Mayfair

When the door of the booth closed, I found myself in pitch darkness. After a moment, I reached to open the door again, thinking the booth had malfunctioned, but the door didn't seem to be there anymore. It also seemed like the seat of the booth had vanished, along with the floor. In fact, the entire booth had vanished, and I was floating in black nothingness.

Well, finding Mayfair was turning out to be as weird as the rest of the crap that had been going on lately.

I floated awhile before an image began appearing, the kind of afterimage that is imprinted on your eyes after staring at a bright light, but quickly became realistic and lifelike. What appeared was the design that I had seen on Tub'la's book and tattooed on the angel, made of what appeared to be a multicolored diamond of a size that dwarfed me. The colors in the design began to shift and strobe, faster and faster, making my eyes water, until they finally resolved into a picture of Jack and I, sitting in a private room in Grindlebone's bar. I felt a jarring sense of being in two places at once, as I felt like I was both in the scene and watching it from somewhere behind my head.

From my divided perspective I watched my life of the past few weeks run again, from the moment before Tub'la and his men made their entrance to the room at Grin's. The dream of the angel, committing a kidnapping for Jubjub, and the meeting with Vard flashed past. Then came my abduction by and escape from the nightmare creature, which led to my strange arrival on the deck of Sachiko's ship, the Void Dog. Cobo Landing, the Blind Lady, being taken in by the Sig Nomad, my trek across the primordial desert; all of these happened again, and I felt each sensation associated with each experience. Awe, terror, desperation, safety, pain, comfort, thirst; each came back as I lived through the appropriate scene.

Finally, my life came again to the small information booth on the quiet street corner, and again I stepped inside. And darkness enveloped me, again.

Another period of nothingness passed, until finally more images began to appear.

I saw myself as a youngster. Living on the streets of a dingy city, I would snatch purses and wallets for money. I saw myself threading my way through dense traffic, a constable in close pursuit. I dodged and weaved my way across the street, then dove through a tiny hole at the base of a wall. Before the constable could make his way over the wall, I'd sped across the lot behind, kicked open a wooden door that lead out into an alley, and slid through a small window at the base of the building. I'd already skinned the money from the wallet and dropped it in a furnace by the time the constable's feet pounded by the window and out to the alley. Sit tight five minutes, then saunter casual-like somewhere to buy food.

But I could see that this time, I'd cut my left hand good and long on the wall as I rolled through it. And over the next months, I watched the infection spread and kill the hand slowly. Felt it, too, in the hand I didn't have anymore. It hurt, and slowed the younger version of me down enough that I finally got nicked. Time in the Gaol for theft, time in a government home for not having parents, time with doctors getting my dead hand cut off. Time fighting in the yard, finding out how to poke out eyes with my stump, how to hit the solar plexus right on. Then, one day it all went away, except for a flash here and there, nothing I could make sense of, except that the crimson metal hand that replaced my real one would flash by now and again. Then nothingness.

A huge image of the hand appeared, turning in the darkness. I felt a cold interest from the void around me, and I knew that whatever had studied me was studying the hand just as closely.

The angel design reappeared alongside the hand, and images of the angel and the book locket superimposed themselves behind it. Vard the demon swirled into view next to the angel.

As I thought the word 'angel', a sense of wrongness came from the void. An image of mind destroying beauty and light flashed in front of me, a feeling of purity and power came along with it, which made me cry out in shock and pain. The image was too much for any tiny being like myself to bear.

That was an angel.

What I'd seen in my dream was... angelic. That got a feeling of rightness from whatever it was that was surrounding me. It wasn't pure enough to be an angel. And Vard wasn't a demon, he was demonic. Neither one was more than a pale shadow of what the presented themselves as.

After the feeling I'd gotten from the picture of a true angel, I took a moment to feel grateful that whatever was running this show hadn't felt the need to display a true demon.

More images, with accompanying understanding, came to me. The angelic and the demonic didn't want me, really, they wanted... my hand? Yes, something about my prosthetic was what had attracted them. Tub'la and the nightmare creature, too, they had wanted to remove the hand from me. But the void around me, which seemed to know so much, couldn't say why the hand was important. It hadn't been able to unlock the blank period in my memory, which covered the time when I had come into possession of the hand.

As enlightening as this all had been, I had been getting more and more aggravated by the high-handed manner in which I'd been treated since entering the booth. I didn't like having someone, something, rummaging around in my memories. So I closed two of my eyes, and opened the third.

I wasn't in darkness anymore. I was surrounded by coruscating light. The booth, and whatever space I was now in, they were both extrusions of a higher dimensional being. This was Mayfair. It wasn't a person, moving by hidden pathways from world to world, but something above us; not a super-being, but a supra-being. Mayfair was holding me like a man would hold an insect, except that Mayfair could see inside of me, and into my mind.

With my Eye open, Mayfair's messages were crystal clear. It couldn't tell me why the hand was so important, but something in it held the key to something that a lot of people wanted. The hand couldn't be taken from me, or the hand's intelligence would rebel against the taker. But if I gave it up freely, it would be of some use in discovering whatever it was it held the key to. Some who were searching for the hand wouldn't care about that, and would kill me and take the hand just to keep others from gaining access to it. Mayfair had managed to divine one thing from my fractured memory: the name of a place where the hand might have originated.

Seeing the totality of Mayfair was more disconcerting than the rerun of my memories, so I closed my Eye and returned to the blessed darkness.

Home and away again

Forty-eight hours after walking out of the desert, I found myself standing with Van Zandt on an odd street corner in one of the newly opened realities on the edge of Congeries space.

The intervening two days had been quite full. I'd intended to get to Grin's place immediately, but the call of a good night's sleep at my place in Paedarc had overrode that impulse. I'd showered, slept, showered again, burned the remnants of clothes I'd walked the desert in, showered a third time, then made my way to the bar. The welcome from Grin and Van Zandt was equal parts 'we're glad to see you' and 'where the hell has your dumb-ass been', which was seconded by Jack when he ran in a few minutes later. Ever been slapped in the back of the head by an all metal hand? Not a lot of fun.

I gave them the rundown on how I'd come to be missing for three weeks, local time, and we'd spent some time chewing over the various questions all of what I'd been through raised. No one was quite sure what had kidnapped me originally. Van Zandt was fascinated by both the deep ships and the Sig Nomad; Her interest in new cultures most definitely included the cultures of various types of travelers. Everybody was keen on the Sig Nomad's method of travel, and were very interested in Sachiko. Van Zandt and Grin shared a meaningful glance when I mentioned her. Sigh.

Jack had read the crystal I'd gotten from the Jubjub Bird, giving the location of Mayfair the ethnographer. Four different locations, actually, two of which none of us had ever heard of. The closest one was just a hop, skip, and Step away, though. But it did only give the location, not any clue as to who at the location might be the elusive Mayfair. The directions just said to go to a particular city, to a particular street corner, and look in an information booth. I suppose there couldn't be too many people in there.

Jack had also brought back a data stick from Charom, containing a copy of the mind of the recently executed Gundar Tub'la, the man who'd burst in so rudely on Jack and I a few weeks before. So far, all that he'd been able to glean from Tub'la's cyber-psyche was that Gundar was an angry man who didn't feel like answering any questions. The only thing that brought any type of other answer was when he was asked about the locket/book with the angelic design, which only made the display show the design itself. Interesting, but hardly informative.

The four of us talked for a good long time, and proceeded to get pretty well into our cups as the hours waxed on. Van Zandt finally helped Grin stumble out of the room, telling me she'd set me up with a place to sleep once she got the big guy situated. Jack and I chatted, and I was about to ask him if he actually got drunk, or if he just faked it to make his biological pals feel like he was part of the scene, but I fell asleep on the couch first.


I'm not sure what kind of arm-twisting Van Zandt did to Grin that he didn't object when she said she was coming with me to meet Mayfair, but given how sheepish he looked when she said it, it must have been something to see. Jack wanted to come, too, but the info on Milgrum, the just-opened locale where Mayfair was supposed to be, didn't say what the locals attitude towards non-humans might be. Jack could pass for a robot quite easily, but we didn't know if that would be any better. So it ended up being just Van Zandt and me. She was almost giddy when we headed out.

It took a few hours to cross the territory to a place where we could Step into Milgrum. While I'd been away, Grindlebone had used his connections to secure a list of relatively safe transfer points across the outer zone, where the area of the Traveler's Guild gave way to the unknown. Milgrum was right on the edge of the Guild's sphere of influence, at the point on the map where the gray of uncontrolled space turned to the black of the unknown. The Guild would not have been happy they knew where we were trying to go. This wasn't just a case of the Guild being contrary; the uncontrolled worlds didn't have any safeguards in place to minimize the risk of dangerous things crossing into world that weren't ready for them. Our crossing to the very edge of their space did represent a bit of a danger, but we weren't planning on buying any fruit, so I figured we were gonna be OK.

Milgrum turned out to be quite pleasant, all in all. The trees that lined the wide boulevards of the city we landed in were an odd brownish purple color, but otherwise it was like most cities I'd been in; Cobo Landing had seemed more obviously alien.

We landed a short distance from the location Jubjub had given us, and a quick walk got us to a deserted street corner. Oddly shaped vehicles rolled quietly past, but none of the locals seemed to be about. The only thing of any interest at all was a small green kiosk, which had 'Information' written down the side in white letters. Van Zandt and I spent almost half an hour loitering, making small talk, and shuffling back and forth nonchalantly, while no one at all walked by. Finally, out of bored desperation, I asked Van Zandt to go over what she knew about Mayfair.

I nearly jumped out of my skin, because just after I said 'Mayfair', the door of the green booth snapped open. The open door let us see the comfortable, if small, interior of the booth. A small screen above the door flashed to life, and words scrolled across it.

'Questions? Questions about Mayfair? Enter, and ask to your heart's content!'

The Long Walk

Even through my dark goggles, the glare of the desert would burn my eyes when the sun was high. From rise to set, the sun would force my eyes into a tight squint and make them water. By the end of each day, each side of my face would have a line of salt running down it, marking the path my tears had taken. The heat of the sand rose through my boots and scorched my feet, and every breath was like inhaling fire while the sun was up. Time was broken not by seconds and minutes, but by single trudging steps taken up and down the slopes of vast sand dunes. For days I had followed the silent man through the desert, maybe weeks. I had lost track in the unchanging cycle of cruelly hot days and painfully cold nights.

In the few seconds of rest and clear thought I managed, in the moments just before exhausted sleep or just after waking, I would question my choice to follow the silent man into the desert.

When Sachiko had mentioned the Sig Nomad to me as an option for making my way across the unfriendly reaches of the Boundless Realm, she had spoken of them as a group of freedom fighters, striking against the Realm's Jump Cops. When I had actually made contact, though, I found out that the Sig Nomad which fought for free travel in the Realm was only a small part of a large confederation of wanderers, most of whom were only slightly concerned with the actions of the Jump Cops.

The majority of the Sig Nomad were just that, nomads who wandered all the paths between realities, no matter how basic or esoteric they might be. Most weren't concerned with annoyances like the Realm because the Realm's ability to hinder the Sig Nomad's travel was negligible, at best. The Realm simply didn't know enough to be able to stop the nomads from going anywhere they wanted to.

So the small group who, more as a lark than anything else, bedeviled the Jump Cops, had passed me on to other members of the Sig Nomad who they said would be better able to help me. After some discussion, the elder members of the Sig Nomad had decided that I could be helped. Maybe.

I had always thought of my being able to Step across dimensional barriers as a gift, something that set me apart from most beings I encountered in my normal life. Sure, they could travel from place to place by gate almost as easily as I could, but only almost. They had to depend on gates, and spells, and continua craft for their movement, while I could Step at will from place to place, anytime I wished, mostly. But the Sig Nomad thought of my gift as the bare minimum of what would be considered acceptable for a nomad. My ability was circumscribed in ways I didn't always understand, which they found both unacceptable and hilarious in varying degrees. To the nomads, a gate or a bridge or a spell of traversal, and even my ability, were expressions of a misunderstanding about the nature of space.

The nomads saw all places as one, the seeming separation being an expression of the limits of the minds of most beings. They 'walked' from place to place only because that was the easiest way for the three-dimensional brain to convince itself to shift its focus from one 'place' to another. True masters were said to be able to manifest themselves anywhere they wished to, and in as many locations as they wished to. Like masters of any art form, though, nomad masters were rare as true oracles, honest politicians, and real love.

So the Sig Nomad agreed to let me learn to 'walk' from place to place, if I could. I was taken to a town on the edge of a vast desert, presented to the silent man, and told to follow him wherever he went. If I survived, it was possible I'd learn enough to get where I wanted to go.

So I followed the silent man as he walked behind the caravan for days, and I followed the silent man when he left the caravan and walked into the desert.

If all places are one, then all deserts are one. If you walk into the desert, away from anything else but the sand and the air and the sun, and into the place where there is only desert, where you aren't in a desert but in the desert, the desert that is the mother of all deserts, it's just possible that you can pass to another place altogether.

If the desert doesn't kill you first.

The silent man could have lead me through a forest, or out into the ocean, or across frozen wastes. The details would have been different, but the experience would have been mostly the same. Humans, in particular, have to be damn near killed before they can give up the attachment to being in one place, and one place alone. It's remarkably hard to let yourself be... indeterminate.

There was a change, one day that was exactly like the ones before. There was a change in where I stood in the universe. I was nowhere, and I knew exactly where I was.

I knew if I went that way, I'd be near home. So, I walked that way. It wasn't until night fell that I realized that the silent man had been following me.

For two day, I knew I was walking in the right direction, but my destination grew no closer. I'd found my way to nowhere, but I didn't know how to get out. Another day of heat and plodding steps followed, another day of moving without getting anywhere. At midday I stopped, feeling the heat of the sun through my head cover, and the heat of the sand through my shoes, and the pull of the place I wanted to go in front of me, and the feeling of nowhere at my back. I took a step forward, but I didn't move. The pull ahead of me was no stronger, and the feeling of nowhere behind me had not lessened at all.

I stood with my eyes closed. I willed myself towards the pull. Nothing changed. I was suspended between nowhere and somewhere, perfectly balanced.

If all places are one, somewhere and nowhere are both here; Right where I am, I thought. One being in front and one behind was arbitrary. It might as well be that one was above and one below...

Suddenly I was falling. My feet were firmly planted, but the feeling of dropping precipitously was undeniable. I fell, the sand painful against my hands and knees. While I tried to collect myself, something became clear. The pull of my destination was stronger. I hadn't moved, and yet I had.

What if my destination was downhill?

I stood up, and trudged up the next dune, all the time sliding downhill in my mind. When I crested the dune, I could see, shimmering in the distance, a small fort on the edge of the desert; a fort where just a short while ago, I had kidnapped a man in exchange for information. A fort that I knew was only a short series of Steps from home.

I looked back at the silent man. We looked at one another for a long moment until, with a short nod, he turned and walked back the way we had come. Two hours later, I walked out of the desert.

Thoughts on troubles

I don't know what was kept in the bag before it had been put over my head, but I counted myself lucky it hadn't been anything too stenchful. The ropes around my wrists and the manner I was being transported were both relatively comfortable, too. The Sig Nomad might have not been sure they could trust me, but at least they weren't making the experience of being taken to see their local commander more painful than it had to be. I sat, eyes blinded and wrists bound, in what, from the sound, seemed to be a horse drawn conveyance, listening to the men guarding me chat companionably about this and that, sprinkling insults on the Epsilon Soldiers liberally through their discourse.

The Epsilon Soldiers of the Boundless Realm, known colloquially as 'Jump Cops', didn't control individual dimensions or worlds, for the most part. What they did control was the means of traveling from one place to another, through their stranglehold on trans-dimensional gates. They were the only ones allowed to manufacture or operate the gates, and they were the only ones who had sensors that let them track any movement across dimensions, be it psychic, magic, or scientific in nature. If you wanted to trade with the world next door and you were in the Jump Cop's territory, you had to pay them, and you had to agree to enforce their rules. If you didn't pay, or enforce the rules, or kowtow to whatever their whims might be, your access to trade and travel could be cut off like wheat under the scythe. If you tried to trade without paying their tithe anyway, the Epsilon Soldiers would declare your world to be forfeit, which would mean invasion and destruction of a scale most places had never known. When the dust settled, the world you used to own would be theirs to use as they saw fit, and so would you. And no one would some to your aid, because no one else wanted to be next on the list for invasion.

They didn't trust magic, and they didn't trust psychics, and they had a habit of doing things to the ones they caught to keep these 'messy' forms of travel in check. If you were going to travel, you went through their gates, and if you went through their gates, they wanted to know why, and the reason had better be one they liked. Stepping under my own steam, I wouldn't have made enough progress to make it worth the energy it would have taken, or worth the beating I would have gotten once the Jump Cops got their hands on me. Trying to move through their gates would have seen me detained the first time I tried to cross, and held until they figured out what I was up to.

Which, given that Cobo Landing, where I was, had the whole of the Boundless Realm between it and Grindlebone's, where I wanted to be, meant I was in a bit of a pickle. It was theoretically possible I could have traveled by deep ship, or under my own power, around the outer edge of the Realm, but I didn't have the years it would have taken to spare.

Sachiko, the new friend I had made after dropping onto the deck of her deep ship in mid transit, had suggested I attempt to contact the Sig Nomad, who she said were dedicated to wresting free movement from the Realm. Doing so was what had led me to being in the back of this vehicle, blind and bound.

With this time on my hands, and very little to occupy my mind, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd ever make it home. There was a lot of distance and any number of obstacles between where I was and where I wanted to be, and there was nothing to say I'd ever make it back. I felt more alone than I could ever remember, and lost. Even Sachiko had only been able to say that the Sig Nomad might be able to help. They were the only hope I had, right now.

I had considered, briefly, seeing if I could use the hand to tear away another hole, like the one I'd used to escape the beast that had captured me, the hole that had led me to land on the deck of the Void Dog. Even if I had known how to make the hand do that at will, it still seemed like ripping holes in the local fabric of reality would be a very bad idea. Unneighborly, to say the least.

Right now, more than anything, I wanted to be back at Grindlebone's bar, sipping a whiskey and listening to Jack and Van Zandt trade stories. My life had been only moderately interesting before this week, and I'd quite enjoyed it that way. I didn't need angels and demons and monsters coming after me for reasons I couldn't seem to grasp. I didn't want armed thugs ruining quiet drinks with friends. I did want quiet uncomplicatedness.

But that didn't seem to be up to me, right now.

The Blind Lady's place

The fortune teller Sachiko sent me to was not at all what I expected.

I'd hit the Sanctum of the Blind Lady directly after finishing business at Pendross' shop. The old man behind the counter had been fascinated by my left hand. He'd insisted on opening the whole thing up, kept muttering technical specs and oohing and aahing as he looked through its innards. I'd practically had to pry the thing out of his hands when I wanted to leave; he'd wanted to keep the thing for a night so he could take it apart. When he'd let go of it, sighing with regret, and asked me to do him the kindness of bringing it to him if the hand should ever need repair, but the look in his eye seemed to say he didn't think that would be any time soon. With the hand back in place on my arm, and the fear chip the old man had removed from it secured in a small compartment I hadn't known the hand possessed, I left Pendross' and headed to see the next person Sachiko had recommended, the Blind Lady.

Her shop was small, nestled between a bar and a large emporium, but seemed impressive nonetheless. It was light stone, a single story structure with a bowed front, and two large, curtained windows on either side of a solid wooden door. Above the door, there was a round window of colored glass, shaped into some sort of mystic symbol, or so it looked to my untrained eye.

I'd gotten a picture in my head of an old woman with paper-thin skin, wrapped in a shawl and sitting behind a table with a crystal ball on it, maybe throwing yarrow rods or rings to tell people their future. But when the door opened, after a small eye set in the door popped open and scanned me from toes to hair, I set eyes on a strong woman, a few inches taller than me, dressed in sweat-stained workout clothes. She had broad shoulders and her sleeveless arms showed well-toned muscle, and the only thing that seemed out of place was the blindfold of blue cloth embroidered with gold stars that covered her eyes.

“My apologies. I'd hoped to be cleaned up before you arrived, but the Sight can be a little off when comes to exact timing.”

“Ah... OK. I mean, it's fine. I mean, I didn't mean to be late...” I took a breath and got a hold of myself. “A friend of mine, Sachiko, she said it was worth coming to see the Blind Lady. My name's Red Hand.”

“I can see why. Sr. Pendross must have been beside himself with joy when you walked into his shop. Welcome to my house, Sr. Hand; enter in peace. I 'm Aisling Guida.” She stepped back and held the door wide, motioning me to enter.

The room I entered was spare, holding only a table and two chairs. Though the windows that flanked the door were curtained, the white-washed walls and floor spread the colored light coming through the upper window, and managed to make the room feel both open and intimate. A second door, opposite the door I'd just come through, lead farther back into the building, with the table directly between them.

At the Lady's gesture, I sat in one of the chairs. Settling herself opposite me, she laid her hands flat on the table and regarded me silently for a few moments. The cloth over her eyes didn't stop the weight of her gaze from settling on me. Then she nodded, as if satisfied, and relaxed a bit.

“So, how can I be of assistance?”

“I'm not sure. A friend of mine, Sachiko, she sails the Void Dog...”

“Yes, I know Sachiko.”

“Right, Sachiko said it might be worthwhile to see you, before I moved on from here.”

“Did you have a specific question you wanted help with?”

“No, not really. Like I said, Sachiko said it might be worthwhile to come, but I don't have anything in particular, y'know, she was right about going to Pendross', so...”

“Hmm. Well, would you like me to do a reading for you?”

“What would that entail? I mean, what do I do for that?”

“Nothing, really. Just clear your mind of any specific thoughts and give me your hand.” She said, extending her own hands towards me. Without really thinking, I put my metal left hand in hers. When I tried to pull it back, stammering, hoping she didn't think I was trying to be funny, she wouldn't let me. She pulled the hand closer to her, bringing my chest flush with the table. She leaned forward, bringing her clothed eyes near to the hand's reflective surface.

“My. My word. Mr. Pendross must have been very excited to see you.”

“He did seem excited, yes.”

“Your friend is old. Yes. It's memory is somewhere else, now, but the substance knows its own age. It likes you, very much. This is a gift, Red. You gained much more than you lost, when this hand was joined to you. The one's who gave it to you didn't know it. They had no idea, no idea at all.”

“Can you tell me about them? The people who installed it?”

“No... it was lost for a long time, and when it was found, you gained it immediately. Whoever gave it to you barely touched it.”

“Just my luck.”

“Again, whatever happened that brought it to you, you came out ahead.” Looking unsatisfied, she curled the metal fingers and let go of them. “There's quite a lot more, but it's beyond what I can see. I think you might have more success asking it yourself. Your metal friend is quite self-aware, and it trusts you much more than it trusts me.”

“That's good to know, at least. I just found out today how smart it is. Thanks. Sachiko said you'd work with me on some form of payment?”

“Drop anchor, there, sailor. Miss Aisling's wonderama and floor show isn't over yet. Give me your other hand.” She rapped the table twice and held out her hands again, smiling at me mischievously. I put my right hand in hers. She focused on it, running her fingers over my palm.

“You had a rough start. Not much in the way of being taken care of. You drifted, in more ways than one. Much of it you've locked away, and for good reason. Then, darkness falls... you didn't do it, it was taken away from you.” She turned my hand to catch the light better. “You've traveled far, and you'll travel farther still. You're not a hero, but you will be called on to perform as one, rising to the occasion when you must. Death will come near you, but not to you, many times before you end.”

“Should I be happy or sad about that?”

“That's up to you.” She flashed me another smile, then returned to scrutinizing my hand. “Those around you are oak, strong and constant. You flow like water, finding the path that others miss, that they cannot see, that even you may not see. Right now, there are a number of different forces centered on you, and your metal friend. There are different factions that seek to gain your allegiance, but none would benefit you more than keeping control of your own destiny would. They want to use you, not help you, but their greed gives you opportunity, if you can seize it. In the near future, answers will come to you on the journey you've become. By the time you reach your destination, you will have all you need to play your own game.”

“Should any of this make sense to me?”

“Some of it does, I know. The rest will only be clear in hindsight.” She smiled apologetically. “That's how fortune-telling works, most of the time. Sorry.”

“Can't complain, really. What I did get was... more than I thought I would. More than I thought you would get, I mean.”

“I hear that a lot.” She stood up and opened the door for me. “Good luck to you. You will need it, but I think you'll have it when the time comes.”

“So, what do I owe you?”

“I think I'm going to let you have this one on spec. Just... remember me when this part is all over. What's coming up now looks like just the start of a long road, and we might have a lot of business to do, sometime relatively soon.”

“Are you sure? I don't know if I'll ever be in this neighborhood again, y'know.” She nodded, and we shook hands. The Blind Lady's hand tightened on mine, and she reached out and held it in both hands for a moment before letting go.

“One last thing. When the big show starts, there have to be four of you.”

Talk to the hand

The sign on the shop had 'Pendross Cybernetic and Bionic' in basic, blocky script. I stood in a shaded doorway across the road from the shop, one who's faded paint and dusty windows seemed to say it hadn't been used in a while. I'd been watching Pendross' door for ten minutes or so, holding my left fist, clenching and unchlenching, in my right hand. I didn't want to cross the street. I didn't want to go in.

I had come to Pendross' because Sachiko had said the owner might be able to tell me something about the prosthetic metal hand I wore on the end of my left arm. This suggestion had come after I had mentioned that I didn't know anything about my prosthesis. This was true. I didn't even know how I'd gotten it.

I have some things about my past I don't remember, that I don't want to remember. Most of my childhood is hazy, at best. It wasn't very pleasant, most of it. I don't have any memory of my mother or father, although I assume I had the usual compliment of both. There were a lot of years of living with different people, and a lot more living on different streets and different squats. A lot of living on scraps, and fighting for leavings out of dumpsters. It's all bits and pieces, without much continuity. And there's a decent stretch of time, I don't know how long, that's pitch black.

I'm pretty sure I got the hand during that period. I think I have might have learned to Step across dimensions somewhere in there, too, although some earlier memories seem to happen in a lot of odd places, so I can't really say. After the black period, the earliest thing I can recall is being escorted out of a place that could have been a laboratory, out to a street in a strange city. The two large individuals escorting me, who looked like men but weren't, took me to a room with a bed, where I slept. When I woke up, I was in a different bed, in a different room, and a different city. I stayed there for two days, mostly sleeping, until I was thrown out by a couple of people who didn't speak any language I could understand.

In the years since, I'd managed to carve out a nice life for myself, and I hadn't thought much about the past. I'd actively avoided it, to be honest. The days before the blackout, they were nothing worth remembering, and there were some things... anyway. The few times I'd tried to think about the blackout period, I'd experienced more than a little panic. Very bad panic. I'd ruined a very nice pair of pants, to be brutally honest.

I knew the hand had its own intelligence. There had been a couple of occasions where it, acting on its own, had saved my life. I thought of it as a friend, albeit one I could barely understand. Having it checked out was logical, though, something I should have done a long time ago. But it had never occurred to me before. I don't know why. Maybe there was a reason for that.

So I stood across from the cyber-shop, metal fist in real hand, fighting down an urge to run.

I looked down at the balled metal fingers. Something else I'd never thought of occurred to me.

“Are you afraid?” I asked, hunched down over the fist. “Is there some reason you don't want me to go in there?” The curled metal fingers loosed, and each one tapped the palm three times. The feeling of panic lessened just slightly. “It is you, isn't it? You're what's making me feel so frightened?”

The feeling vanished, like a soap bubble popping. But that led to a new kind of fear.

“How long... do you do that all the time?” The fingers spread wide, wider than my real fingers could. A point of light appeared on each fingertip, and each curled up until they were pointed at the palm of the hand, making five points of light on the red metal surface. The lights began to move, and letters formed, scrolling across the palm.

'no'

“But sometimes you do, right? You just did!”

'program activates when certain thought patterns emerge. neural feedback is initiated to cause flight response. not under active control. temporary program interrupt in effect'

“You can read my mind?”

'supposition incorrect. alpha waves are scanned for particular pattern. pattern emergence causes sensory interface feedback program activation'

“So, you were built to scare me if I think certain things?”

'supposition incorrect. feedback program non-standard, added as chipset just prior to unit installation on current user'

“You were altered to scare me just before you were put on me? Why? And by who?”

'supposition correct. reasons for alteration: unknown. identity of those responsible for alteration: unknown. warning: program interrupt will become ineffective in 69 seconds'

“Oh, man...”

'to prevent resumption of ill effects due to feedback program, unit must be removed. query: does user wish to remove unit'

“Yes! Now!”

The hand began to cycle through its removal process, releasing its grip and unplugging from the sockets on my forearm. As it finished, I took its weight onto my right hand.

“Is there any way to kill that program? And any others like it you might have in ya?”

'program is chipset. removal of chip from socket 3-SSA will remove program from unit. chip contains only non-pain related response program in unit.'

“Pain related response program?”

'unit can assist user by deadening pain at user request'

“Good to know. If I have the chip pulled, will that do anything to you?”

'unit's efficiency in completing primary function will increase by 1.392%'

“And your primary function is replacing my hand?”

'supposition correct'

“Any particular reason you haven't let me know any of this before now?”

'user made no request for information prior to this point'

“We need to have a long talk sometime soon. How long has it been since you were 'installed'?”

'unit installed on current user 11986355 seconds ago'

“Very informative. Were you on any other users before me?”

'unknown. unit memory begins 2100 seconds before installation on current user.'

“Nothing at all before that?”

'supposition correct. however, memory tags indicate unit memory archived and wiped just prior to installation on current user.'

“That's interesting. And I'm guessing the location of your memory archive is unknown?”

'supposition correct'

“OK. Just to be on the safe side, is there anything this guy might discover by taking a look at you that will get me into trouble?”

'unknown. unit is not familiar with laws of current locale'

“Well then, anything you need him to tend to in ya?”

'unit functioning near optimal, no service currently required.'

“Nine years without a checkup, and you're functioning near optimal, huh? Hardy fella, aren't ya?”

'supposition correct'

I laughed all the way across the street.

Starting homeward

Three days after Sachiko found me on the deck of the Void Dog, we made port in Cobo Landing. For all three days, I had been feeling the occasional pull of a Stepping point as the spheres of different realities had revolved past the deep ship. Sachiko had found it very interesting, and had begun talking about the uses of having someone with dimension hopping skill as part of an exploratory crew. In the normal course of events, Sachiko would have had to 'land' the Void Dog in an unexplored dimension to find out anything about it, and actually finding the proper entry point was hit or miss, at best. But I could feel when Stepping points were approaching, and when they were closest. I actually got to earn a bit of my keep by Stepping to Cobo Landing and arranging for the slip Sachiko needed for the Void Dog.

Transferring to the slip from the void was very interesting. Stepping is like a bad jump cut in a film; suddenly the scenery is different. But docking a deep ship is gradual, like coming out of a dream. Shapes began to appear in the blackness, solidifying around the ship until the void was gone. In less then five minutes, we were fully docked in the Landing. It was fascinating to experience.

It was nice to be back on solid land, but that was balanced by the fact that I had no idea where Cobo Landing was, and how I was going to get back home. I had assumed that Sachiko's dislike of the Traveler's Guild put me somewhere near my normal stomping grounds, the section of the void she sailed turned out to be, by her choice, quite far away from anywhere the Guild controlled. She said that most deep sailors avoided the Guild worlds. The Guild had no way of tracking ships like the Void Dog, and tended to be heavy handed in their methods of trying to curtail the deep sailor's wanderings. Sachiko's normal route lay just outside the area controlled by the Jump Cops, the so-called 'Boundless Realm'. The Realm, while quite large, was miniscule compared to the Guild's Dimensional Congeries. The Guild's reach extended quite a bit further than I had ever thought. Sachiko had never heard of any of the places I named, except the Gambling Hell, which also seemed to be a much more widespread operation than I had assumed. Her collection of maps might have shown some areas I knew, but the deep sailor method of listing location names and relationships were too foreign to my understanding to be much help.

Sachiko did have some suggestions for at least finding my way back into the Guild Congeries, which might be all I needed.

“I wish you well in your travels, Runcible.” Sachiko told me as I stood on the dock next to the Void Dog. “It has been most enjoyable and illuminating to have you as a guest. Your help today was, also, much appreciated. I hope that your path back to your home is untroubled. Would it make you uncomfortable to receive a gift?”

“Sachiko, my friend, I would be more than pleased to accept anything you might offer.”

She stepped close to me, and placed a light necklace around my neck. It was shaped like a crescent, with the upturned points connected to the links that held the necklace to me. The crescent was silver, with a blue filigree pattern on it. When I slipped it under my shirt, it felt cold for just a moment, then felt like nothing at all.

“You've been very kind to me, Sachiko, and I feel lucky to have landed on the Void Dog. I wish you sailed closer to my home. I'd love to have you to talk to again. I also wish there was some way to repay you for your help, but right now a thank you is all I can offer. I hope to be able to return this gift in kind, one day.”

“The help was given freely, as was the gift, Runcible. The necklace will allow you to feel when a deep ship is near, and may allow me to sense you, if we are ever near one another again. Take care, and be well.”

“And to you.”

I walked down the dock towards the city. When I reached the end of the dock and looked back towards the Void Dog, Sachiko had disappeared.


Cobo Landing was a busy port, hosting port facilities for space, sea, and deep ships. Like any port city, it was bustling with traffic and business being done, both legal and otherwise. Drovers moved various loads in animal drawn carts, powered vehicles, and by their own strength. Vendors hawked dozens of types of foods and sundries. I enjoyed it all, and kept an eye out for pickpockets.

Sachiko had told me about a few places I should visit; a cybernetics peddler who might be able to tell me something about my metal left hand; a fortune-teller of good reputation; and a group who might be able to help me find my way through the Boundless Realm, known as the Sig Nomad.

I headed away from the deep ship moorings, heading for the cybernetics dealer. My mind was filled with thoughts of Yendin Baddo, and as I walked I clenched and unclenched my own left hand.

The hands of Yendin Baddo

The next three days sailing the obsidian deeps on board the Void Dog saw great improvement in my physical condition under the ministrations of Sachiko. She was a fascinating woman, and was apparently descended from a long line of 'deep sailors', as they called themselves. I gathered that they looked upon people who traveled the dimensions only by using gates as hopelessly limited, never really knowing the wonders that existed in the rich vastness that was accessible to them, and thought only slightly more highly of those like myself, who could Step across realities under our own power. A ship like the Void Dog could safely reach places that were almost myths to me, so far off my normal path were they. Her attitude towards the Traveler's Guild, the most powerful cross-dimensional organization I knew of, was dismissive at best, and the invective she leveled against the Jump Cops made very clear her feelings toward those gentlemen.

The Void Dog was still a day and a half out of port when Sachiko compared me to Yendin Baddo. When I told her I didn't know the name, she related the story of Baddo and his miraculous metal hands.

Yendin Baddo, it seems, was the youngest son of Master Artisan Brethon Baddo, chief artisan for the Compact of 8 Kingdoms, a legendary union of advanced people long ago lost to the mists of time. Master Artisan Baddo, stories said, was the only person to master the crafting skills of all 8 Kingdoms, and as such could create items of incredible intricacy and beauty.

When Master Artisan Baddo's youngest child was born without hands, Baddo decided that she would give her son what life had not, and set about creating as perfect a mechanical substitute as was possible. For a woman of the Master Artisan's skill, giving Yendin, her son, hands that functioned as well as any natural hands was just a starting point, and, as Yendin grew, each new set of hands the Master Artisan crafted for him surpassed the last. When Yendin grew into full manhood, he was presented with the greatest pair of hands his mother could devise.

One hand was golden, the other crimson. Each one was strong enough to crush steel, and sensitive enough for Yendin to feel dust motes as they landed. Each one incorporated all that an artisan would need to work metal, or stone, or any other substance as easily as normal hands could work clay.

Yendin, while schooled in creating artifacts by his mother, and possessing great skill, was not interested in becoming a Master Artisan. Shortly after Yendin Baddo received his newest hands, he vanished from the 8 Kingdoms. The Master Artisan was brokenhearted, and while she continued to create, some spark had vanished with her son.

Stories of Yendin Baddo came back to the 8 Kingdoms, and to his grieving mother, over the next decades. The stories told of Yendin becoming a mighty warrior, of single combat with dragons and trolls, liches and vampires, of towns and princesses saved, and these tales gladdened the heart of the Master Artisan, for, if she must be separated from her favorite child, at least she knew he was a good man.

Gradually, the traveling bards had no more stories to tell, and nothing was heard of Yendin Baddo for more than three score years. Rumors of his death were told in taverns in the 8 Kingdoms, although no two were alike, and none could claim to have met any who might have sure knowledge of Yendin Baddo's demise. The Master Artisan grew old hearing these rumors, and created less and less as the years passed.

The stories of Yendin Baddo's heroism and death faded from public interest, and were told no more. The minds of the people dwelt, as always, on the day to day task of making way through the life they had.

When word of the Army of Brothers conquering the warring duchies in the Outmarches drifted to the Compact of the 8 Kingdoms, few, if any took much notice. Many had tried to unify the Outmarches, and none had succeeded for any length of time. Few noticed when the Outmarches declared they would now be known as the Empire of Brothers. Few cared when the newly minted Empire reached out and added Balykan to itself. Some expressed admiration when the Empire managed to subdue the mountain strongholds of Urk in the Star-Capped Range, and crushed the thief clans that ran roughshod over the cities on the edge of the Shining Deserts.

It was not until the borders of the Empire grew near to the borders of the Compact of the 8 Kingdoms that the common citizen began to become uneasy. It began to impinge on the consciousness of the mass of the 8 Kingdoms that the Empire had a habit of doing the unthinkable when expanding itself, and nothing had seemed more unthinkable that a direct threat to the Compact. Five thousand years had passed since the last invader had threatened the 8 Kingdoms, and they were long in the habit of assuming that any invader would look at the Compact as invulnerable.

When the war came, it was more destructive than any could have imagined. The Empire had vast numbers on its side, and they were led by the First Brother, a masked general of whom even his enemies said was the greatest war leader any had ever known. The 8 Kingdoms had shaken free of its complacency, and rediscovered the arts of war and of creating war machines, and fought the invading Empire for every inch of territory it took, but all came to nothing. Five years after the Empire's soldiers had crossed the border into the Compact, the First Brother himself stood in the highest chamber of the Compact's government and personally executed the last Sanhedrin of the Compact, and the 8 Kingdoms ceased to exist. The land that had belonged to the Compact was ravaged by the war, the cities destroyed, the forests burned, any semblance of order cast aside.

It is assumed that the First Brother thought he would rebuild the Empire's newly conquered territory, as immediately after victory, he had his men bring before him the Master Artisan Baddo. Her ancient eminence stood before the First Brother as his lieutenants asked her to put her genius at their disposal, so the Empire could begin its rise to surpass the 8 Kingdoms in every way. The Master Artisan stood silently, ignoring the entreaties, orders, and threats of the generals of the Army of Brothers and the leaders of the Empire. When at last one of the soldiers became so angered at the Master Artisan's refusal to respond that he made a move to strike her, the First Brother finally spoke, his voice halting the soldier and causing him to kneel with his face pressed to the stone floor in apology for having aroused the First Brother's ire.

The warrior emperor towered over the wizened craftsman, and he was forced to bend at the waist to put his masked face near to her ear. None could hear what words passed between them, but the Master Artisan became pale, and open despair was seen to break over her worn features. She spoke to him in the same near-silent tone. The First Brother straightened, and extended his arm towards the door of a small room, which they entered together, shutting the door on all others.

Two hours later, the First Brother's retainers screwed up their courage and broke down the door. The found the Master Artisan Baddo seated in a chair, wrinkled hands folded in her lap, a serene look on her face, dead. The First Brother sprawled on the floor at her feet; his face, for the first time any could remember, was bare, his dead eyes staring at the ceiling.

If any had still been alive to remember, they would have seen Yendin Baddo, First Brother of the Empire of Brothers, lying dead at his mothers feet, the stumps of his arm stretched out on either side of his inert form.

The Empire of Brothers fell apart without the First Brother to lead it, and the lands it had encompassed sank into anarchy. All vestiges of the Compact of the 8 Kingdoms, every wonder they had created, was destroyed by the centuries of petty war that followed. The hands of Yendin Baddo, the First Brother, became things of legend, and vanished.

The Void Dog

The first thing that I became aware of while gradually returning to consciousness was the sound of creaking wood. Then there was the feeling of my weight shifting back and forth, in time with the creaking.

Various parts of my body were telling me that I was not in perfect condition. My left arm wouldn't move at all, and it was obvious from how it lay that I wasn't wearing my hand. There was a stretch of my right side, from below the ribs to the knee, where I was pretty sure I'd lost more than a little flesh. The ankle on that side didn't feel right, either, and the last two fingers on my right hand were braced as though they'd been broken.

Opening my eyes showed me a ceiling made of wide boards and thick crossbeams, all stained a deep brown. The boards seemed to swing back and forth as the hammock in which I was wrapped moved back and forth against the rocking motion of the ship. After a moment, I used my right elbow and left foot to slide my head towards the top of the hammock, to make it easier to dismount. The groan this caused brought some sounds of interest from the part of the room that had so far been hidden by the canvas the hammock was made from.

“Has the light of dawn appeared on the face of my passenger?” A lilting voice said. “How does the new day find you, stranger?”

I managed to raise my head high enough to peek over the edge of the hammock. Across the room, a woman had just risen from a heavy upholstered chair. She must have been reading the large book she had tucked under her arm, causing the silk chemise she wore to bunch up over it. The bright silk was the only bright thing she wore, as the shirt underneath and her dungarees were both of a dark gray, and her boots were a dusty brown. She did have hair of deep, shiny black, held up in a bun by two crossed sticks. Her face had an oriental cast, and she gave me a friendly smile as she waited for an answer to her question.

“Ahh...” I answered wisely. I regrouped, and continued, “The day finds me in more pain than I really like.”

“It is to be expected, stranger. You appeared on the deck of my boat in quite horrible condition, and while the three days passed since that time have seen you heal with impressive speed, there would seem to be some distance still to go before you can claim perfect health. Rest easy, as you are welcome on the Void Dog as long as it may take for such dearly wished result to be achieved.” The lady finished with a slight bow, accompanied by her extending her left hand, palm down, out to her side.

“Thank you. I hope to be able to return the favor, sometime soon.” I swung my legs, as gently as I could, so that my bare feet touched the wooden floor. “I'm sorry I've imposed on you, milady. I don't think we've been formally introduced. I'm Runcible Hand. People usually call me Red.”

“I ask that I be called Sachiko. Please know that there was no imposition in lending aid to one in such obvious distress as yourself. May one inquire as to how you came to be in such a condition of disrepair on the deck of the Void Dog, as we made course across the obsidian deeps?”

“Uh... I'm not sure. I know I was Stepping to meet my friend Jack...” Slowly, worked my way forward from there, telling Sachiko everything I could remember. She looked appropriately perturbed when I described the abomination I had run into, and more than a little interested when I described how my left hand had torn holes in the fabric of that place.

“Speaking of that,” I said, “Did you remove my hand? Or did I arrive one hand shy of the full compliment?”

“No one attempted to remove your prosthetic appendage, Runcible. As steps were taken to begin your healing, the process was unexpectedly aided by it, in fact. If you would please look at your arm...?”

I looked down at the shirtsleeve that was covering my left arm, and, before I could reach over to pull it up, the sleeve began to retract on its own. As the arm was revealed, I could see that the sleeve was being pulled back by small servos attached to the red framework that held my arm rigid. I held my arm up and the framework slowly straightened it out. When the arm was fully extended, the red framework began to slide down towards the stump of my forearm, shifting and twisting until it reformed into the metal hand I was used to. Unlike the rest of my body, my left arm felt just fine.

“Runcible, your metal symbiont seems to be quite useful. It would allow no interference with its repair of the arm, and I believe would have done much more to heal you, had it the power. As it was, it took some soothing before it would allow the treatment of your other injuries. We were able to reach detente quickly, though, once it began to believe my intentions were to help you. It is a most careful friend, indeed.”

“Yeah, I guess he is, at that.” I turned the hand back and forth. It seemed proud of itself and, all on its own, snapped its fingers.

A short while later, Sachiko and I stood on the deck of her boat. The Void Dog was about seventy feet long, and 20 feet wide at its widest point. Three masts extended 20-30 feet out from the boat on each side, diaphanous sails extended to catch whatever it was that allowed the boat to move. While the Void Dog moved by sail power and rocked like an ocean-going vessel on the water, the currents it sailed seemed to be pure void. Sachiko explained how the Dog didn't actually move, but entered the void and waited for the correct reality to rotate around to it, how the sensation of rocking was caused by the forces of various realities moving past us, and how what I had thought were sails were actually some sort of nets, used to capture 'cthonic energy', which she bottled and sold to a number of different customers. She and her assistant, who lived in a cabin below and tended the constant duty of collecting the energy the Dog's net snared, were the entire crew of the vessel.

“This one has heard many stories of odd things appearing from the endless void,” Sachiko said, adjusting the angle of a net just slightly. “Some were quite entertaining. All were folklore and hearsay, and descended from a rumor and something a mate had seen while drunk in a far off port. I did not doubt they were stories made up to pass long nights, and to impress credulous listeners who might be enticed to buy one a drink, until your battered form appeared sometime in the night. I should be vexed with you, I suppose. I do so hate being incorrect.”

“I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to be any trouble...”

“Not at all,” Sachiko said, laughing musically. “It was jest, pure and simple. Your appearance and your story have lent interest to an otherwise mundane transit. I have been enriched, and in no way put upon.” She took a closer look at me, the said, “You look as though you have enjoyed enough your time awake, strange new friend, but that you must now rest again. Allow me to assist...”

We made our way back down to the cabin with the hammock I had been enjoying. Sachiko made a quick check of various bandages and, after helping me to lie down again, fed me a tonic she said would help me to sleep deeply, and heal. “Rest well, there are three more days to heal, before the Void Dog enters port again. You have naught to do save gather your strength 'til then...”

A little slice of terror

The place I landed was dark, dank, and smelled of decay. There were no walls in sight, only oily shadows occasionally interrupted by massive pillars of crudely cut greenish, dank stone. The pillars rose out of sight, vanishing into darkness that was punctuated, but not illuminated, by leprous whitish green lights that oozed through the sky like diseased fireflies. Disturbing shapes moved and slid in and out of my peripheral vision, vanishing when I turned to face them.

A loud, horrible dragging, tearing sound came from the inky patch ahead of me. As I watched, seven rubbery phalanges flung themselves towards me, latching onto the pillars. The dragging sound resumed, and something hauled itself into the insufficient light.

Whatever the thing was, just the sight of it made my eyes burn, and the world seemed to bend in disturbing and impossible directions. Whatever the thing was, it had many, many tentacles, mouths, and eyes. Parts of it seemed to fold in and out of somewhere I couldn't see. Black, burning ichor seeped from it where it had torn itself open while dragging itself across the floor. It open its mouths and screamed, and the whole world tried to shake itself apart.

I turned away from it, covering my eyes. As the thing's jagged scream beat against me, compressing my skull, and making my brain feel like it was being pounded flat and folded, I tried to gain control of the disgust and terror that gripped me. I tried to feel out where I could Step to escape, but the odd shape of this space kept me from being able to sense where the threshold was; it would be there, then vanish and reappear somewhere else, with no rhyme or reason.

I needed to see more, and so the third eye in my forehead opened, exposing the glowing under-structure of existence to me.

Even through that eye, the world I found myself in was dank green and shadowed. But the shadows glowed, outlining the shapes it had hidden before. It became clear that the horrid abomination I had thought was in front of me in fact surrounded me. Even the sickly lights I had looked up at previously were revealed to more of the creature's eyes, hanging from the parts of it that were stretched from pillar-top to pillar-top.

The section of the thing that had dragged itself into my view screamed again, sending discordant vibrations cutting through me. I turned towards the open mouths, seeing clearly now how the thing was folding out from a direction I had never known existed. I stumbled backwards, pressing my back against the dank emerald stones of the pillar behind me.

As I watched, some of the unholy thing's mouths stopped screaming, which made it easier to think. Of course, the only idea I could really hold on to was that I was going to die very soon.

The mouths that had stopped screaming stretched themselves wide, and from each a large, moist tentacle shot in my direction. As I leaped to the right, barely in time to avoid the strike of the tentacles, I dragged the fingers of my metal left hand along the face of the stone pillar. As I landed on the ground, I could see that the tentacles had struck exactly where my back had been pressed against the pillar. Instead of the continuous stretch of stone I had felt against my spine, though, the mucous-covered appendages had struck some sort of hole in the pillar, which, even to my special eye, was just an irregular shape of perfect black, with a section of the stone hanging from the edge like a piece of ragged, peeling skin.

I scrambled to my feet, and stumbling, ran as fast as I could to hide behind another of the stone pillars. I could hear the wet smacking sounds of other out-flung tentacles striking the ground behind me as I ran, and then hitting the vertical stone of the pillar as it came between me and my attacker.

Hanging from the tips of my fingers were strips of the stone my hand had torn from the pillar, creating the obsidian hole. The strips still felt like stone, but it seemed like all of the underlying structure that made stone act like stone had been stripped away, so it hung loosely, floating back and forth as my hand shook.

Another tentacle flashed into view, wrapping itself around the pillar just above my head. As I fell away from the stone, yet another squidlike appendage whipped into view. Instead of gripping the pillar like its mate, it nosed back and forth, searching for me. My heels scrapped on the ground, and the slimy finger came right for me.

My arm lifted, and the metal hand, fingers spread, reached out. Somehow, the fingers gained purchase in the very air in front of me, and another hole was rent in the space between where I lay and the approaching end of the questing tentacle. Like the others, this one vanished into the black, and couldn't extricate itself. The tentacle that had sent me to the ground unwrapped itself from the stone. Ignoring me, it took a grip on the captured tentacle, and vainly tried to assist it in freeing itself. From where I stood, I could see the first group of tentacles. They were stretched tight between the hole in the pillar, and the writhing mass of creature from which they had been extruded. The main body of the thing seemed to have been pulled forward quite a ways, and its keening seemed to have taken on a frightened edge.

The two holes my hand had cut seemed to be calling to me. In the disturbing geometry of this place, to my eye they looked like the only solid points I could latch on to.

Without thinking, I lunged forward and cut the two captured tentacles nearest to me with the same hand that had torn the holes in this place. As soon as the outstretched tentacles parted, the section that connected to the hole shot forward and vanished into the blackness. The stumpy appendages waved madly in the air, spraying ichor, accompanied by the shocked scream of the creature of whom they were a part of.

The hole that had eaten the severed tentacles still floated in mid-air, gradually growing larger, seeming to be eating the very fiber of reality that surrounded it. But through the hole, I could sense a place where I might be able to make good my escape. There was a pull the hole was exerting on the surrounding area, and I could hear air whistling past my ear towards the hole. As the aperture grew, it's pull increased. Took two steps forward and leaped into the air, the hole pulling me towards it as I lifted my legs to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. In less time than it takes to say, I passed through the plane of the hole. The screaming of the creature vanished, and blackness surrounded me.

I was now less than sure this had been a good idea.

Some questions, some answers

"So, this was a demon, come to make yer confused self an offer o' some sort.” Grindlebone sounded more than a little confused himself. That made two of us.

“Yeah.”

“What did he look like?”

“He looked like a demon, like the devil. Red skin, sharp black fingernails and toenails, horns on his head, pointy ears, sharp teeth, general smarmy 'let's make a deal' kinda manner. And a lovely pinstripe suit. I mean, beautiful suit. I might be willing to make a deal for a suit like that.”

“Eh, probably wouldn't fit you right. Or you'd get a pin the ass every time you sat down.” Grin was sitting behind his desk, examining the card that Vard the demon had given, right before he popped me back into Grin's office.

“Grin, I thought nobody could teleport or Step into the bar.”

“Well, in the normal run o' things, I'd say that was right. Thing is, even the Guild Seals are only so good. Average yob like you or me'd never be able to swing the kinda power ye'd need for such a thing. A Power, though, a serious Power, it'd brush aside anything the Guild might use. Yer friend didn't even break through Ix's defense systems. Went right through 'em, or around 'em, without even sending a twinge to the alarms. Shouldna been possible, from what I know. I don't think I have to mention, Red, that if it was anybody but you, I'd assume the bugger'd overdone the sot-weed or such.” Grin leaned back in his chair, holding the card between two fingers. “This here's pretty interestin', as well. You can feel the heat off'n it. Near hot enough to light a pipe all on its lonesome.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. That's something, at least.” I drained the last of the fine whiskey out of my glass. “You know what strikes me as odd?”

“Red, I'll bet ya 40 Crowns you can't name something about all this that isn't odd.”

“What strikes me as odd,” I said, ignoring him and gazing speculatively at my glass. “is neither the angel or the demon actually told me what they wanted from me.”

“Howzat?”

“Well, the angel just beat a couple of people up and told me I had to come with him. And from the way Vard spoke, it seemed like he might not have known, either. So he and I have something in common, at least. Grin, none of this makes any sense.”

“Boyo, you're speaking the truth there.”

“Where's Jack, anyway? I need him to read this crystal Jubjub gave me.”

“Ah, about that. The Warden from Charom, the one what took that Tub'la fella and his mates off our hands, he got in touch with me. I'd mentioned to him that we'd no idea why that crew brought all the ruckus here. He wanted t'offer us a look at the ghost they'd made of him, before they ended him. Jack offered to make a run and pick it up.”

“Huh. That was awful friendly of the Warden.” Grindlebone, staring at the ceiling, grunted in agreement. “I've always wondered how it felt. I mean, you know you're gonna die, and then you wake up a fake brain in a computer. How does it feel, when you realize you are dead, really, and as soon as they've wrung your digital mind dry, you get to die all over again?”

“Anybody ever told you you're a morbid son of a bitch, Red?”

“Once or twice.”

I got up and poured myself another glass of Walker's. Grin waved me off when I offered to pour him some. Both of us, me by the bar and Grin behind his desk, spent the next few minutes in silence, lost in our respective thoughts. Might have gone on considerably longer, with all the mental fat we had to chew, if Van Zandt hadn't joined us.

She stepped to where I stood, giving me a kiss on the cheek and stealing my drink, before sitting on the edge of the desk. Grin handed her the card and gave her a short rundown of my recently ended meeting with Vard. I poured another drink.

“Red, you find the oddest ways to pass the time!” She laughed, raising my former glass to me.

“Grindlebone said you knew something about this Mayfair person? The one all the guys who looked at the book-locket thing told me about?”

“Oh, yes. Part of the reason I'm here is because of Mayfair. Nobody I've ever talked to has had any first hand contact with Mayfair. But everyone who's interested in finding out about whatever new peoples pop up out on the newly opened areas, reads the studies Mayfair puts out. They're incisive, with a surprising depth of understanding. No one knows how Mayfair does it. Whoever Mayfair is, they have been able to conduct simultaneous studies of as many as four different new peoples of vastly different type and in widely separated areas. Each one was of a quality to make every other specialist in the field green with envy. The most common theory I've heard is that an incredibly well-funded and connected secret organization sets up each study, and then publishes under the Mayfair name. If that's true, though, no one has ever met anyone connected with them. Oh, there are third hand accounts of secret job offers and clandestine meetings and various other types of jiggery-pokery, but nothing that can be confirmed.”

“Great. Might as well have told me only the Ghost of Christmas Past could tell me about the thing. Whatever Jubjub gave me about finding this guy is probably gonna be full on moonshine. At best. At worst, it's gonna be some exotic way to die, so there ain't any chance I'll come back to have words with him about it.”

“Well, now, Red, I can't make any certain statements about how honest another fella might be," Grin said, rubbing his chin. "but, for all he's as weird as a man with a pant-load o' squirrels, Jubjub's made his reputation on bein' on the level when he offers a sale. Just sayin' is all.”

“Eh,” I grunted. I took another sip of the Walker's. “When did Jack head out, anyway?”

“I saw him leave through the Parkside Door, mmmm, half an hour ago?” Van Zandt ventured.

“OK. Look I'm feeling too wound up to sit around and wait for him to get back. Grin, you got my cut of the bounty you got off the Warden?”

“Surely do, Red.” Grin did something down under his desk, and came up with a surprisingly large valise. “Here ya go. Your fifteen percent of the bounty. This doesn't include your cut of the weapons, 'cause I haven't sold 'em yet, so there's a bit more comin'. The case has a couple of little things Mr. Ix added to keep nefarious souls from figurin' out you're transportin' cash. Good?”

“Better than good, choom.” I knocked off the rest of my drink, then reached into my vest. “I'm gonna head to the Free City, have them worry about keeping my money safe. You mind holding onto the data crystal? If Jack gets back before I do, go ahead and have a glance at it, how 'bout?”

“Don't mind a bit.” He took the crystal from my outstretched hand.

“Thanks. You too, Van Zandt. I'll be back before too long.” I grabbed the valise full of my money and headed out the door.

Getting another offer

Having committed a spot of kidnapping, in order to obtain the location of someone who might be able to tell me something about an artifact I'd pulled off of a terrorist, which had a symbol on it that I'd seen tattooed on a angel in a very realistic dream, I was feeling less than proud of myself. Not out of pity for silver-toothed thief I had secured for Jubjub; He struck me as the type who was due for a richly deserved beat down. And not for committing a crime, as I am, at best, indifferent honest. But I like to think that I usually have better reasons for breaking the law. Whatever kind of kicking around the guy I'd snatched deserved, I felt like I'd delivered him unto it for pretty thin reasons.

Alcohol was the answer, as usual. When I got back to Grin's, the thing behind the bar had mind-waved me that Grin had asked that I be sent back to his office. That worked for me. Grin doesn't water his drinks, but the stuff he keeps in his personal bar are the best of the best.

I had a hard time choosing what I wanted. The Romulan and Andorian ales called to me; I'd been wanting to try them for a long time. I briefly considered making a gargleblaster, but I didn't want to get quite that messed up, not yet, anyway. The decision was made for me, though, as soon as I spotted the bottle of Walker's White Label sitting quietly in the back of the second shelf. The best whiskey ever made, I'd heard. I'd seen serious drinkers get misty just at the sound of the name.

Two fingers of Walker's and ice in a beautifully made glass, a seat in one of the incredibly comfortable chairs that Grin populated his office with, and time to enjoy both. It felt so nice I completely forgot about feeling like a heel.

I took one slow sip, and felt the delightful liquid burn smoothly down my throat and make a warm spot at the center of my being. I was considering a second sip when the world around me suddenly seemed to go thin, like it was all made out of paper. At first I thought that the Walker's was simply living up to its name, but it became obvious that something else entirely was happening. It felt as though a bubble was growing under the floor, rising up and causing everything, my whole reality, to warp out of shape. My soul seemed to stretch painfully. Then the bubble burst.

The first thing I noticed was that he was wearing a very, very nice suit; a black pinstripe three-piece, with a pearly white shirt, a red striped tie, and matching pocket square. Given that the head rising out of the collar, the hand coming out of the sleeves, and the unshod feet all had ruddy red skin, the fingers and toes had pitch-black, talon-like nails, and his forehead sported two spiraled horns that curved back over his bald head, it might seem odd that the suit was the first thing I noticed. On the other hand, it really was a lovely garment. I'd always wanted one just like it.

“Runcible Hand!” He said jovially, striding forward through the barren whiteness that we were standing in, hand outstretched. “It is good to meet you! It's my pleasure, believe me, to meet another up-and-comer like yourself. You would simply not believe how many rivals I had to destroy to land this gig, to be the one to bring you this Offer!” Reaching me, he seized my right hand and pumped it furiously. His crimson face was split in a wide grin, showing of dangerously long and sharp incisors.

“Wha?” I stammered.

“Oh, of course, you're still a bit thrown by the transition. Mea culpa! Take a moment, gather yourself!”

He waved a black nailed hand, and another chair appeared next to mine. He threw himself down in it and crossed his legs. “Lemme apologize for that right now, Red – you don't mind if I call you Red, do you? - but Lower Management says we have to make an entrance, y'know, play up the arrival, so there's no question in the rube's mind that we're the real deal. Not that you're a rube, of course, far from it. Heck, if this were a normal Offer, I'd be 20 feet tall, spitting fire, with a dozen helpers, and the landscape would be much less friendly, y'know what I mean?” Chuckling, he removed his sunglasses and wipe away a non-existent tear. “Just between you and me, Red,” He said, lowering his voice conspiratorially and focusing his red and black eyes on mine, “All o' that? It's BO-Ring! I mean, it's symbolic and all, I get that, it's what they expect, but after a couple of millenia, you just get so tired of it! You cannot believe how refreshing it is, just to be able to throw all of that out the window and just sit down with someone! On a comfortable chair, no less. Have you ever tried sitting on a throne made out of skulls? Two minutes, and your ass feels like you took a meat tenderizer to it! So, you just take your time, catch your breath, no rush at all! I could sit here all year!” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the chair, sighing contentedly.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. Blank white vastness, two chairs, proverbial devil sitting opposite me. Yep, this wasn't because of the whiskey.

“Uh...” I started. The devil's eyes popped open, and he cocked an ear towards me. “Who are you?”

“Oh, man, I'm a dope. I'm Alvavardinbeklamarol.” He leaned forward, offering me his hand again. His grip was firm, and not-unpleasantly warm. “I represent the Lower Management. Just call me Vard.”

“You're... you're a devil.”

“Ah, devil, demon, a nether-dweller, child of Lilith, take your pick. Technically, I'm an Enticer, but I'm pretty close to moving up to Beguiler. Working my way up the ladder in the Department of Temptation. Demon really belongs to the guys who work in Chastisement, and technically, there's only one 'Devil', y'know?” He said, flicking his eyes downward for a second. “Anyway, you don't care about that. Like I said, I represent the Management, and they've sent me here to make you an Offer.”

“Look, uh, Vard... I'm not really interested in selling my soul, y'know, or anything else, really...”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, who said anything about your soul? C'mon, you think they'd send me if they wanted something like your soul? Making that kinda deal takes big time mojo to set up a deal like that. I mean, gimme five more millenia, and maybe I'd be the guy to talk to, but now? Not a chance.”

“OK.”

“See, thing is, I'm not even here to make a deal right now. My bosses know you've been contacted by the other side. They want me to make it clear that we're willing to deal, too. They want you to know you have another option.”

“The other side?”

“Yeah! You think we don't keep an eye on where they go, and who they talk to? You better believe we do, and they follow us just as closely. It's about maintaining the balance. They appear to someone, we appear to them, too, and vice-versa. And you would not believe how many people take our offer when they make the first move. I mean, did they even make an Offer?”

“Uh, you mean the angel? No, not really...”

“Oh, you don't even have to tell me. I know these guys. Just showed up, right? No getting to know you, no handshake, not even a hello? Just gave you an order?”

“Well, no, he, it, whatever, he got into a fight with some friends of mine, actually.”

“Now, that kinda stuff really chaps my ass.” Vard shook his head in disgust. “I mean, just because their boss is supposed to be the creator of everything, an idea I'm not even close to being sold on, by the way, they figure they can do whatever they want, and nobody should ask any questions or look pissed or anything. I mean, where's the courtesy? Where's the friendliness? Would it kill on of them to take five minutes, make the guy they want something from want to help them? Maybe make the guy feel special for being approached to help them? No, it would not, but they go stomping in like Godzilla into Tokyo and expect everyone to bow and scrape. Freakin' zealots!

“Sorry, didn't mean to wander like that, but it bothers me.” Vard shook himself and refocused his attention on me. “Anyway, the Management wants you to know that we're prepared to make a very, very serious offer, if you decide to make a deal with us. I don't want tell tales out of school, but if come with us, you won't be dealing with low-ballers like me. Maaaaaaybe you'd be talking to my bosses boss, but it'll probably be his boss, at least. That's how serious we are.” Vard winked knowingly at me.

“Well, that is nice, but I'm not really...”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Vard said, cutting me off with a wave of his hand. “Don't worry!We're not trying to rush you into anything, I swear. This is just a handshake, a courtesy visit to let you know we're interested. I'm not even allowed think about trying to do anything else right now. We are in no rush, whatsoever. I mean, we have forever, and if you don't want to make a deal, maybe the next guy will. We like you, though. Like I said before, you're an up-and-comer, somebody we think has a lot of potential, and we wouldn't mind forming a relationship.”

“OK. OK, well, why don't you let... uh...”

“The Lower Management.” Vard prompted.

“Right, let the Management know that, uh, we had a good meeting, I guess.” Vard smiled brightly and nodded at that. “Let them know I'm not even close to making a decision about, uh, which way to go, there's a lot of stuff to weigh, a lot to think about...”

“Of course!” Vard stood up. “You take all the time you need. We're not going anywhere. Whenever you're ready, let us know.

“Just keep hold of this...” Vard reached into his coat and pulled out a business card, which he pressed into my hand. “I think I've taken up enough of your time today. Again, it's been a pleasure meeting you. I never get a chance to just sit and chat like this, We should do it again sometime.”

Vard slipped his sunglasses back on. With one last sharp-toothed grin, he snapped his fingers.

I had the sensation of being grabbed by the shoulders and shaken out like a sand covered towel, and suddenly I was back in Grin's office. In one hand, I still held the glass of Walker's. In the other I held a business card with raised crimson lettering that spelled out 'Alvavardinbeklamarol, Enticer, the Old Established Firm'.

Making a grab for the bird

Bloodflies are actually quite beautiful. They appear to be huge butterflies, sometimes having a wingspan of five inches, and their wings are delightfully colored and covered in fascinating patterns. They smell good, too. You want to get close to them, so you can examine the lovely wing pattern and marvel at the lively hues. You want to hold still, and let the thing investigate you, and find the perfect spot of exposed skin on you to land on. And it won't just land; no, what it'll do is spread its wings and flatten itself against you, at which point you'll feel a pinch that signals that the bloodfly has tapped into your circulatory system. And now you have the thing permanently attached to you, unless you remove it by force, leaving a huge scar that never quite stops bleeding, or until you die. Since bloodflies always travel in swarms, and the one that found you will alert the others of its swarm that it's found prey, death will most likely come very quickly, as they surround you in a brightly colored cloud, fighting each other for space on any exposed inch of flesh, and they suck you dry faster then you thought possible. People can, and have, studied them quite extensively, while sheathed in fully sealed containment armor.

I, of course, did not have containment armor. If I was very careful, I wouldn't need it. See, it is possible to get very close to a bloodfly swarm if you are very careful, while they are in their sleep phase. The get logy in cooler temperatures, and several infestations have been destroyed by approaching very, very quietly, and lighting the suckers on fire. Whatever makes their coloring so bright also makes them very, very flammable.

If I wanted to, I could take my lighter out of my pocket and apply it to the bloodflies that hung in huge numbers from the chandelier above me in the ruined ballroom, making it look for all the world like there was a tie-dyed Christmas tree hanging from the ceiling. Touching it to one of them would have set the whole swarm ablaze in moments. Of course, then I would have been buried under the weight of several hundred pounds of dead, burning insects, so I wasn't about to go for my lighter. I needed these things alive for a while.

Moving as quietly as I could, I moved to the center of the room, just under the chandelier on which the bloodflies were most heavily festooned, and pulled two things out of my pocket. The first was a small, round device with a ruby set into the top of it, and the second was a type of firework, designed to spray a shower of sparks about a dozen feet, when activated. I attached the activator for the spark-thrower to the ruby-topped device, and set both on the floor, directly under the lowest hanging part of the slumbering swarm. Then I turned the ruby one half turn in it's setting, and waited five interminable seconds until it began to shine. Then, almost shaking with relief, I Stepped out of that dimension, arriving at my final destination.

I arrived on the side of a rocky hill, looking out over a small compound set on the edge of a desert. I was hidden by a copse of trees to keep my arrival from being noticed, and after taking a moment to check the local landmarks to make sure I'd come to the right place, I began walking the half-mile to the gate of the compound.

I felt like I was carrying a couple hundred pounds of dead weight while walking up a steep hill. The mystical cord that bound me to the place I'd started out wanted to pull me back to that place, and each step was just a bit harder to take than the last. I was almost where I needed to be, though, and when I was, I could stop fighting it and let it do what it wanted, let it go home and take me with it.

The feeling of weight helped with my disguise. I was wearing loose, badly made clothing of the local variety, and a turban. My plodding walk and hunched posture, caused by the pull of the cord, made me look as beaten down as the locals, and, for added verisimilitude, I had removed the Hand, back at my starting point, and held the stump of my left arm against my side. I looked like life had worked me over pretty hard, and like I expected it to keep doing so. Just like the locals.

I arrived at the gate of the compound. A small hole, set behind a grate, popped open in response to my rhythmic knock, and then closed after accepting the note I proffered. A few minutes later, a door opened in the gate and I was pulled roughly through.

I found myself in a courtyard, surrounded by buildings that looked like adobe, and by a half dozen armed guards. They pushed me around a bit while passing my note back and forth, until what looked like their captain walked up, trailed by another of the guards.

The captain read the note. He sized me up with a beady eye for a moment before stepping forward and shouting something directly into my face. His breath was unpleasant, but his closeness did let me see that he had one silver tooth, right up in front. Jackpot.

Standing almost nose to nose with the foul-breathed captain, I said the one word of the local language I had learned. The guards around the two of us froze for a second, then began to glance at each other in that universal way people do when someone crosses a line and is about to get a serious beating thrown on them. The captain froze, too, his face turning a bright red. He grabbed me by the throat, and had opened his mouth to begin shouting in earnest, when I reached up to take hold of his wrist with my one good hand, and stopped holding out against the pull of the cord.

Instantly, the captain and I were pulled out of that dimension, the cord yanking my body in an odd direction, and him coming with me because of our physical contact. There were four pauses lasting less than a second apiece, as we were reeled back to my staring point. The first pause was in the ruined ballroom where I had set the spark-thrower under the swarm of bloodflies. The second found us on a a tree reaching across a deep gorge over a raging river. Third came a bubble of air, deep underwater, with us in the center of a circle of black boxes, and lastly we blinked through a metal room, the airlock of a space station.

Is we passed through each, the four small devices, inset with rubies, I had left at each spot activated another item I had left behind. If anyone in the compound we had just left possessed the ability to follow me across dimensions, they would find themselves stepping into something quite deadly at each Step. The spark-thrower would have already ignited the swarm hanging above it, filling the ruined ballroom with fire. Explosives on the tree would have split it and dropped it into the river below, leaving a pursuer to arrive without support in mid-air. The black boxes holding the bubble of air open at the bottom of an ocean would have deactivated, allowing the water to rush back and fill that area with its killing pressure. And the airlock on the space station would be opening, exposing the next person to Step into that spot to the void of space.

If there was anyone who could follow me and survive all of that, just to get the captain back, I'd probably just let them have him. They would be way out of my league.

Not that it would have been my problem, if someone had followed us to the end of the line, since the last stop was Jubjub's aerie.

Jubjub's raths, green pig-like creatures, took charge of the captain as soon as we arrived, and by 'took charge' I mean 'tackled and began to summarily pummel'. This set the borogoves seated on ledges all about the wide room to burbling and chortling in evident joy.

“Oh, frabjous day!” This came as a cry from across the room, where Jubjub had been lounging. It outgrabed loudly in happiness as it strode across the room. “Ah, Redhand, thou'rt manxome in pursuit of that which thine eye desires! Truly, it soothes my frumious temper to have this uffish oaf of a thief returned to me for well earned punishment. Beamish, I am, I say I am beamish, the mimsy mood has fled, with your galumphing back to me, bearing that which I requested! Callooh! Callay!”

If you're wise, you will never comment on how much Jubjub looks like an angry chicken. It's killed for less, much less. But this loud, absurd bird was also possessed information I needed. The borogoves, the raths, and the toves it employed were all constantly ferreting out secrets which were brought back to the mercurial Jubjub, who then bartered them to any who could meet his price.

The book-locket I had shown to Jack and Van Zandt had led her to suggest a few names as to who might be able to identify it. They had all come up empty, but each had suggested the same individual as the next person to ask. She, of course, had vanished some time ago, on one of the exploratory expeditions that were her specialty. And the only one, apparently, who knew her location, was Jubjub the information broker. So here I was, delivering the captain, who had stolen I know not what from the bird, in return for a location.

“Glad to hear it, Mes-sire Jubjub,” I said, feeling a load lift from me as the 5-dimensional cord that had reeled the captain and me in was removed. “Very glad. So, as I promised, your thief has been returned directly to you. Do you have something for me?” I went about reattaching the Hand and changing my clothes as nonchalantly as possible, praying there wouldn't be any complications.

“Aha, to business, yes, o manxome one!” Jubjub clucked, pulling a green crystal out from... somewhere. “All information, pertinent as can be, which you requested. Jubjub thanks you for your patronage, yes, and begs you to come again soon!”