Wordscapist, The Myth

The Yen come from worlds that are far removed from the ones they supervise. As powerful Continuum channelers, the Yen play a big role in keeping the many worlds connected to the Continuum in check. Wordsmiths, for all their power, don’t merit more than half a Yen. Yen Hito was assigned Earth and a couple of other potential worlds (that might manifest channelers at some point in time).

Many looked on it as a punishment. It could have been some controversial decisions he made, showing leniency in dealing with those that meddled with the Continuum. It could have been his less than reverential attitude towards the Lirii. It could even have been the rumour that he was gifted with Lirus-Sight, a power that allowed him to guess the paths that lay ahead. But Yen Hito didn’t mind being assigned Earth. Yen Hito had made his peace with all that came his way.

He wasn’t feeling very peaceful at the moment though. He was in the presence of an individual who had taken things too far even by his lenient standards. This man had caused flutters in the Continuum with repercussions that could barely be fathomed, even after centuries of study.

“Tell me, Alain De Vorto,” the Yen spoke aloud, trying to keep his tone neutral, “why should I listen to you? Would I not be better off terminating you right now and be done with it? You have caused the Corps more grief than an entire era of wordsmiths put together.”

De Vorto drew himself up to his full height, which wasn’t much in his current form (curse the boy!), “Yen Hito, I have appealed to you knowing your reputation as someone with a balanced and just view. A hearing is all that I ask for, after which you are free to take whatever decision you will.”

“And you are here to appeal for your life?” Yen Hito asked.

“I’m afraid the stakes are much higher, Yen Hito,” De Vorto responded, his voice grave. “I am here to appeal for the whole plane of existence we humans call Earth.”

The Historian

I had never recorded something like this. It was an all-out war. It was cruel, merciless and completely insane. It was a massacre.

We arrived under the cover of the night, the different groups spreading out into positions best suited to what role they were going to play. I was near the outer perimeter, catching the action on my all-purpose camcorder. Zauberin and Gaia spent a couple of minutes weaving up a mother of a scape that threw an isolation bubble around us. This ensured the norm police would not come rushing in at the sound of a veritable war within Glasgow city limits. It would also prevent teleports in and out of the premises, stopping CCC backup from arriving hastily and making sure the kids could not escape any other way. Once the bubble was in place, the attack began in earnest.

The norm mercenaries went in full force, lobbing bombs and shooting at the security force around the building. The five wordsmith hunters were next, weaving explosive warps and priming them to explode the moment anyone not in the Free Word team came out. Isis and Wind volunteered to stay outside the bubble to deal with anyone who arrived through any other means. Smart choice. I was stuck inside to capture the bloodbath.

I saw CCC guards mown down by a vicious combination of gunfire and deadly scapes. They were woefully under-prepared. But then, no one could have seen something like this coming! The mercenaries burst into the building and went on rampage inside. Meanwhile the wordsmith team finished setting the traps outside and followed the norms to provide backup and clean up after them. Zauberin and Gaia formed the rear of the attack. The Healer volunteered to stay behind and ensure that anyone coming out wouldn’t escape the trap. The Free Word didn’t want any surviving witnesses. I went numb at the sight of so many people being cut down by the relentless gunfire and scapes.

Zauberin motioned me to accompany Gaia and her into the building. I hurried after, trying not to breathe in the dizzying stench of gun smoke, burnt flesh and blood that permeated the entire building. We made our way through the reception and the rest of the front office, stepping over and around dead bodies in CCC uniforms. I was running on autopilot, recording all there was to note, providing explanatory notes in a toneless voice. At one point, I saw a wounded survivor crawling down one of the corridors. Zauberin sent the poor chap a spell that completed what the first wave had left unfinished.

Zauberin and Gaia decided to split at the landing of the first floor. The mercenaries and wordsmiths seemed to have done the same, leaving two diverging trails of bullet marks and burns all over the walls and furniture, not to mention a couple of the guards near the elevator. Zauberin gestured for me to follow her and as we walked down a long corridor, she summoned a particularly powerful spell that glowed blue on her fingertips. She was preparing for whatever she came across. I could only pity the kids.

We reached the end of a corridor when I saw a petite woman in civvies, holding a CCC quirt, coming rushing through a door, banging it behind her. Zauberin immediately sent a bolt from her spell in the woman’s direction. The woman was fast though, and quickly absorbed the bolt with her quirt. She returned fire with a shock pulse, but Zauberin’s spell just absorbed it into the glowing blue ball. The woman had not tarried to see just what she had managed to pull off. She dived down the fire exit, and we could hear her clattering down the stairs. Zauberin rushed after her and I was left in the corridor, wondering what I should do now. I turned around and looked through the viewfinder to see a zombie walking towards me. I felt sick at the sight of the animated dead body lurching towards me, holding a baseball bat in its rotting hands. I was frozen right where I stood, recording what could well be my death approaching me.

I heard sounds of gunfire, and saw three of the mercenaries rush out of one of the doors, firing wildly. The zombie was right in their way and took a wild swing, connecting the bat with one of the mercenaries, right on his skull. The cap that was part of his uniform and part of his scalp went flying, along with a piece of the bat. The man collapsed right there, dead or grievously injured. The other two mercenaries took one look at their fallen comrade and got the hell out of there, screaming at the top of their voices. They had been pretty spooked to start with. The zombie had been the last straw. They crashed through the door at the end of the corridor. I heard their screams die out abruptly, and wondered what nightmare lay beyond that door. Whatever it was, it had a zombie walking towards it. The zombie ignored me and followed the two men through the now shattered door, groaning and trying to say something that I could not quite catch. A few moments later, the zombie went silent too.

Right then, Zauberin came charging out of the fire exit. She took one look at me staring at the door and whatever might lie beyond it, and then dashed right through its sagging frame. She had spunk, that woman! But then, she did not know that she was on the track of a zombie who hit home runs with people’s heads. Actually I reconsidered quickly. I felt sorry for the poor undead creature.

I wondered if I should take the opportunity to run. It was then that I discovered what the three mercenaries had been running from in the first place. I heard the rhythmic clattering of claws on the gleaming floor as one of Sign’s beasts walked through the door they had run out of. The midnight blue from its coat, green from its beady eyes and yellow from its drooling fangs combined to light up the dim corridor in an eerie, other-worldly glow. It looked at me and snarled. For once, I did not freeze. I ran right after Zauberin through the shattered door, zombie or no zombie. I could hear the creature bounding after me. As I neared the door, I felt the creature spring into the air. In desperation, I launched into a flying leap myself, literally soaring through the door.

For an instant, I saw the tableau laid out in front of me. Silvus and Zauberin were facing each other, ice-covered bodies covering the space between them. I could see wisps of a fast collapsing scape-warp on the floor. But what caught the eye, even in that one instant, was a huge glowing sphere suspended in the air in the middle of the corridor. It was a riot of glowing colours, rapidly expanding, clearly on the verge of exploding. Silvus had a snarl of rage on his face. Zauberin’s broad back was right in front of me. I could hear her shrieking and she sounded pretty pissed off too. She was shouting something along the lines of ‘No!’ when I flew full tilt into her firm derriere.

The collision sent her crashing to the floor. As I fell, I saw the shape of the beast fly past, mere inches above me. It was a surreal moment as I watched its muscular, alien form glide past me – missing me and rather neatly disappearing into the sphere. There was a huge gloop of sound and then the sphere simply collapsed in on itself. Sphere and cat were gone but Silvus however remained, and he was glaring at Zauberin and me, his staff glowing with the power of a summoned spell.

Amra

That devil of a boy had managed to pull off much more than I could ever have imagined. I had no clue how. What struck me in the midst of all that chaos was the sheer cheekiness with which he went about everything, reminding me all over again that he was just a boy; an evil and dangerous boy though. I knew just how dangerous the Yaqui was. But he had been rendered completely ineffective. The demon that the boy had conjured up was perfect to counter the Yaqui and his knives. It had a dozen blades and whip like things all about it, and it pirouetted about like a damn ballerina in a free-for-all knife fight. And he had just whistled it up, like it was a pet dog of some sort!

With the Yaqui down, I had to make a quick exit. They were too strong for me to take. I jumped through the hole the Yaqui had left, hoping desperately that another one of those deadly spells would not hit my exposed back.

I did not waste any more time. I had to get out and get backup. I ran up the corridor and yanked the door open, banging it close behind me. Things just got worse. I saw the ungainly frame of Lily ‘Zauberin’ Pendleton before me, ready to attack with a huge glowing ball of energy. She even had a historian behind her, recording the encounter. I could not believe the woman’s guts; to attack the CCC, engage a CCC officer in combat and to top it all, record all that was happening using a historian! I did not have the time to be outraged. I did not even have time to duck, as a bolt came right at me. I brought up the quirt to absorb the spell, quickly threw a shock pulse at the murderous woman and ran to the fire exit. I needed to get out of here. I rushed down the narrow metal stairs, willing myself to go fast. I could feel the stairs shuddering as Zauberin clanged heavily after me. For once, I was grateful for my small size. I could move faster. I soon hit the ground and took off in a fast, weaving run across the courtyard. I felt a bolt surge into the earth to my left, tearing up a huge chunk of concrete and dirt. This woman was aiming to kill me. I could not keep up the running and I couldn’t teleport either without the teleport unit inside the building.

I had no other option. I called to my Yen. I needed his summons! At the same moment, I leapt violently to the left, rolling as I landed on the hard floor. I was just in time. I saw another bolt searing into the spot I had been a second before. I rolled desperately, clutching my quirt hard, waiting for the next bolt to hit me and finish me. The bolt did come. But I was in luck. An instant before the bolt reached me, I felt the tug of a Yen summons. Everything froze, and still I saw the bolt inch forward, flattening up into a web of blue light on the port that had opened up. A moment later, I was in the infinite, formless white of Alter, sprawled flat on my back. A teleport block worked only with conscious teleports. They did not work with summons. That was the card I had been banking on. But it still had been too close for comfort.

I gingerly picked myself. The Yen was levitating in the standard posture, suspended vertically, leaning forward a little with arms and legs bent slightly as if floating in some liquid. He was looking at me expectantly. There was someone else in front of him. I looked closely, unable to believe my eyes. It was a little man with wings and all, looking very much like a faerie. I had seen something like that in one of those fairy tale books back in my childhood. But there he was, fluttering his wings lazily as he too stared at me rather curiously. I could see that he was translucent and wondered if this was a mental projection of some sort. The Yen did have a strange sense of humour.

“Amra?” the Yen spoke, his voice an unmistakable query.

I quickly saluted, offering the standard greeting, “Health and peace, Yen-Hito.

“To you too, Amra. What was that about? You sounded desperate.”

“The Free Word is attacking the Glasgow bureau, Hito. I had to make a quick exit.”

“I know about the attack. I have sent Yen Alahae with his team to help you.”

“Oh, you knew?” I was taken aback. I did not think the call for backup would have reached the Yen.

“Well, De Vorto here helped some with an advance notice on what was happening.”

“De Vorto?” I looked incredulously at the fluttering faerie, “Alain de Vorto?”

The faerie gave me a rueful grin. “The boy did this,” he explained with a gesture to his form, “I must say I do not find it so shocking now. It is pretty convenient to have this form and shape, especially when you’re a spirit.”

“Alain de Vorto?” I repeated, rather stupidly.

“Yes, Amra,” I could feel the smile in the Yen’s voice. Yen expressions always remained the same. You had to watch the voice for inflections that betrayed what they actually felt like. “De Vorto gave himself up to the CCC some time back, asking for a Yen, specifically me, to come pick him up. We have some history, going back a while. I have always been curious about all that he did and how he managed to stay off the CCC records. We were having a nice chat when I received your request. And gathering by the state you are in, I guess it was an emergency.”

I stole a glance at myself and discovered that my clothes were torn and stained in a dozen places. I remembered the circumstances I had left in. I felt myself flush with embarrassment and anger. It was a matter of some pride to me that I was always immaculate in presentation. “I apologise, Hito. I was engaged in combat with Lily Pendleton, Zauberin as she now is. She took quite a few shots at me with a lethal energy spell.” I felt the surroundings swirl grey as the Yen’s rage sympathetically affected the section of Alter we were in.

“She dares! The Corps will be avenged, Amra. Each one of those wordsmith rats and the norms with them will be hunted down like Continuum vermin.”

I saw the grey swirling pretty violently, making me dizzy as the entire space around me changed from pristine white and took on the appearance of the centre of a storm cloud. I was not surprised though. The CCC was firm in Continuum management and just about ruthless when it came to any kind of law-breaking. An attack on the CCC was completely unprecedented and needed to be dealt with swiftly and without mercy. They would be made examples of.

I waited patiently for the grey to turn a lighter and more comforting shade. De Vorto too faded into the background, his translucent form almost disappearing into the grey around him. I could not help wondering at the almost casual air between the Yen and De Vorto. It was almost like two friends catching up. There had been an order out for the execution of this character, and now the Yen was having a ‘nice chat’ with him. It was pretty confounding. Presently, the grey started clearing up. I sent the Yen a thought, not wanting to speak out the query aloud, “Hito, I was under the assumption that Alain de Vorto was a terminal convict. I do not understand the state of affairs right now.”

“I can understand your confusion, Amra,” the Yen went on, his voice still trembling from residual rage, “this last hour has been most enlightening. De Vorto has cleared up a lot of misunderstandings. The Lirii have been playing the obsessive alarmists all over again. We’ve had this problem with them in the past. They tend to act like their eyebrows are on fire the moment they see someone smarter than them. De Vorto had been busy the two hundred odd years he was active, and his work is commendable. I do not understand how the Lirii could have read any of his actions as threatening; especially when he went to such lengths to minimise the impact of his scapes on the Continuum.”

I realised that my jaw was slightly agape, astounded by the way the Lirii had just been written off like a bunch of paranoid spinsters. I had taken the report, word for word, as the absolute and incorruptible truth. All my actions had been guided by these very assumptions. Now, as what the Yen told me started filtering down and making sense, I felt like a complete idiot. I was not ready to give in, though.

“But Hito, the boy has resisted arrest and woven scapes that are incredibly powerful. He has probably done more damage to the Continuum than the rest of the miserable bunch of wordsmiths put together. He has also hurt and humiliated CCC officials. We cannot let him go!”

The last traces of grey around us disappeared. The Yen spoke, the smile once again apparent in his voice, “Perspective is a wonderful thing, Amra. I could have wrung that boy’s neck myself an hour back. Talking to De Vorto has been most enlightening. I have seen how the boy was torn from his world, thrust into the skewed realities of the Way of the Word, stuck with De Vorto here as a voice in his head. It would have driven anyone insane, leaving a trail of bodies on the way. Instead, the boy maintained his cool, and learned to weave under the most stressful conditions. I must say, I haven’t seen any damage due to his scapes yet.”

“He has only sought to stay alive in a world where everyone he met tried to do him harm,” De Vorto said, flitting forward. “Tell me, Amra. Do you blame him?”

I ignored the little figure. “Hito, I’m afraid I must bring him in for a trial. I agree that he is not a candidate for terminal execution anymore. But boy or not, I will not let him get away with all that he has done.”

“I appreciate that, Amra,” the Yen said, nodding his head, “And I support that decision. Justice must always be served.”

I could see that De Vorto was not too happy about that, but then that was the best he was going to get. I wondered if I should push my case for a conviction for Alain de Vorto too, but then decided to leave that to the Yen. I just wanted to get the boy alone in a scape-proof room for an hour. I think I owed myself that for the hell he had put me through.

I decided to leave. I wanted to be part of the team that hunted down the Free Word murderers. “Hito,” I saluted, “Permission to leave. I would like to be part of the team hunting the Free Word members.”

“Permission granted, Amra.” The Yen nodded.

As I turned to leave, summoning the words that would take me to the head office in the bureau nearest to the California City centre, I heard De Vorto speak.

“Amra, one piece of advice. Give up on the thought of arresting the boy. He won’t surrender. And neither will you be able to catch him if he is unwilling. He is simply too powerful.”

I turned around to reply with a ‘we’ll see’ as a parting shot. But I did not get the chance. The window opened up and swallowed me, leaving a half-uttered ‘we’ll’ hanging in the air. It just wasn’t my day, I guess.

Slick

Devil and Deep Sea if you’re orthodox; frying pan and fire if you’re feeling culinary; Scylla and Charybdis if you are mythologically inclined. Call it what you will, but it was the worst situation I had ever been in. I had heard that the Guild and the Free Word were both hunting me. And here I was, stuck between two of history’s most powerful wordsmiths. Some days, life tended to be just peachy.

I saw Silvus raise his staff, summoning whatever nightmare he had woven up for me. Simultaneously, Zauberin arced a glowing blue warp between her hands. They both wanted me dead. Very dead. I desperately thought up my time warp again, slowing everything to a tenth of its speed. It still was not enough. I remained a split second away from death. I had just managed to stretch that split second a bit.

They say your entire life passes in front of your eyes in moments like these. I could only think of one person, and she was lying unconscious a couple of feet away from me. In that one moment, all that Dew was and the best moments I had spent with her did come to my mind, though they did not really pass in front of my eyes quite the way I had imagined. I knew it was supposed to mean something that I could think only of her. But I was too much of a survivalist to dwell on sentimentality when there was still some hope left. Did I say hope? Yes, I was also quite an optimist.

At the same time, I saw two powerful arcs shoot towards me; one from Silvus’s staff and the other from Zauberin’s spell warp. In that instant, I knew what I had to do. I thought up a piece of pure vacuum right over my head.

“Nothing

That holds its own

Small enough to hold

But too powerful to control

Absolute vacuum

Now!”

I dove down even as I felt the air surge in response to the scape. I hit the ground hard, sliding into Dew’s form. I could feel immense power building over me.

It was an abstract thought given form, but it worked. I felt space twist and turn as a sphere of absolute nothing came into existence, displacing the air that had been there. And as absolute nothing usually does, it pulled violently at everything around it, including the two powerful spell bolts arcing roughly in the same direction. I grabbed Dew and tried a thought teleport, desperately trying to get the hell out of there. It did not work. I should have asked De Vorto to teach me how to do that too. Just as I was about to give up, I felt a sliver of reality open up, almost beckoning to me. It was a small tear in space-time that I could weave myself and Dew into, away from the mayhem that was going to break loose in less than a second. I could see it glowing a midnight blue, a tantalising possibility, as words kicked up a veritable storm in my head, trying to find a way into it. I did not spend any more time thinking. I held Dew tightly and willed myself into that space. The words that came to me were powerful and fantastic; words I had never used before. I felt everything twist and turn as the tear opened to swallow us up. The last thing I saw was the spell bolts converge in the sphere of vacuum even as a huge cat leapt right into that space. Before I could figure that one out, I felt myself, and Dew along with me, being pulled violently into another reality.

We emerged in another world altogether. Everything around me felt really weird. But right then, I needed to check if Dew was okay. Everything else could come later. Dew was still unconscious, limp in my arms. I checked her breathing and pulse. She was breathing evenly and her pulse was firm and steady. I heaved a sigh of relief. Now, I could figure out where we were and see what turn events had taken. I looked around. The terrain was completely desolate, rocky and bleak. It was like a desert; only it was like no desert I had seen. Come to think of it, I had not really seen any deserts, I just knew that no desert was supposed to look this!

A furious wind whipped up sand in harsh and gritty flurries. There was no sun to be seen, but the place was hot enough to get me sweaty and sticky in the few seconds we had been there. But the most alien part of the landscape was that everything was a shade of dark, disgusting purple, quite like the lifeblood of one of those slimy aliens in a B-movie. Where the hell had I got us!

“Welcome to my world,” came a voice that was sexy and deadly at the same time. It sounded like what every femme fatale in the history of mankind had aspired to, but could not quite achieve. A couple of days ago, it would have frozen me on the spot in anticipation and terror. But life has a way of preparing a man for everything that comes his way. I turned around and looked at the owner of the voice. I had spoken too soon. I did freeze. I had heard about this lady from Dew to know on sight that I was in the presence of the formidable and deadly Sign.