30 – A Full Stomach
The wolf-like man snarled, but he immediately backed off. He saw how ineffective his aura was against Victor and, what’s more, he surely felt the weight of Victor’s mountainous intent. He turned, gave Vracia a parting, red-eyed glare, and then moved back up the queue to his previous position. The huge, metal automaton clicked its gears as it turned and then marched on, ever vigilant.
“Thank you, Victor!” Vracia whispered, still standing a bit behind him.
Victor looked down at her and shrugged. “He was rude.”
She nodded, but the spunk had gone out of her; her cheerful demeanor had fallen away, and she looked positively stricken. Victor wanted to comfort her, maybe out of some misplaced macho sensibility, but he’d been through enough to know that she could stand a little dose of reality. “Will you face people like him when you go to fight for this queen of yours?” He spoke softly so as not to stir up another scene.
Vracia nodded, glancing up the line and licking her lips nervously. “Yes. Nature’s Vengeance is what they call their coalition, and they want to destroy everything the Tradewater Dynasty has built over the last millennium.”
“That’s the queen’s faction? The Tradewater Dynasty?”
She nodded. “My world was settled by people from Shimmervale, so technically, I’m one of her subjects.”
“Well,” Victor said, jerking his chin toward the wolf man, “you’re going to have to face worse than that if you’re going into a war zone. You sure you’re ready?”
Vracia folded her arms, scowling, but after a moment, the expression softened, and she shook her head. “Not for that, but I can still help. There are people weaker than I am giving their all.”
Victor smiled, nodding. “Good attitude.”
“Do, um, do you want to see the queen’s message? We’ve still got a bit of time in the queue.” She held up the little blue marble, and Victor, trying not to sigh, took it between his much larger finger and thumb. Rather than waste more time asking questions, he trickled a bit of Energy into the object, and suddenly a shimmering blue portal appeared in his vision. When no one else reacted, Victor figured it was just an illusion meant for the person holding the marble.
A woman stepped through the portal, her eyes focused on Victor as she slowly performed a perfect curtsey, lifting the hem of her sky-blue gown. She was beautiful and obviously of the same species as Vracia. Everything about her was elegance and grace, and when she spoke, her voice rang like a well-tuned set of bells through Victor’s mind. If someone asked him what she said, he would have had trouble repeating the words, but the effects were clear; this marble was trying to ensorcel him with some kind of enchantment.
It was a fruitless effort, however. Victor’s will and his many titanic traits and feats made such an attempt nearly impossible. Perhaps if the woman were there in person and if she possessed a will to match his, along with a veil walker’s potency, she might have had a chance, but the enchanted marble didn’t even faze him.
Victor chuckled, pulling back his Energy and handing the trinket back to Vracia. “Listen, kid, I don’t think you want to go to that lady’s planet.”
Vracia took a step back, her mouth falling open like he’d slapped her. “What? That lady?”
Victor shrugged. “That thing’s enchanted to influence a person’s mind with Energy—something pretty slippery too, like mind-attuned Energy. It wasn’t a spirit affinity; I would have recognized it. You want me to see if I can cleanse you of it?”
Vracia looked at the marble in her hand, expressions of shock, disbelief, and disgust warring for dominance on her face. She was saved from having to respond when Victor’s turn came up at the front of the queue. He gave her another measured look, then turned and strode toward the gateway, where an attendant stood behind a podium. “Present yourself, traveler.”
“I’m Victor.”
“Victor?”
Victor nodded, shrugging. “Yeah, I’m just traveling through. No real business here or anything.”
“Excellent, and do you understand the rules of these lands?”
“Um, basically. I shouldn’t pick on anyone weaker than me in the city, and if I want to fight, I should make sure the other party consents.”
“Close enough. Do you need any guidance?”
“Fastest route to the System Stone.”
“There is no direct access for the public to the stone. You can buy travel tokens, though, at the World Hall. Follow the main street to Argassi Center. The world hall is the large, rectangular building that dominates the western side of the square.”
Victor thumped his knuckles on the man’s podium. “Thanks. Am I good to go in?”
“Yes. Your fate lies in your hands now.”
“All right.” Victor cocked an eyebrow at the cryptic statement, but he passed through the gate, then paused, waiting for Vracia to go through the check-in process. She moved through about as quickly as he did, so he wasn’t waiting long. When she walked through the tunnel, she was slouched, and her expression was dour. When she saw him waiting, she hesitated, shaking her head slightly, like she was steeling herself before she stepped forward.
“You didn’t need to wait for me.”
Victor shrugged. “I meant what I said, though. I’ve cleansed corruption from people’s cores before. I don’t mind getting that spell off you.”
She shook her head. “But I just met you, Victor. Why…” She folded her arms over her chest, hugging herself. “Why would I believe you over the queen of my people?”
“Look, I don’t know exactly what that enchantment does. Maybe it just makes her seem more sympathetic. Maybe after I cleanse it, you’ll still want to help her. Wouldn’t you want to make up your own mind about something like going to war, though?”
“What do you need to do to, um, cleanse me?”
“Let’s go find a quiet tavern and have a drink, and I can explain it.” Victor knew his grasp on her was tenuous, so he tried to keep things moving by starting down the sidewalk. He moved slowly and looked over his shoulder, locking eyes with Vracia. She surprised him by following along without protest.
“Well, you did stand up to that wolf for me.”
Victor smiled, continuing along the sidewalk. He looked up, taking in the city for the first time. It reminded him a little of Sojourn, but only because of the tall buildings blotting out the sky. Where Sojourn was elegant and graceful, though, Vagabond’s Reach was utilitarian and…domineering. The buildings were blocky, with brutal stone corners and flat faces, featuring infrequent windows. They varied greatly in size and in the number of angles that made up their surfaces, however. Some were tall and rectangular, others were squat but vast, shaped in all manner of sharp-cornered polygons.
Marble dominated the city's surfaces, but not of any one kind. Victor saw rose, white, black, sandy, veined, speckled—a hundred varieties of the stuff. In a way, that variety made up for the harsh angles of the buildings, and he began to see the city in a more favorable light. The other thing he liked was the traffic; it was light, and the people walking the sidewalks kept to themselves and didn’t make eye contact. He supposed that was due to the limited nature of the city’s laws.
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He had no idea where a “quiet tavern” was, but they’d only walked a block or so when he saw a restaurant with an open patio and, inside, dozens of wooden tables with only a few patrons scattered here and there. He slowed down and pointed. “That place all right with you?”
Vracia shrugged, her face still troubled. “Promise you mean me no harm?”
“We’ll be right in there, out in the open.” When she continued to stare, he sighed. “I promise. Look, I’ve got places to be. I just want to help you because I hate the idea of someone messing with my mind.”
She slowly began to nod, then started across the street, leading the way to the restaurant. Victor was hungry, and this was his fourth world in one day; he figured he was allowed to stop for a meal. When they walked in from the patio, a tall man in a stained white apron looked up from where he busily scrubbed a table. “Here for a meal or just a drink?”
“I’m hungry.” Victor eyed Vracia. She shrugged, and her lips moved out of a frown and into a more neutral position.
“I would like something to eat.”
“All right, then. I’ll see what the chef’s working on. Sit wherever you want.”
Victor led the way toward the back wall and an unoccupied table well away from the other patrons. He sat facing the open patio with his back to the wall, and Vracia slid onto the bench across from him. Rather than beat around the bush, he said, “Well, the only way I know how to break a spell that’s corrupting someone is to send some of my Energy into their pathways. I explore around a little and—”
“Your Energy into my pathways?” Vracia started to stand up, but Victor put his hand out, catching her wrist. He didn’t hold tightly, but maybe his hot, titan flesh had an effect on her because she froze and stared at his hand. Slowly, she slumped back down, leaning onto the table.
Still holding her wrist, Victor said, “I don’t need to trick you, Vracia. If I wanted to hurt you for some reason, I’d do it.”
“What about the rule—”
“Screw the rule. I’ve fought armies of people tougher than the pendejos around here.” Victor was certainly stretching the truth, especially since he’d never seen the rulers of that particular world, but he was trying to make a point and speed matters along.
“I can feel that you’re strong…”
Victor nodded, releasing her wrist and sitting back, watching the bartender approach with a big pitcher and two frosty mugs. He set the mugs on the table and poured them full until foam sloshed over the sides. “Fresh keg. I think you’ll like it.”
Victor smiled. “As long as it’s wet, I’ll enjoy it. My throat’s dry.”
“Oh, this’ll do the trick. Now, as for the menu, the chef is grilling up smoked boar chops with caramelized root vegetables and a garlic-herb mash. Bit of spiced apple compote on the side.” He watched Victor’s face for a reaction, then added, “If that doesn’t sound good, he’ll have one of his lads fix you up a sandwich.”
“I’d love some of the chef’s dish,” Vracia said, reaching for one of the enormous mugs.
“I suppose not…”
“All right, I have one more thing that might convince you. Want to see my strongest affinity?” Again, Victor was stretching the truth, but he felt it was a white lie. He held out his palm and cast Prismatic Illumination, barely feeding it enough hope-attuned Energy to create a pebble-sized orb that hovered over his palm. Even as small as it was, the silvery blue light it cast was intoxicating. All of Victor’s worries seemed to fade into the background, and things looked a lot…better.
Vracia’s eyes widened in wonder, and Victor could see that the light was having the same effect on her. He saw the doubt slipping away from her eyes, and she looked at him with an open expression that resembled the way she’d first looked outside the gates—before the wolf had ruined her mood. “What is it?”
Victor smiled, leaning closer so the light illuminated his eyes when he whispered, “Hope.”
“Hope…” she breathed, still staring at the light.
“That’s the kind of Energy I’ll be sending into your pathways when I look for the corruption. When I find it, I’ll just use my will to pull it out. It might be difficult; it might be entwined with your Core or maybe parts of your mind through the pathways up there. I think I can do it, though, and if I can’t, I’ll stop trying before I hurt you.”
Vracia looked up at him, the light of his Energy making her green eyes glow. Rather than speak, she just nodded and held out her hand, palm up.
Victor extinguished his little orb, then took her wrist. He looked around the restaurant. Nobody was paying them any attention. Trying to smile encouragingly, he said, “Just open yourself to me. Don’t try to resist my Energy.” Without waiting, afraid she might change her mind, he looked through his inner eye at his pathways and then pulled a thin thread of hope-attuned Energy out toward the hand that held Vracia’s wrist.
As his Energy surged through the aperture in his palm, it spread his awareness, and he saw the one in Vracia’s palm. Without hesitation, he pushed his strand of Energy toward that mystical opening. He felt some resistance, and Vracia stiffened, gasping. “Hey, what did I say? Just relax. Think of me like… Oh, I don’t know, think of me like someone who’s going to give you a haircut.”
“A haircut?” She laughed.
“That’s it. Just relax.” Again, Victor probed her pathway with his Energy, and this time he made his way past the aperture and into the remarkably narrow passage. Was it narrow, he wondered, or had he just grown accustomed to his much-improved pathways? He supposed his hadn’t been much different from Vracia’s when he’d been tier five.
He made his way toward her Core, and when he was there, in the presence of his Energy, he had a much more detailed view of the space. Even so, as he circled the pulsing globe of her green nature affinity, he didn’t see anything that looked amiss. He supposed it made some sense. Vracia’s spirit wasn’t under attack—her mind was. Victor exited the Core space and followed the pathway leading up into her chest, toward her heart and lungs. When he saw nothing out of the ordinary, he continued toward the central pathway that led the way to her mind.
Sure enough, when he neared the end of the road, the pathway became clogged with a strange, pulsating, pink webbing. It felt very much like what the little marble had tried to thrust upon him. “I’ve found it. Brace yourself, okay? You can squeeze my hand if it helps.”
“Okay.” Vracia turned her wrist so her palm faced his, and then she wrapped her fingers around the meat of his thumb, gripping tightly.
Victor, meanwhile, sent his Energy into the pink webbing and began to pull against the strange fibers. They separated from the sides of Vracia’s pathway rather easily. He didn’t know if it was because his will was stronger than the caster’s or if it was just a matter of him being present while the caster—whoever had enchanted that marble—was possibly worlds away. Whatever the case, it was easy for him to use the force of his will to direct his hope-attuned Energy, gathering up the strands and pressing them into a ball as he advanced up the pathway.
As the pathway’s aperture came into view—the opening into Vracia’s mind—Victor found the tangle of pink Energy was as dense as a spider’s nest filled with silk-wrapped eggs. When he shaped his Energy into a wide, silver-blue blade and began to scrape the sides of the aperture, Vracia winced and squeezed tightly.
“We’re in the heart of it now. Just another minute or two.” Victor continued to work while Vracia whimpered, but after just a few wide slashes with his blade-shaped Energy probe, she began to relax. When he’d cut all the anchor points, Victor gathered up the foreign, pink Energy and pulled, drawing long tendrils back through the aperture and into the pathway with him. He smashed it all into a tight ball, wrapped it with his Energy, and then extracted it, quick as a thought, down through the pathways and out of Vracia’s palm.
Before he pulled his Energy back into his hand, Victor released the foreign pink Energy. It rose like a vapor before him, and he inhaled, chuckling as he drew it into his Breath Core, where he annihilated it with the heat of his magma. He was amused by his antics, but when he looked to see if Vracia shared his mirth, he saw she was openly weeping.
“Hey!” He leaned closer. “Did it hurt?”
“N-no, Victor! Don’t you see? I remember, now!”
“Remember?”
“My cousins—the ones who went to fight for Queen Charlaine? They’re dead! My parents—my entire family—begged me not to go! We fought for days! How could I forget all this?”
Victor clicked his tongue, gently patting her hand. “It’s the nature of that damn spell. It was working on your mind. It probably planted false memories and blocked off real ones. It made you think you wanted something you probably didn’t. I mean, do you?”
She wiped her cheeks, shaking her head, eyes huge. “No! The war reports! It’s terrible! Prince Aladesh has distanced our colony from the dynasty…” She started to stand. “I shouldn’t be here. I have to get back. Th-thank you, Victor…”
“Hey, relax. I’m going to the World Hall, too. I’ll escort you—make sure you get there without running into another wolf or something. Meanwhile, let’s eat our food. One thing I’ve learned is that problems always look better on a full stomach.”