13. N #2
Now that his mind was well rested and working again, and he understood the time difference, he knew that before he could move outside of this cave, he needed real intelligence on what was going on out there.
And for that, he needed magic. And for magic, he needed power.
Haldeen finished the stray bits of stubble, turning his face from side to side to check the effect.
Freshly shaved, as he had been seen before entering the lab, and no stray soap to give away the time he’d been here.
He splashed on more of the detested mint-water.
His much estranged ladywife might have seen the difference, but the mint-water she hated would ensure she kept her distance.
Curious, though, she likes mint tea. Why the one and not the other?
He shook his head to bring himself back onto task.
How to bring enough ambient magic over to my needs?
He chewed on that one for a bit. Nothing came in an inspiring flash.
It rarely did. Most success came from wearing away problems rather than cleaving them in half.
He grinned again. Here, in this cave he had plenty of time to figure it out.
He had the time! The one thing he had been certain he could not solve—lack of time—had been solved for him.
He wiped off the last bits of soap, cleared his razor thoroughly, and put it back into its case.
And … if I am being honest, the fact that if everything goes to hell, I can get out of here takes a lot of concern off my mind too.
He stopped to think about that. His mandate had been to find a way to evacuate the city, on behalf of the king.
Success in that area would mean elves from his world conquering and colonizing this backward place.
The more of the king’s people that came over, well, the highest would take the best, and he would get …
a technical lord’s share … the leavings after the king and the birth lords took theirs.
He had not found a way to evacuate even a few people …
but this was an effort he wasn’t sure he wanted to be successful.
He might not have found a way to evacuate enough people on behalf of the king, but he had, however, found a way to evacuate himself on behalf of Haldeen.
He’d heard the idea first from Pelias, but it still made sense.
The more people who came over meant the ration block got sliced a little thinner for Haldeen.
He thought back over the report that the translator had provided regarding Triana’s story about an orgy that featured an elf-lord named …
what was it? … Aelmarkin, or some such thing.
The casual description of the frequency of such lavish events, the easy indolence of the elves, the wealth of the food and drink, and the beauty, number, and availability of the slaves.
Triana had been quite frank about the prowess of some of the males and females.
But aside from the filth … the elven lords had time, leisure, and resources to pour into these events, which seemed to occur on a very regular basis.
The last time he could remember any sort of a celebration it had been … well ….
Just before we opened the Gate to this world. And the celebration consisted of a cautious gathering with music and just enough delicacies to satisfy without satiation. That would have been … a simple dinner with guests, by the standards of the elven lords here.
He poured the soapy water from the basin into a bucket, rinsed out the shaving basin, and dried it with the scrap of cloth.
The more he considered the situation, the less he liked the idea of a full evacuation, unless it could be done on his terms.
He had done the work to open the Gate, he had passed through at great risk to himself, and he had learned that home-world magic worked here.
Now, he just had to solve once he solved the small matter of how to power it.
He deserved the rewards … real rewards, not the leavings after the king …
kings, he corrected himself. There would be a stampede of the wealthy and powerful to grab the best and most prosperous, with the kings taking theirs first, then the powerful birth lords, and so forth.
By the time they got here, they wouldn’t need him, and he’d had enough experience of kings to know they had long memories when owed … and very short when owing.
He folded the basin cloth, then set it over a bent bar to dry.
He had worked out the needle he had to thread …
to continue to support the king’s goals, while serving his own interests.
He laughed out loud then, as he recalled something the translator had reported Triana saying about her support for some faction, in some dispute.
I had to seem helpful, without being helpful.
He nodded approvingly to himself in the mirror.
If he could free himself from the city for a while, then he could focus on solving the problems here …
and putting himself beyond the king’s authority, until he was ready with his terms.
He listed out the challenges. The first was food.
If he solved the problem of how to keep himself fed over here …
well, there were worse things than getting away from all this pressure.
The second … his wife. The fragile truce was done, and both she and he were simply waiting until he ordered her out, and declared them divorced.
His needs were simpler than hers, and when he sent her on her way, he would strip her of the servants she relied on.
They were his … technically, they came with the Gatekeeper’s title, but still his to order about.
Servants. He could bring a couple of servants to see to his needs.
Oh, that might solve the food problem … he could start an algae vat here, and have the servant convert just enough for the two or three of them.
He could immerse himself in his research until he had figured out just how to leverage what he had into a very high-ranking position for himself.
Being able to repower all those artifact battle machines would give him an army that didn’t need to eat, sleep, or drink and shrugged off injuries.
They also might not need the king’s men to operate them.
Or maybe, he didn’t need an army of firelances.
Perhaps one would do. In a land without battle machines, a solitary firelance might make all the difference.
There might not be any elven lords alive over there that even remembered those machines; they’d be a force for terror just on the basis of how they looked.
If that feckless wench Triana was a high-ranking er-Lord over there, with her minimal powers, what would I be?
For a moment he indulged in a bit of fantasy, imagining himself …
well, a king. A king in all things. An entire population of slaves at his beck and call, people groveling to him, answering to no one … .
Huh. I never asked her about the power structure over there.
Who were the most powerful of the Lords, what kind of magic could they do, was there an overall king …
maybe I ought to pull her out of the food-making facility for a few days, now that she knows how low she can sink at my will, and give her a real interrogation instead of that polite dancing about I was doing via Nora.
He smiled again. The translator. The spy! That was her name. Nora.
He packed up the last of his shaving gear, and placed the kit neatly beside the basin.
He then sat on the edge of the cot while he changed into clean clothes.
He was careful to ensure he only brought nondescript and neutral colored shirts and trews, enough alike the minor differences in cut and color would go unnoticed as he moved between worlds.
He looked at the candle that he used as a (very) rough measure of time.
He had left after breakfast, and reckoned it would be about midday mealtime when he returned.
Two hours there-time for a good day’s work here, a decent long sleep, and a few experiments completed.
Well rested and well-researched. His perfect combination.
He stood, brushed off his clean trews, and covered his shoes with the cloth wrappings he used to keep the cave dirt off of them. He knew the small details would trip him up, if someone cared to look. He just had to be careful to stay on top of the small details.
He whistled a jaunty tune as he climbed the stone ramp to the Gate, and stepped up to the stone. He could feel it humming with the stored power, all of which had to be supplied from the other side. He took a deep breath, touched the Gate, and triggered the spell.
The gate yawned open and drew him in. Traveling between his world and hers felt like falling down a long curling tunnel made of shimmering light and scintillating colors.
Passing from his world to hers had no effect, but the returns felt like being pressed through a sieve and being haphazardly reassembled on the other side. He really hoped that was a metaphor.
He suspected the feeling of being shredded came from the time difference.
His wife’s calculations hadn’t really anticipated that the two worlds could run at different rates, and he guessed that the mauling he took on the returns stemmed from having his body speed up at different rates as he passed through the tunnel.
She and he were not on good enough terms for him to point out the shortcomings of her math, and really not on good enough terms for him to tell her how he knew about the time differences.
The tunnel came to an end without warning, and spilled him out into the lab.
He fell to his knees, and pulled the bucket he kept handy, just in time to spew up the contents of everything he’d eaten.
His second trip, he’d tried to retch up an empty stomach, and so learned the value of having something to give back, even if it was just water.
Once the sickness was done, he stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and shirtsleeve.
He waited a few moments to recover his steadiness, before rinsing his mouth out and putting on the robe that marked his office and status as one of the city’s Lords.
He checked the clepsydra. The water clock showed a bit more than four marks had passed, going from well before dawn to midmorning.
He checked his notes and carefully let himself out of the lab and into the quiet corridor.
He’d gotten better at estimating his time returns.
This time he’d been gone for two full days, while a few marks had elapsed here.
So far, no one seemed to notice his absence.