A Prison of Worlds (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 1) (29 page)

“Yes,
the elements are truly kind and were glad to help...” she broke into an
ecstatic monolog about how wonderful the creatures were and the joys of being
one with nature or some rot.  I zoned out, but let her ramble for a minute. 
She had done something more useful than anything I could do at the moment and
deserved a little of the afterglow. More importantly, I needed a second to calm
down.

“Um,
Miss Estella?” Apparently Mat didn’t know or care to indulge the crazy elf
woman.  “Could you tell us what you found?”

“Oh,
sure,” she paused to gather her thoughts.  “There is indeed a cavity below us. 
It appears to only house the central circles.”

“Which
are those?” the young officer asked eagerly, though obviously a bit dismayed
that there was anything to be found.

“I
wouldn’t know.  I don’t know anything about circles and my partners know even
less.”

Mat
stood frowning at this.  I imagine he was wondering what to tell Conrad.  I
intervened, “If it was the ones in the center then it was the gateway circle at
the least.  Also, the secondary protection circle survived and was at least
active long enough to hold off the sludge until it solidified.” 

“Can
you tell anything else?”

“Not
really, I think it’s safe to say most of the energy was used in that final
meltdown, but some of the circles may be able to draw off the nexus enough to
trigger something.”

“Is
it safe?”

“There
probably won’t be another meltdown, but I wouldn’t call it safe,” I offered, as
I walked to the area the elemental had submerged.  “The very fact that you have
a portal circle there means that at any time someone, or something can reopen
it.  The circle master was very proficient, so it’s likely he keyed it to
himself, but even so I think it’s safe to say you don’t want him sneaking back
this way.”

“But
it’s buried.  What are they going to do, stuck a hundred feet underground?”

“Do
you honestly think that a mage that can open a door between worlds is going to
be stopped by a little bit of rock, or... whatever we’re standing on?”  I
scuffed the gray glass-like surface under our feet.

“Damn,
what are we going to do about this?” Mat appeared a bit frustrated at the lack
of closure.

“Conrad
knows.  We talked about this possibility.  Anyway, we’re done here.  How about
a ride home?”

“Or
how about you drop us off at that lovely blighty area,” interrupted the
brightly colored elven girl.  I was mouthing ‘blighty’ to myself as she
continued.  “Derek promised to escort me on my errands.”

“You
want to be dropped off in the Blight?” asked Mat dubiously.  “I don’t know, it’s
not as bad as it was a week ago since someone bought it.  The gangs are gone at
least...”

“Who
bought the land?” I asked in puzzlement. 

“I
don’t know.  The city was overjoyed to sell the land.  We were worried about
the homeless and gangs resettling in another part of town, but it hasn’t
happened yet.  I hear whoever it is, they are setting up private enforcement
agencies to keep the peace.”

I
rubbed my temples.  That couldn’t end well.  It sounded like a power play by an
independent.  I also doubted Vincent Fiero would be overjoyed to hear this. 
Given the consideration that the vampires appeared to be on a recruiting run it
may not be promising for the existing residents either.

“There’s
definitely fewer badly dressed people, but Faramond almost got crushed when one
of those big floating machines dropped part of a house on him,” Estella
volunteered.

“They
are already having the construction barges drop the new prefabs?  They must
have money to burn if they’re moving that fast.  If your friend was almost hurt
I should check to see if they are using proper safety guidelines,” Mat replied
worriedly.

“Brutus
probably just couldn’t read the big flashing red signs,” I inserted, causing
the elf to pout.  I found it amusing that Mat was more willing to be involved
with the Blight now there was no gangs shooting missiles roaming the streets. 
It was remarkably sensible.  “So can you drop us off?”

I
was now actually curious to see my old haunt.  It wasn’t just that I wanted to
see if the old besieged bookstores were still there, but it sounded like things
were changing very quickly there.  The timing seemed suspicious, considering
everything else going on, but it really didn’t seem to be Jin’s standard
operating procedure from what I had heard of from Mei.

“Sure,
why not?  It’s closer to here than your house, shouldn’t be an issue.”

Mat
dropped us off into a world gone mad.  The Blight had transformed completely in
the few days I had been gone.  Huge floating cranes and barges blocked out much
of the sunlight in their slow majestic path above the expansive construction
zone.  Down on ground level, blocks had been cordoned off with huge red warning
holograms.  If Faramond had ignored this lightshow and had a house land on him
then he really was as much as an idiot as I thought he was.

Most
of the buildings had been leveled or removed, many over excavations, pipes and
conduits that appeared to be ready for hookup.  Obviously these were plumbing,
pipes, and power.  One entire building to our right was gently floating toward
one of these empty lots.  The crane above it occasionally emitted a flickering
light as the tractor field made an imperceptible correction.

“My,
humans certainly have changed over the years,” the elf said with a mild hint of
respect.  The fact that she didn’t say ‘you humans’ depressed me.  I just had
to face the fact that my secret ID really sucked.  Maybe I should start wearing
glasses.  That seemed to work in the movies.  Of course, I doubt too many
superheroes left foot long bloody teeth behind either.

“Yep,
don’t you miss the days when humans wore stinking hides and clubbed each other
with sticks?”  I would have teased her with references of dinosaurs, but I am
not sure she would have understood.  If I hadn’t lived here for over a year
absorbing the monster movies I doubt I would have either.

“I
was a little too young to be allowed to go to the less well-developed roots at
that time.”  Now I was unsure if she was joking or not.  I shrugged.

“I
assume Odin has evolved past the bloody hide stage of the wardrobe,” I asked. 
A rather nasty look was thrown my way.  I assume this verged on impinging upon
her religion.

“We
don’t have much reliance on science, but I haven’t seen anything here we don’t
have already through magical means.”

“Mystic
plumbing?”

“Fine,
the Dvergar do have a construction guild that includes plumbing.  I don’t
really count that as science though,” she almost whined.  “The waste products
go straight to a hell dimension though so it’s not all science.”

“Don’t
the demons mind?”

“It’s
not any of the main ones.  Just a tiny dimension we conquered way back.  I
don’t think there’s anything left in it.  Living at least.”

“Why
not use Hel’s dimension,” I prodded.  She looked at me oddly and mouthed
‘Hel’.  Perhaps there was a different pronunciation for the goddess of death. 
Her eyes widened as she deciphered what I said and she snorted with laughter.

“Oh
my goodness!  That... that would be priceless.  Pumping shit to the land of the
dead!  Ancestors preserve us,” she broke down into giggles while covering her
mouth at her own vulgarity.  “I suspect that might just break the treaty.”

“What
a way to start Ragnarök,” I inserted, inspiring another snort of laughter.

“Bah,
that is just a legend the Sidhe started after the war to make the gods look
bad.  A couple of prophets spewed some vague doom and gloom tripe and suddenly
Loki is destined to start the end of the world.  I read that prophesy in
school, there’s nothing even resembling that.”  She kicked a simulated cobbled stone
out of the way in a disgustingly cute fit of pique.  “As if Urd would allow her
shiftless father to drag us into war.  Besides Thor and Loki wouldn’t be able
to continue their drunken adventures together if the world ended.”  She pinched
her eyes closed and massaged her brow and whimpered. “So embarrassing.”

Ah,
Urd was the death goddess’s official name.  I suppose it made more sense than
naming the land and goddess the same.  While we had been talking, we had been
walking along the unblocked streets.  The lots we passed more often were completed
buildings.  The architecture definitely was not modern, at least not as I have
seen in the better parts of town.  I had been stuck in the city for the last
year so that is all I had to compare it too.  And the movies. 

There
had been a very aggressive retro age movement centering the early twenty-first
century.  Jeremy and I had spent many days sitting and watching old movies from
that era and the rest of the world was caught up in that trend as well.  The
style of the buildings wasn’t that period either.  I paused for a minute the
survey the corner and it finally came to me. 

“This
is early twentieth century,” I exclaimed.

“It’s
definitely less shiny than the rest of the city.  Fewer straight lines too,”
Estella volunteered.

“Are
these cobblestones?” I wondered aloud to myself as I stomped one foot on the
road below us.  “I saw a few movies about old New York, way back before the
bombings, it sort of looked like this.”

“Why
are they recreating the dirt and grime?” the Álfar asked.

Sure
enough, these brand new building and cobblestones were pre-stained with blemishes
and soot.  While nothing looked old or broken down it certainly didn’t look
new.  It looked lived it.

“It
had to be the vampires,” I stated authoritatively.

“I
still haven’t gotten over those things,” Estella interrupted.  “Have you
noticed they aren’t all ravaging beasts?”

“Yeah,
boggles the mind...” I paused to give her a sideways glance.  Sure enough, she
was smiling at me.  Well, smiling more than usual.  “I mean... no, all vampires
I have ever met have been merry old gents with sticks up their asses.”  Was I
actually getting worse at keeping secrets?

“Anyway,
only the vampires would be nostalgic over this time period and be pricks enough
to include all the things that the people of the time didn’t like.  Hopefully,
one of the geriatric old souls didn’t like seeing lines to the local soup
kitchen or we’ll be seeing more authenticity than we can stomach.”

“All
the old people I met always remember the good things and forget the bad parts,”
she said uncertainly.  As some sort of magic elf, I had to wonder how many old
people she had met.

“Trust
the vampires to bring forward all the burdens of the past along with an idealized
version.  I suppose we should be grateful they didn’t decide to obsess over the
Victorian age and then decide to import Jack the Ripper.”

“Who’s
Jack,” Estella asked, somewhat confused.

“Never
mind,” I sighed.  I missed Jeremy. He got my jokes, or at least pretended to.

One
of my bookstores was actually in this area.  I stopped our drifting progress
and actually looked for it.  Frowning, I noted there was only an empty building
at that location.

“Looks
like they already have these buildings allocated for businesses,” the elf
mentioned while pointing.  Sure enough, above the building I was ruminating
over there was a holographic advertisement. 

“Wasn’t
this where the old bookstore was?  Looks like the same business is moving in.”

“Considering
the time period they are going for, I bet they made sure they had a real
bookstore.  The two in the Blight were the only ones in the city.”

Throughout
our walk, we had hardly seen anyone except a few workers and a couple people in
exoskeletons helping to connect the prefab blocks together.  One of them seemed
to be sitting on a bench eating his lunch so I ambled over.

“Hey
there.  Where is everyone?  This place used to be teeming with people?” I
asked.  As in teeming with gangs, homeless and generally crazy misanthropes.

The
fellow paused from eating his sandwich and nodded to us.  “Hello.  Not sure.  My
company is from out of town.  I was told that the people were offered positions
in the company that bought this place to renovate.  I think I heard something
about training and indoctrination.”

“Oh. 
Thanks.”  I waved goodbye as we continued on our way.  Turning to my companion,
I prompted, “Did that sound as ominous to you as it did to me?”

“Oh,
don’t be silly.  These are good vampires,” she stated with a dazzling smile. 
Wow, that girl really knew how to lay on the sarcasm.

“So
why are we out here anyway?  It’s been great to see the not so old neighborhood,
but I think you had something specific in mind.”

“I
just wanted to see if all this new construction would disrupt the paths through
Yggdrasil.”

I
thought back to the area we walked through.  There were three nodes a stone’s
throw away but nothing within sight of our path.  “Did we pass through these
areas?”