Marji pulled up in a smart little red convertible that I didn't recognize. The doorman hustled out when she pulled up to the curb, but she waved him away. I nodded to him as I passed and got into the passenger seat.
Marji was a dark green suit and her hair was a flaming cloud in the wind as she pulled into traffic. Her skirt clung to her strong legs, and showed a generous expanse of stocking calf, her feet busy on the clutch and accelerator.
“You're looking good, kid,” I told her, and she spared me a quick grin.
I settled back in my seat and watched the road. It was a new car, but the same Marji, driving with the same confident style that she did everything. I felt comfortable, just as if we'd never grown apart and she was taking me to some restaurant or dance club that she'd heard about from a friend of friend. I had missed her—I hadn't known until them just how much I missed her.
When we were on the expressway I raised an eyebrow at her.
“So you like girls now?” I teased.
She shot me a glance. “Is that a problem for you?”
I raised my hands. “No problem. I like girls myself.”
She drove on in silence for a while, frowning. Then she said, “It's not girls, it's Karin. I've never met anyone like her before. She's so full of life. So smart and talented. And she started out with nothing—nothing. She grew up in a foundling's home. She doesn't let anything stop her.”
“Sounds impressive,” I said.
“You'll love her,” Marji promised. “Once you meet her, you can't help but love her. Jake does.”
“Does he...?” I couldn't finish the question.
“Sleep with her?” Marji supplied. “No. Although...” she trailed off.
Then firmly she said, “Jake has very... specific tastes. I have to respect that. Just like he respects mine.”
I nodded. “I'm glad you're happy,” I said. “Both of you. Or... all three of you.”
Then, very quietly, Marji said, “At least Karin's human.”
Ah, yes. That other conversation that we needed to have.
“Marji,” I told her, “You've met my parents. Cameron and Drucilla Jackknife. They went to that benefit thing for the new school initiative. They bought one of those flower arrangements for about a grand. Remember?”
“Those aren't your real—” she began.
“They are my real parents,” I shot back. “They raised me. They put food on the table and clothes on my back. They sent me to school. Hell, my dad came and visited me every weekend to tutor me in mathematics. Everything I have, I owe to them.”
She drove on a while in silence.
“They don't know?” she asked.
“Their son died,” I said. “The first Samhain Jackknife. Crib death. The Lady Bloodpox took the body of their son, and The Fifth Lord of Nightmare took their memories of their son's death. They left me in that crib. As far as they know, I am their son.”
I turned to look out the window at the passing traffic. It was thin, this far out from the City.
“But you know,” she said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I know. Sometimes I wish I didn't. I'm just a man, Marji, not a demigod. Maybe where I came from can help get your Karin back. I don't know. I'm willing to try. But I'm not doing it because I am a Knight of Hell, I'm doing it because I'm your friend. This world is my life now. It's the only life I want.”
“Do you really think you can get her back?” she asked.
I sighed. “I don't know. There are pieces to this puzzle that don't make sense. Yet. I need more information.”
Her hand left the wheel and patted my thigh briefly. “You're a good man, Sam,” she said.
Marji drove up to the gates of the City Electrical Generation Facility, with me beside her. A City guardsman in a crisp uniform and a machine pistol on his hip came out of the gatehouse.
“Authorization,” he demanded.
Marji handed him an ID folder. “Marjina Karnes and Samhain Jackknife, for Engineer Jakob Karnes.”
The guardsman studied the ID, then looked to Marji. “Purpose of visit?” he asked.
“Mr. Jackknife is a potential investor, and my husband invited him to tour the plant.”
He looked past Marji to me. “Your identification, please?”
I handed over my own wallet.
“One moment, please,” the guardsman said. “Please remain inside your vehicle.” Then he ducked back inside the gatehouse, still with both wallets.
I sat as quiet and still as I could. The plant was intimidating. A concrete wall topped with a double row of barbed wire surrounded the entire grounds, with floodlights sweeping the approaches at regular intervals. I could see another guard in the gatehouse, and there was room for more. Obviously the City took security very seriously.
The guardsman came out and handed Marji our IDs, and two laminated badges on lanyards. “Go on in,” he said. “The officer of the watch knows you're here. Make sure that you have your badges visible at all times.”
“Thank you,” Marji said mildly, “Have a nice night.”
The gate rolled back and Marji drove through. Just inside the gate was a parking area, mostly empty. Marji pulled into a numbered spot. She handed me a badge and I hung it around my neck. It was bright yellow with the word Visitor in black across the bottom. She handed me back my wallet. I checked inside—all the money was still there. I stuck it back in my pocket.
Jake was waiting at the edge of the lot. He came up and met us at the car and I noticed that he was dressed warmly, too.
As we got out I asked quietly, “Is this going to cause you problems?”
He shook his head. “Not unless we don't come back.”
I stopped. “We?”
He kept walking. Over his shoulder he said. “I'm going with you, Sam.”
I hurried up to him. Marji kept pace with us, a few steps back.
“No,” I said. “That's not possible.”
Jake kept walking. “Sam, I'm going with you, or you're not going.”
“Jake, listen to me,” I pleaded. “it's not safe. This is Nightmare we're talking about. A completely alien universe.”
Jake finally stopped and looked at me. “Yes, Sam, I know. I work with Nightmare every day. I have a Master's Certificate in Trans-Universal Physics. I know what I'm doing.”
“No,” I insisted, “You don't. I was born there, and I don't understand it. It's too dangerous for you to go.”
“I am going to open the doorway,” Jake said, “and I am going through it. That's final.”
“Sam,” Marji said, “he's right. You can't open the doorway without him.”
I turned to her. “Marji, I can't be responsible for his safety.”
“I can,” Jake said coldly, “I was trained for this. A sound magician is a mighty god.”
He started walking again. Quickly. Marji and I hurried after him.
Across the parking lot. Down a concrete walk, past painted tin signs announcing the way to incomprehensible abbreviations. Into a grid of low windowless concrete buildings. The grounds were brilliantly lit by floodlights and eerily empty. I half felt that we were in Nightmare already.
Jake stopped at a metal door with AP48 painted in red above it. He fished his keys out of his pocket.
The door had both a keyhole and a combination dial. Jake inserted a complex key, turned it a half turn, then quickly dialed a combination, then turned the key the rest of the way and pulled it out. He pushed the door open.
I reached to grab his shoulder before he could go inside.
“Tell me one thing,” I said. “Are you scared?”
He nodded gravely. “Yes.”
“Good,” I nodded back. “As long as you understand this is insane.”
He turned away and entered the lab. We followed him in. He slapped a bank of switches and caged bulbs in rows across the ceiling flickered into life.
Along one wall was a bank of dials. Scattered across the floor, tied to the wall with a tangled spiderweb of thick insulated wires, were brass and steel structures studded with mirrors and lenses.
Jake walked swiftly to the wall, stepping over the cords without looking down, and began adjusting dials.
I looked over at Marji. She had stepped back to lean against a bare stretch of wall and was watching her husband.
Softly I asked her, “Is this the 'Industrial Metaphysical Infrastructure' that the Mayor's Office keeps talking about?”
She nodded and grinned. “Invest in our future.”
Jake pulled a clipboard from a hook on the wall and began paging through the sheets on it. “I can get us into Nivose,” he said, “but we've never calibrated locations within it. We deal with Thermidore, here.”
“The Lord's citadel is in the center of the domain,” I told him, trying to be helpful.
Jake glared at me over the top of the clipboard. “There's no linear correspondence between resonance angles and the insertion into Situation II space. I know the Lord will be in the center of the domain. I don't know what the center of the domain looks like on this,” he waved his hand at the bank of dials.
I shut up.
A deep humming started then. I could feel it through the floor and up my spine into my teeth. It made me feel queasy, like I was standing on a high, unstable platform instead of a solid concrete floor.
“Don't look at directly into the light,” Jake said, “it'll detach your retina.”
He hit another switch and beams of brilliant red light shot out from the lenses on the weird metal structures all across the floor. Obediently I looked away.
The reflections of the red light from the walls was brilliant enough to hurt my eyes, and the humming rose in both intensity and pitch. Then, all it once, the light and sound shut off.
“That should do it,” Jake said. Then, “Marji, come here.”
She trotted over quickly and Jake put her hand on a massive knife switch. “When I tell you, throw this switch. Then get out. Wait in my office. Okay?”
She nodded gravely.
Jake turned to me. “You and I need to be inside the field when it goes critical.”
I made my way carefully through the maze of wires on the floor and Jake met me in the middle of the room, pulling on an overcoat. “Just stand still and don't touch anything,” he said. “And you'd better close your eyes.”
“Right,” I agreed.
Jake and I stood quietly together in the middle of the floor. I closed my eyes.
“Okay, Marji, now,” Jake said.
There was a flash of red light bright enough that I could see it though my eyelids, and a single deep metallic tone like the ringing of a huge bell.
And then we were someplace else.
I opened my eyes to Nivose's ice blue and empty sky. We were standing on a gently rolling plain of cracked black mud. Here and there dirty white lumps rose out of the dirt. There was no trace of the gateway that had brought us here.
“Jake,” I said, “I forgot to ask. How do we get back home?”
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a little metal box, the size of a pack of cigarettes. “Recall beacon,” he explained. “When I activate this the generator back in the lab boosts the power to open the gate again. The field will be centered on the beacon, so you want to make sure that you're standing close to me.”
He stuck the box back in his pocket and flashed me an evil grin. “Or you can ask your uncle for a lift.”
“That's not funny,” I shot back.
He looked contrite. “Sorry. Let's figure out where we are.”
“The Empty Sea,” I told him. I scanned the horizon, pointed at a line of distant pale blue mountains. “The city is near those peaks. That way.”
I started walking and Jake followed after me. He fumbled another metal gizmo out of a pocket. This one was a short cylinder, with a lens on each end, like a squat telescope. He put it to his eye and scanned back and forth.
“That's the center, all right,” he agreed, and put it away again.
“I have been here before,” I pointed out.
“I know,” he said.
We walked along for a while in silence. We passed one of the smooth white lumps and I saw Jake recoil when he realized that it wasn't a stone but the partially buried skeleton of some huge fish. He looked around, taking in the other skeletons.
“This...” he waved his hands, “...used to be a sea? A real one that dried up?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Probably not. The realms, they're like works of art. The Lords shape them to suit themselves. If the First Lord wanted a real sea, it'd be a real sea. I assume he likes it like this.”
Jake chewed that over while we walked. It was cold, but not as bad as I had expected. There was no wind down here, at least.
Then I saw movement from ahead of us, and the ship came sailing on the surface of the ghost ocean, straight towards us. It was maybe a hundred feet above the ground, moving fast but also bobbing up and down as if it were floating.
Beside me I felt Jake stop and stare, open-mouthed at the flying ship.
“I never thought I'd see one,” he whispered.
I frowned at him. “This is Nightmare, Jake, remember?”
The ship came closer. I was no sailor, but it looked like a regular ship to me, except the bottom looked flatter than I would have expected. And, of course, it was floating in mid-air. It was flying the Grimm's flag, a stylized wolf's head of red on a black field.
I stopped next to Jake and we watched it coming towards us. When it was nearly directly overhead it stopped, bobbing gently, and a rope ladder rolled off the side and fell, the end of it stopping about four feet from the ground.
I looked at Jake. “I guess our ride's here.”
I grabbed the ladder and began climbing. It felt firm under my hands and feet. It didn't even swing around as much as it should have.
Below me Jake cried out, “Stop. Wait. Is that safe?”
I didn't stop and I didn't wait. I kept climbing. “Safe? Nothing is safe here. But Lord Grimm won't let us die by accident, and refusing his hospitality is a lot less safe than getting on his ship.”
“Are you sure that Lord Grimm sent it?” Jake asked.
I kept climbing. “Either him or one one of his thralls. Come on, you really don't want to insult the Lord.”
I felt him grab hold of the ladder and begin pulling himself up. We made the rest of the climb in silence. Once at the top we climbed over the rail and onto the deck. It looked weathered and well used, but it was solid enough under foot. Once we were both on board the ship started moving again, back to the distant shore. The sails billowed in the cold wind. At first I thought that there was no one on board, but then I saw the cats. Ordinary cats, not spirit cats like the malks, a dozen or so, all colors. They were climbing through the rigging, lounging on the deck, moving around the vessel with an easy familiarity. A fat old orange tomcat was at the wheel and seemed to be steering the ship.
Jake stood in the middle of the deck, looking around with wide eyes.
“Sam...” he said after a while.
“Go ahead,” I told him.
“I just...” he frowned. “You must have had a very interesting childhood.”
“Not really,” I replied. “I grew up in Clarke Village. I went to the Village Academy. Summers on the islands, Winters in the mountains.”
“But—” he gestured, “—all this.”
I looked around. Yes. All this. All this was tough to explain.
“I lived two lives,” I said. “When I was awake dreams were only dreams. Everybody dreams, right? And everybody knows they aren't real.”
Jake nodded, looking at me. I leaned against a mast.
“When I was in the dream, though...” I sighed. “When I was here. Then the house on Guilder street, the cabin in the mountains, the beach house, the private lessons in fencing and dance... all of that was unreal. When I dreamed I was the child of Nightmare, and of Death. During the day I was a pampered son of a man who owned a dozen factories. At night, I was a foot soldier in the army of Hell.”
I looked him in the eye. “Which one would you have chosen, Jake?”
He looked away.
The dreamship sailed on.
I can't do anything about the zero upvote value, it is too late for that, but I am not going to leave this episode without even one comment.
At first, I thought of Sam as a dilettante, but I am starting to like him. Even for a normal human, he is a good person. Considering where he comes from, he must be a rare creature. I do not think he is good because of his upbringing as a Terran, it must be something inate.
Am I sensing him correctly?
Yes, I think so. I was aiming at a kind of ambiguous character with Sam--he had the power to be evil, but he's chosen to be good.