Without taking his gaze off of her, Gordian asked, “Can these things be done, sorcerer?”

  “Theoretically, yes, of course, my lord. I doubt she has the ability. Gerund did mention that we should be careful with her — that she is unusually capable — but still, no single wizard is that powerful.” He paused, pondering for a moment. “Increasing one’s weight is an interesting concept, though. I may look into that.”

  Gordian smiled. “Very well, then, Torturer, enough of this nonsense. Let’s begin. Brand her arm.”

  Simon lifted his again red-hot iron out of the brazier. He looked at it carefully, almost lovingly, taking his time, savoring her anticipation. It was not the most elegant of his tools. Indeed he had others that could be used to do far more interesting things with his partner in pain, but for breaking someone’s stoicism during these early stages of an interrogation, it really had no equal.

  He hesitated a moment. He should see fear in her eyes, terror at the agony she must realize he would momentarily be applying, horror at the thought of the inevitable disfigurement. This woman’s reaction was not at all what he expected. Frankly, if he didn’t know better, he would say that she looked amused. Still, he didn’t expect her amusement to survive once he branded her.

  Lexi, staring into the man’s eyes, said, “That’s not nearly hot enough, Simon.” He ignored her. Her comment, like everything else she had already said, was nonsensical. Her eyes never left his as he brought the hot iron down. The poker touched her forearm. She let the new nano-cells handle it — no magic required, only techno-wizardry.

  She didn’t even flinch the slightest that Simon could see. There was no smell of burning flesh, no screams from his victim, no blistering of her skin. He pulled the branding iron back and spit on the still red hot tip, clearly puzzled. The spit sizzled and evaporated as it should. He looked to Gordian and shrugged his confusion.

  When he looked back at his tool, his eyes widened as the tip of the poker began growing hotter, much hotter — as though it were in a blacksmith’s forge. The tip dripped to the floor in a white-hot puddle while the melting iron shaft began to droop. Simon dropped it hurriedly as the hardened wooden handle burst into flame, burning his hand through the palm of his leather gauntlet.

  Looking at him, Lexi said, “I see you’ve caused a lot of pain and suffering, Simon. No more.” He fell to his knees, clasping his chest, his face ashen, desperately trying to scream but unable to do so, before dropping prone to the floor. The smell and crackling of meat roasting on his brazier drew the attention of the other men for a moment. Each took a step back on realizing the burning meat had the appearance of a human heart. Simon’s heart.

  As she stood from the chair, Lexi clothed herself in her standard black leather fighting outfit, complete with a sword slung over her back and sheathed daggers. She figured her audience had by that point had more than enough of a skin show.

  Two of the six guards died simultaneously as fragments of Lexi’s shattered bindings flew through them. Lexi looked hard at the remaining four, the ones who hated what went on in this room, and said, “Behave yourselves.”

  Gordian backed away from the sorcerer as that man began to dance around the dungeon encased in flames. It seemed to take him a long time to die.

  Gordian felt himself becoming heavier, to the point where it was a struggle to remain standing. “I surrender.” He was gasping with the effort. “I’ll give you back the girl.”

  Lexi shook her head, no longer amused about any of this. “Sorry, pal, you had your chance and blew it.” She stood over him. He was now face down on the floor, unable to move. His weight was still increasing. “I know what you do to the young women and children you bring here. Enjoy your death. You’ve earned it. In all honesty, it should be much worse.” As she blasted the door from the room, she heard his ribs cracking behind her.

  Chapter 10

  Fermata

  Lexi faced her new crew of four armsmen. “There is a small girl, about five years old, being held in one of the wizard’s towers. I came here to return her home. She’s the daughter of King Worlan of Castle Glowing Rock. You can help me or not. The choice is yours. If you attempt to hinder me, well, it wouldn’t be wise.”

  One of the men, whose name was Arkady — she knew all of their names as she had told them in the dungeon — asked, “Will you be taking control of the castle, Lady?”

  She considered that. She wanted to get home to her son — assuming she was in the right universe and the right time. On the other hand, this world had serious problems. It just might be useful to have her own base of operations here if she was going to attempt to solve them. “I haven’t decided yet, Arkady. I very well might.”

  She gave the four men a moment to talk among themselves. She didn’t even eavesdrop.

  Dorman, a second of the armsmen, asked, “Why didn’t you kill us when you killed the others?”

  She sighed. She wanted to be moving. “Gordian, Simon, and the wizard Mackite, were all evil men. The two guards I killed enjoyed inflicting pain on others almost as much as Simon did. You four are mostly OK. Slightly tainted by your environment, perhaps, but, overall, you are decent men.”

  Arkady nodded. “We will follow you, Lady. What are your orders?”

  “Simple. We head to the tower the girl is being held in. It’s the tallest one. I do not expect you to kill anybody. Just make sure our path isn’t blocked. I hope you guys are in good shape — we’re going to be moving quickly.”

  Lexi found Fermata pretty much where she expected. The girl was in a tower room — the one she had already noted the unusually strong bubble of magical energy emanating from — surrounded by six wizards. Gerund was one of the six. His presence here didn’t surprise her. He had ridden off on Eloisa’s analog to a horse — like the fliers, it was reptilian, but served the same purpose — the day Fermata had been taken. He hadn’t been seen since. It would have required a master wizard, one of Gerund’s stature, to cast the befuddling haze that day.

  The run to the tower had been uneventful. They hadn’t encountered anyone with the authority or the curiosity to question who they were or what they were up to. Frankly, Lexi’s unusual height intimidated most of those they passed. The fact that she moved with purpose, accompanied by four equally purposeful armed men, strongly encouraged anyone near enough to see them to mind their own business.

  Fermata floated on her back, four feet above the floor, englobed in a bubble of blue light that occasionally sparked and crackled. The bubble itself was around nine feet in diameter. As far as Lexi could tell, it was perfectly spherical. It didn’t look like it actually touched the floor. It certainly didn’t touch either the walls or the high ceiling.

  The six wizards were sitting with their eyes closed. They almost appeared to be sunbathing, basking in the blue glow. Without thinking about it, Lexi drew her sword. Her four guardsmen followed her example. “You have one minute to stop what you’re doing and release the child.”

  No one moved. She got the distinct impression they hadn’t heard her. She slowly walked around the room, circling behind the six. Surprisingly, she sensed that they weren’t evil men and women. Greedy, yes, to a certain degree. She sensed that Gerund even felt some guilt concerning his betrayal of his kingdom and Brieza’s near death. But his greed for power overrode everything else. She ruefully thought that if she hadn’t been missing the Rose at the time, she might have picked up on that her first day of magic class. I should have burned his whole damn beard off.

  What they were doing here wasn’t hurting Fermata — the child wasn’t even aware they were doing anything. She was sound asleep and dreaming — Lexi sensed her sleeping mind through the bubble. Fermata’s dreams were quite different from Crane’s at this age. Of course, that could easily be due to the fact that the girl was surrounded by an energy bubble of immense power. I don’t know what to make of this. She’s just sleeping. They’re not hurting her at all.

  Lexi assumed she could easily stop this by removing six heads, but other than maybe Gerund, none of these people really deserved that treatment. She also couldn’t be sure there wouldn’t be a backlash to Fermata. She put away her sword and stood still, studying the panorama.

  They were using Fermata as a conduit to the source of magic, absorbing what they could, hoping to enlarge their “pipes” and thereby increasing their own power. She wondered if that would work. Even if it did, it wasn’t doing anything to increase their knowledge, their skills, or sadly, their wisdom.

  I didn’t really expect to find anything like this. What the hell is Fermata? This probably explains the attack on the children that Ron and I interrupted on our arrival. Gordian was after Fermata all along.

  What they were doing and the way they were doing it was troubling the sleeping mind below them. Lexi could sense that through the Rose. She stepped between two of the sorcerers and gingerly inserted her hand into the bubble. She felt no resistance. Nor did she lose her hand, which she felt had been a realistic possibility, although one she wasn’t overly concerned about. As annoying as that would have been, it would have grown back. When she had first invented her anti-aging serum, she had speculated to her partners that it might force lost limbs to grow back. Ron had, unfortunately, tested that out when his finger had been shot off during a mission. At least, despite weeks of abominable itching, it had indeed grown back.

  The random sparking inside the sphere struck her hand and then clung like a small bolt of lightning. It tingled a little bit, but didn’t hurt and as far as she could tell, did no cellular damage. She didn’t believe that her regenerated nano-cells were involved at all. As she held her hand in place, the tiny lightning bolts spread until the entire surface of her hand was covered with tiny, blue bursts of energy. She knew that, potentially at least, there was sufficient power here to blast her to atoms. She didn’t think even her enhanced body could survive that. Still, this was a rescue mission. Fermata both knew and liked her. When she touched the source of magic below the dungeon, it hadn’t reacted to her at all.

  She admitted to herself that, despite her earlier thoughts about never being afraid again, she was scared by what she knew she needed to do now. She had been scared, she briefly reflected, when she had plunged into the dark universe. She hadn’t expected to come back from that one, not really, but at least she had been with Ron.

  She pulled back and examined her hand. It was still undamaged. Thoughtfully, she removed all of the metal she was carrying. It wasn’t that much. Her sword, of course, and her two daggers. The nano-cells had never been metal, although there were traces of metallic elements in them. Doing this still might fry them.

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped completely into the bubble. She was immediately engulfed in the energy discharges. She could only imagine what she looked like. To an observer, it would look like the energy was emanating from her, which wasn’t the case. She glanced down. Her outfit had indeed been blasted to atoms. Oh well, another skin show. She was now clothed in sparkling, crackling energy. It wasn’t static electricity, although it looked similar to the lightning-like plasma discharges of a Tesla coil.

  She slowly crossed the four feet separating her from the recumbent child. With each step, the potential of the field increased. By the time she reached Fermata, she was blindingly bright. She could also feel the child’s connection to the other intelligence. She felt both its anger toward the six wizards and its reluctance to release Fermata as she squatted slightly to pick the girl up.

  It suddenly dawned on her that this field encasing Fermata was not something being created by the surrounding wizards for their own purposes. They were taking advantage of a manifestation of the intelligence sleeping in the crust of the planet. For some reason, that entity was protecting the child.

  I need to come up with a name to refer to it by. As she lifted Fermata in her arms, she thought directly at it, Trust me. Fermata can’t stay here like this. Let her go. I’m taking her back to be with people who love her. I’ll keep her safe. I’ll keep both of you safe.

  The englobing bubble vanished. All six sorcerers collapsed as one like marionettes with their wires cut. She could still feel their minds, so they were only unconscious, not dead. Mission accomplished. I have Fermata. Now I just need to get her back home.

  No one here understood what Lexi now realized, what the outcome of their ongoing inter-kingdom strife would be. Gaia. That was a good enough name. Although I’m not sure the entity is female. Still — irrelevant. If these people manage to arouse Gaia, having taught her war, killing, and hatred of men, they would all die. Nothing could save them.

  Whatever Gaia was, she was already powerful beyond belief. Gaia would be set loose on an otherwise defenseless universe with no moral compass. That couldn’t be allowed. She smiled. Ron was right, this isn’t a vacation. It is different, though. Definitely different.

  Thinking of Ron, she found that she could see him. It seemed he had a permanent seat on the King’s council. Her perspective showed that one of the wizards had manifested a large scale map of the terrain covering several of the small kingdoms in the area. It appeared they were planning an assault on the castle Lexi was now in. The castle Lexi was already thinking she might have to keep.

  She glanced down at herself. She was still naked, unless one considered being garbed in an energy field too bright to look at as being clothed. Good enough. It does the job.

  She was still holding Fermata. The child had snuggled into her like her son Crane did at this age. She smiled, remembering. Crane had been almost five the last time she saw him. He should be ten or eleven by now. She hoped he would forgive her for leaving him and taking his father to fight monsters with her.

  Chapter 11

  The King’s Council

  Everyone in Worlan’s council chamber knew Lexi was an amazing fighter. They had watched her training the armsmen on more than one occasion. Worlan had trusted her to go in solo to fetch his daughter from a castle with both mundane and magical defenses generally believed to be impregnable. Lexi had taken her standard “I’m in charge here,” stance, told him she was going after Fermata, and left, over his reasonable objections, to do that very thing. Although that may have merely been a pragmatic decision on his part. If she had failed, what did he really lose by it?

  They also knew she was an unusually powerful wizard. Ron found some of the comments made by the Master wizards at the council table to be quite interesting. Ashton had been totally open with him about his wife’s progress. While Ron was by no means surprised that Lexi could wield magic better than most of them, still, it was a totally different talent from her many others and one which she had developed very quickly. The two wizards at the table were very impressed with her progress in learning magic. As had Gerund been.

  Lexi, in just the last day, located the source of magical energy on this planet. She had communicated with the being generating it. Her talents had grown beyond anything the humans occupying this world could ever imagine in that short time.

  Lexi looked at her four armsmen, who had been checking the condition of the wizards and for whatever reason, dragging them to the side of the room. “I’ve decided that I’m keeping this castle as its Lord. For now, that means you work for me. Is that clear?”

  She was too bright for any of them to look directly at. However, they all went to one knee and bowed their heads. There was no protest. They understood. They were all in the dungeon when she executed King Gordian and his minions. The castle was hers by right of conquest if for no other reason.

  They had also heard the tales from the survivors of the aerial kidnap attempt last month. They were all almost positive this was the same woman who had been jumping between warbirds — the woman who had singlehandedly wiped out almost half of the aerial squadron. Besides, she seemed to be the most powerful wizard they had ever heard of. If she wanted the feckin’ kingdom, they certainly weren’t going to argue with her about it.

  Lexi needed these men. In fact, she needed the entire population of this planet one-hundred-percent behind her to accomplish what needed to be done. The entity, Gaia, needed people. Normal people, living normal lives. Children, growing up, falling in love, having families. Living with people they loved. Neighbors, joining together in comradeship, looking out for each other, helping each other. Even people getting angry and subsequently getting over it — forgiving those who had angered them. Lexi smiled. Eloisa wouldn’t be the first planet she and Ron had stabilized. Assuming they could get back to the Accord, it wouldn’t be the last. I wonder if I can conjure a starship?

  Because Gaia needed to have people around her, even assuming she and Ron could get back to Storm Gate, Lexi couldn’t bring in the resources of the Accord to evacuate the population to another planet, assuming, of course, that the Accord still existed — she still wasn’t a hundred percent sure about that — or that she could find it again if it did.

  Nor could she extract and relocate Gaia to someplace like Ackalon. She thought Gaia would like Ackalon. Ackalonians were the gentlest people in the Accord. But that just wouldn’t be possible. At the moment, Gaia literally was the planet, her consciousness embedded in a network of crystal deposits that ran throughout the planetary crust in a web that extended everywhere around the world. Maybe Lexi could have an Ackalonian colony established here. There was plenty of room. This world seemed to be sparsely populated.

 

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