Spectra's Gambit (27 page)

“Greymere?” asked Nanny, waking me from my thoughts.

“Nanny, really I’ve just eaten,” I said.

“I know, I can see that, but I have a personal favor to ask of you,” she said.

I turned to look at her and wondered what I could do to help a spirit. “What’s that?”

“When you go to the Spirit Realm tomorrow, could you bring a message to someone for me?” she asked.

“It sounds like it will only be a short trip,” I said.

“I know, but if you don’t mind staying there a little longer, just long enough to deliver the message, I would greatly appreciate it,” she said.

“But you’re a spirit. Can’t you deliver it?” I asked.

“No; remember, the Spirit Realm is a prison. If I return there I can’t come back unless I’m summoned, and this is too critical of a time for me to leave. Spectra needs me,” she said.

Master Spectra had previously explained to me that any spirit that gets out of the Spirit Realm will do anything it can to stay out, and for one such as Nanny the evil-enhancing nature of the realm was just as dangerous to her as it was to the rest of us. “I see, but I’m not sure if it is safe for me to go there at all yet.”

“Oh, you will be fine. Spectra is right about you; you are partly spirit,” she said.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“I can see it in you. She can, too. She does not fully recognize it yet, though. Once there you will feel tempted to stay, but it is the same feeling you have when you’re in the weave – which is where you were born,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re a native of the weave, not the Spirit Realm. Spectra will figure that out soon enough, but what matters is that you can travel to the Spirit Realm safely since your native form is spirit and not flesh. Please go to Daemon’s Rest and find the Tribe of Diamond. Deliver my message to the chief of that tribe. That is all I ask.”

How could I refuse to help the one person in this crew who helped everyone else, seemingly without rest, pay or thanks? “Okay, I will do that. But how will I find this place?”

“After you get to the Spirit Realm, ask Spectra for directions. Few outsiders know that realm as well as she does. She can start you on your way, but don’t mention any of this to her until you are already there or else she might back out of the trip. She is needed here, as is Dusty, to guide the young ones,” she said.

“And of course, when I get back, I will be better able to teach Saraphym?” I suggested, suspecting that she had a secondary motive.

“You will know yourself far better than you do now, and that will make you a better you,” she said. She produced a scroll made of light and placed it in a bag full of illuminescence potions. “Take these with you. You may not need them, but the less you depend on the energy of the Spirit Realm the better your chances will be.”

I took the bag. There were a lot of potions in it. She seemed to expect the trip to be long rather than short. “For you, Nanny, I’ll do what I can.”

“Just be careful,” she said. “The Spirit Realm is a very dangerous place, even for one such as yourself.”

“I will,” I said.

She smiled and drifted off through a wall. I was jealous of that ability, but more so of the fact that I never saw her sleep, and sleep was what I needed most. I left a message asking Saraphym to join me for a private breakfast in the morning, and then turned in.

The next morning, while eating breakfast with Saraphym, I said, “Did Spectra mention what I will be doing today?”

“No,” she said.

“They are taking me to the Spirit Realm,” I said.

“No! It’s a trap!” she exclaimed.

“Easy there. I know all about what happened to you, but I will be fine,” I said.

“How can you know that?” she asked.

“Nanny assured me that I would be,” I said. “And I have to do this so I can learn how to help you better.”

“Nanny said that?” she asked.

“Yes, and she would know best,” I said.

“Yes, but still - ” she objected.

“Look
,
I need to tell you a secret, but you cannot repeat it
,
”
I sent to her privately.

“What?”
she asked.

“I will be gone for a while. I don’t know how long; days at least, maybe even several weeks,”
I sent.
“Nanny needs me to do something for her in the Spirit Realm. She can’t do it herself because she would be trapped there, and Master Spectra and Master Dusty have their mission to complete. I am the only one who can help her, so I will do it. I won’t tell Master Spectra until we are there and it is too late for her to argue.”

She was quiet for a while as she digested that.
“Weeks? Are you sure you can manage that?”

“I’ll be fine, and even if not, Master Dusty and Master Spectra can fetch me back. That is what spiritualists do, retrieve spirits from the Spirit Realm. Right?”
I asked.

“Yeah, I guess so. I’ve never tried yet,”
she sent.

She seemed to have lost her appetite and just pushed her food around on the plate. “When do you leave?”

“After breakfast. They will call me soon,” I said.

“I see,” she said. “I will miss you.”

“I suspect you will have enough activity to keep you busy here while I’m gone. After all, you’re racing to storm a station which is scheduled to be destroyed by a massive fleet coming up fast behind you. That should be pretty exciting!” I said.

I walked over and took her in my arms and held her close to me until the comm. on my room beeped, indicating that Master Dusty and Master Spectra were ready to leave. “I guess it’s time.”

With that she turned and ran out the door. I sighed. I’d had no intention of upsetting her like that, but it couldn’t be helped. I donned my armor, grabbed my swords, and made sure I had the pack that Nanny had prepared for me. I didn’t know how long I would be there, so I made sure I had all my gear. I had no idea what might be in store for me.

I found them waiting for me in the mess hall, and Master Spectra said, “You’re a bit overdressed for a short jaunt.”

I was saved from answering by Saraphym running in. She called out, “Wait!”

I turned. “It’s okay, we haven’t left yet.”

She took my arm and tied on a piece of material that I did not recognize. It crackled a little with subtle power. “If you ever start to forget why you need to come back, just touch this and remember me.”

I took her hand in mine, slowly kissed it and said, “I won’t forget you, ever.”

She started crying and Kymberly came to comfort her.

I slowly released her and said, “Let’s get this done.”

Master Dusty nodded and Master Spectra opened a gate. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen. It looked just like a two-dimensional, oval-shaped slice of jump space. Dusty went through first, and he just disappeared as he walked through it.

“You’re next. I will follow,” said Master Spectra.

I steeled myself, not knowing what to expect, and walked through. It was a painless experience walking through the gate, no different to walking across the room. On the other side of the gate was the blandest world I had ever seen. There were no stars, no plants, nothing but greyness in all directions. I could feel the power of the realm all around me, tempting me to drink deep. As bland a world as it was to my bipedal eyes, I could sense a rich world of energy around me and I knew that was what had drawn Saraphym in. There was nothing more tempting to our kind than pure, natural energy.

Master Dusty and Master Spectra were watching me closely. “Masters, it’s fine. I am still me.”

“Good. You had a faraway look about you for a moment,” said Master Dusty.

“I can see the attraction that Saraphym felt. There is energy everywhere, an unlimited supply of it, just begging to be drunk,” I said as I looked around.

“It would be extremely unwise to do that,” said Master Spectra.

“Master, I remember the account of the grandmaster sorcerer,” I said. “I won’t make that mistake, at least.”

“Good. Let’s get back. I don’t want to subject you to too much at once,” said Master Spectra.

“No, Master, I am not going back with you,” I said.

Master Dusty reached out and grabbed my arm and said, “What?”

I told them what Nanny had asked of me and showed them the bag she’d prepared. “I suspect that this is your entire supply of illuminescence potions.”

“That’s okay. I will head back to the hospital and restock before returning to Nemesis,” said Master Spectra with a sigh. “Nanny has never asked for anything before as long as I have known her, and she has done so much for us. I will carry that message myself, if you don’t think you can.”

“Now that I am here and see what the challenge consists of, I’m sure I can handle it. This is not very different from jump space; in fact, it is less attractive than that. Nanny must have known that somehow.”

“Daemon
’s Rest is that way,” she said and gestured off behind me. “It would take me weeks to walk there. It will be much faster for you to fly. You’ll know you’re there when you see a massive forest surrounding a large volcano. The tribe you are looking for lives inside caves in the base of the volcano.”

“Master, is this an active volcano?” I asked.

“Yes, very much so,” she said.

“What do I have to fear here?” I asked.

“The locals will see you as a native, so for the most part they will ignore you, but necromancers and other foul beings live here and they will want to kill you for your very clothes. Try not to use power. It attracts the more dangerous ones from far and wide,” she said.

Great! So, pretty much fear everything
,
and don’t try to defend yourself if you can help it!
I thought to myself. “Master, how will I find you to get home?” I asked.

Dusty pulled a ring out of a pocket in his armor and handed it to me. “This ring can focus telepathy over great distances to a specific target. This one is paired with me. When you are ready, use it as a channel to contact me telepathically, and it should find me wherever I am.”

I slipped it on my finger and said, “Take care of Saraphym for me.”

Master Spectra put her hand on my arm, over the material that Saraphym had tied on, and looked directly into my eyes. “Picture her butterfly form in your mind; cement that memory where nothing can touch it. You will be tempted to forget yourself here, but remember her and use that as your anchor home. Nothing here can ever match her beauty in your mind’s eye; remember that.”

“Thanks,” I said. I turned away from them, wanting to get this done and return to the real world as soon as I could. “Farewell, and good luck!” I called out and leapt into the air. I expanded myself into my native form and rose quickly into the sky, such as it was. I banked around them once and then headed off in the direction Spectra had indicated. Thankfully my race’s perfect sense of direction and memory functioned just as well there as it did in the real world.

Light, please, if you will it, let me help Spectra even though she is so far away. I am so worried about her and the path she is on. I know she is not yet one of your children, but please let me help her,
I prayed silently to myself as I tended my plants. I knew she was the focal point of a large change that was on the horizon, and I was scared for her. She was out there somewhere, far out of my reach, and I desperately wished I was with her and Dusty. I knew if I was there I could help them, but she wanted so much to do this alone.

“Hey, Shea!” came Spectra’s voice.

I spun just in time for her to run up and hug me. I wanted to kick myself; somehow I’d missed her arrival, but how? I should have sensed Nemesis long before he arrived. “Spectra! I am sorry, I did not know Nemesis had returned.”

“Oh, we haven’t; I just stopped in after dropping off Greymere in the Spirit Realm.”

Light, thank you for this opportunity. Please grant me wisdom and insight,
I prayed silently and then said, “Wait, why?”

“Well, I missed you, and we need more illuminescence potions also,” she said.

“Oh, I have plenty more; and I have greatly missed you, too, but why is Greymere in the Spirit Realm?” I asked. I pulled out a case of the potions and placed them on my desk.

“Oh, Shea, I don’t know anymore,” said Spectra as she curled up in one of my cozy chairs.

Her whole demeanor changed as she climbed into the chair. She was not her normal, confident self anymore and instead seemed tired, maybe even defeated. I knew I needed to let her talk and that answers would come with time. I slipped around her and closed the door to my office so we would not be disturbed. “I’m here. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Saraphym and Greymere,” she said. “They are both butterflies and I don’t know what to do about it.”

I smiled at that. While their shape was vaguely like that of a butterfly, none of the reports of their activities made me think of the gentle, harmless insects that float from flower to flower. Their bodies were fairly flat and had wing-like structures, but that is where the similarity ended. Somehow the butterfly moniker had stuck, regardless. “I think we will need to come up with a better name than ‘butterflies,’ but what is the issue?”

“Well, we were on a space station following a lead on the Cathratinairian case when the station’s crew triggered the self-destruct mechanism. I didn’t have a lot of time to think; I just reacted. I brought her to the Spirit Realm, and we almost lost her.”

I pulled my chair close to her so that we were almost touching and asked, “Is she all right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Dusty and I rushed her back through a gate to Nemesis, but she was sorely shaken. She doesn’t have a good grip on her identity, not since Greymere turned her world upside down, but the speed at which she started to fall to the Spirit Realm was frightening; mere seconds.”

Thank the Light!
I thought to myself. I hated that realm, and as hard as I tried I could not relate to her need to spend time there. “Sounds like you did the best you could at the time. Did Greymere have the same problem?”

“No, he was as stable as I am there,” she said. That was very interesting, and I wanted to know more but she continued before I could ask. “You see, I think they are natives of that realm. Their butterfly form is almost purely spirit.”