-important package came the next day and Langdon had taken it away, not telling his stepmother anything about what he had found inside. She had been advised by Courtindale to stand back and let things happen as they happen. The listening device that the lawyer had hidden near Langdon's bed would inform the Starry Order's listeners whether or not Langdon had started chanting.

Elisa hadn't been at the office long before a call from Jethra Courtindale came in.

"I need to see you," said Jethra. "Do you have time this morning?"

"My calendar is open at eleven."

"Fine." She hung up.

Elisa sighed. Was this terrible process just going to keep going on and on?

At eleven sharp, Polly let her boss know that Miss Courtindale was back.

Elisa motioned to the chair as Jethra entered her office.

The latter began without preamble. "Last night Langdon meditated until he fell asleep. The odds are that he'll do so again, every night for at least a week." The lawyer selected a paper from her case and put it in front of Elisa.

"We won't have to wait a week. He's psychologically ready. When he changes, he'll think that it was the chant and the medallion that did it. This is the final consent form in front of you. It authorizes the transfer of mana from a minor, of whom you are the legal guardian, to the Starry Order, in return for consideration, as per our established agreement."

"This is the time that I'd have to either use the opt-out clause or forget about it, right?" the realtor asked.

"Yes," Courtindale affirmed.

"What should I do?"

"Physically, or morally?"

"Morally of course."

"You should always try to do what your heart tells you is right."

"What is right?"

"A person won't go far wrong if he is faithful to those whom he loves. You won't want to go on from here unless you can go forward with a clear conscience."

"I don't know if there is anyone left that I love. I'm pretty sure that there's no one who loves me."

The lawyer's expression looked as patient and sympathetic as she could allow, considering her profession.

Elisa Ardens looked away. Of course she was unhappy. Her unhappiness had dictated every step of what she had done so far. She had filled her contract with every unfulfilled wish of an aching and overburdened heart, and she had bestowed things that should make a person happy not only upon herself, but also on Langdon. But ultimately she couldn't deceive herself into thinking that she was selling out Langdon for his own happiness. She had come first in her negotiations. But did youth, beauty, heath, wealth, travel, and palatial homes add up to happiness?

No, not happiness. She couldn't expect that. The Blue Bird of Happiness wasn't to be found hidden under a mountain legalistic detail, or in a vault filled with cold treasure. Far from expecting happiness, Elisa would be grateful if she found that she was stepping into something just a less awful than Hell.

Elisa looked down at the paper. Her son didn't love her. She also worried that she had stopped loving him.

Why was she so unlovable? What was it about Langdon that made him so loveable?

He wasn't the worst criminal in the world, she knew, but he could become worse. And there was the prophecy of his death. Still, everyone dies and many women had loved a bandit. Many had even loved hot-blooded murderers. But what no one could love was a person who had a piece of ice for a heart.

She didn't know where to turn. Was this act of creative destruction the last best chance she had left?

Could a new daughter make a new beginning and a new family?

Could Langdon do better, be better, if put on a new path, if not by his own decisions, then by hers?

She didn't know. She didn't know anything.

Elisa couldn't see behind the mystical door. So she just took a deep breath and, having decided that doing something was better than doing nothing, she closed her eyes and through caution to the wind. The consequences would have to take care of themselves.

After signing the paper, she dropped the pen as if it had been the dagger of an assassin.

* * * *

Langdon was so seldom home at dinnertime that Elisa had long since stopped cooking meals for two. Tonight he came in about eight, smelling of fast food and beer. As she watched the boy go to his room, she regarded him from behind. He had grown almost fully into a big, sturdy man, but would never be a handsome one. Was he ever sorry that he wasn't attractive, just as she was sorry about her own plainness, or was being someone who could frighten other people enough for him?

Normally the boy didn't come out of his room during the evening except to use the bathroom. While she endured the long hours before bedtime, Elisa wondered if she could carry out the detailed plan that Wizard's Law Partners had recommended. Everything about her life, and Langdon's, would be different, starting tomorrow. Intellectually, she was accepting this future as true, but in her soul she couldn't accept it.

Maybe it really was just a hoax. If so, it was a hoax so elaborate that no simple Candid Camera type show could have inspired Courtindale and whoever else she was working with. But if not that, why would two strangers approach a nobody like her and make fantastic promises that didn't hold an ounce of truth?

What had Courtindale and Crowley gained so far from this farce? The chance to blackmail a barely-solvent person like her? For what? And what did they have for blackmail? That she had been gullible? That she had let herself be bribed into allowing them to go through the motions of using magic, magic that they didn't really have? To be exposed publicly as foolish would be embarrassing, she realized. Elisa knew that she would be so ashamed of herself that she would have to restart her business in some other part of the country, a place where no one knew her. But she was unimportant and people would forget. Shameful behavior wasn't crime.

Anyway, she didn't have many friends or important contact to alienate if she were publicly exposed as a fool. But how could this be a fraud? What about the miracles that she had experienced?

Had they been done with hypnotism, as she had conjectured before?

Elisa had not used her opt-out clause. Now, whatever happened, events were completely beyond her control
.

That was assuming that anything could, or would, happen.

Elisa rose and walked to the medicine cabinet, and there took the strongest prescribed dose of Valium, hoping it would subdue her anguish. She wanted to sleep tonight, and not be tossing and turning, waiting for morning -- the terrible morning to come.

After she had tidied up the kitchen in an almost dreamlike state, Elisa retired to her own room. The first thing she did there was to check the pack of photographs of herself in the guise of Daphne, just to be sure that they were still there, that they were still real.

Daphne was so young, so beautiful, and so glamorous. With all her heart she wanted to be Daphne.

"If this could happen to me…." she said to herself, "…maybe everything else they've talked about could happen, too."

That thought both gave her hope and inspired additional dread.

Then Elisa Ardens dropped into bed, still mostly dressed.

Would she soon be young again and very rich? Would Langdon become a high-school girl? It was impossible to plan ahead, impossible to believe in the idea, as it was impossible that Santa Claus himself would bring presents at Christmastime. She couldn't wrap her mind around any of it. If those promised things did happen she'd be very surprised. On the other hand, if tomorrow turned out to be just like yesterday, she wouldn't be surprised at all. She would simply despise herself even more than she ever had before.

Thanks to the Valium, Elisa managed to drop off before twelve. Her doze seemed to be dreamless.

The realtor was suddenly shocked awake, not knowing what time it was. The house was echoing with shrill screaming.

And they sounded like the screams of a teenage girl.

End