A Shuffling of Planets (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  "Right," I couldn't resist mocking. "Because you were okay with letting me leave before this." I stared into his eyes and sent a telekinetic pulse to his brain.

  Ideally, it would either paralyze him for a moment or slow down his reactions. To be honest it’s a lot like doing brain surgery blind with someone in the next room calling out if your hot and cold. Last time I tried it I think I made a guy randomly twitch. This time I think it worked.

  At least it worked enough to allow me to tap the gaping chest wound without resistance and inject a far more reliable psionic pulse into his brain. His eyes closed and he dropped like a rock towards the ground far below. With any luck, he wouldn't wake up for a week and wouldn't remember a thing. Well assuming he survived that gaping chest wound thing. He probably would, he seemed very lively.

  In any case, he dropped away and I flew back through the portal.

  Chapter 6

  One arm shorter and ten seconds later I was finally through the portal. Staring at the almost bisected tentacle beast, that was amazingly lively and still flailing tendrils of agonizing psionic energy, I took a moment to think. Why did I want to be here? I had dismissed my remaining sword in order to attack the bodybuilding alien, so I took far more hits from the wild attacks. The ring of flying simply wasn't made for dodging. Fortunately, the numbing ability I was abusing the heck out of, blocked the pain from my missing body parts as well as the whip attacks.

  "Calm down, Mr. Kraken," I said shakenly in the middle of desperately flying in circles. "Why so cranky? Did I kill your dog by accident?"

  "Damn you to hell! I will drain you dry and use your remaining blood to make these ten realms my own!"

  Okay, that was oddly coherent, if random. Why would a random dimensional monster know the effect of my blood and hate me to the core of my being? As I was alternating from pondering this and darting in between the attacks Zorro spoke up. "Now the vile blood-sucking creature is injured we must take advantage of this time. His kind are known to be masters of dimensional travel and escape."

  That struck me as odd since the dimensions were locked. How did this thing and Zorro get through the portal anyway? What was it anyway? Some eldritch being? I had heard most of them had tentacles. My aura sense was still active if it would just stop attacking me for a second, I was hoping to learn a bit more about it. Wait. Bloodsucking creature that happens to know about my blood.

  "No way! You’re a vampire?" I shouted in disbelief. "I thought only humanoids could become vampires. Did some master vampire get lonely and decide to turn a sewer slime?"

  "I'll kill you! Then I'll raise you as my minion and kill you again!"

  "Not likely, you're half the slime thing you used to be. As soon as they re-arm their canon of doom your remains will be scattered across the city," I mocked the creature.

  "Your half right," Zorro interjected, trying to pin the creature down with his energy saber. Or rapier, it seemed to change each swing. It confused me but even more, it confused the vampire blob. "This is the primary vampire. All the others are created and controlled by this thing."

  "Oh." I remained silent a moment while frantically moving. I activated another force field. Zorro had almost gotten the creature to stop chasing me. After all, every minute that it ignored him and focused on me was another chained flurry of massive damage from his magical weapon. "So, I did kill your dog. I didn't expect the vampire god to be so... disgusting looking. I thought your avatar thingy was bad. I see why you used humanoid minions and never showed yourself. I almost feel bad for you... well, not really but... ugh."

  "Die!" And there went my respite. It was actually getting harder to avoid this thing the more it got angry. However, the masked avenger was making huge wounds in the thing.

  "Here, it comes! Move out of the way Zorro!" I pretended to look towards the school. My bluff worked because both the masked man and the vampire god split to the sides. Then the eldritch energies built up around the creature and it faded from view.

  "I'll come back to collect my revenge. Your blood will pave the way for a new world. My world!"

  "He can monologue from another dimension," I muttered to myself. "He truly is a god."

  "Something is wrong with the fabric of the dimensions. Since he didn't go through the portal, I have my doubts about whether that was a dimensional breach. Most likely it was just a local teleport." I stared at him blankly. I knew this already.

  "You must be good at parties and magic tricks," I said blandly. No doubt he was the one that explained what the joke meant and how the magic tricks were actually done. "The portals destabilizing. If you want to go back you should head over now. Next time please leave your tentacle beast on your own side. I mean vampire god."

  "That was no god. Just a beast to be put down." He waved jauntily at me and the whirlwind surrounding him moved him towards the portal. It was now shimmering and the edges were distorting and wobbling like a bubble about to pop. "Until next time."

  He moved straight into the horizon. To my surprise he was immediately ejected away from the oscillating portal. I looked dumbly from the dimensional breach to the human cannonball. Absently I grasped the air with my one good hand and invoked a bit of telekinesis. A splitting pain erupted in the head as the remaining dregs of psionic energy drained away.

  "Ow," I moaned. Apparently, this was a pain deep in my brain which was immune to the suppression I had active. Lovely. Still, the talent was active so I slowly brought the masked man's unwilling flight under control and brought him arcing towards me. Behind us the portal closed with a final flash and soundless thunder.

  "I don't understand," the man muttered dazedly. "The beast brought me here why couldn't I go back."

  "I think..." I said slowly, putting together the logic as my head threatened to explode. "The creature's blood had a reagent in it that allowed it to pass through the portal. I had noticed that the vampire was smoking, as were you since you were covered in blood."

  "It’s a vampire lord," the man offered dejectedly. "As long as the sun's out they smoke. As does their blood."

  "True. Even the really big disgusting ones, apparently," I nodded in agreement. "However, it's also the characteristics of using blood to temporarily overcome of spell restriction. When the blood completely evaporates, so does the ability to..." I paused a moment to glance down at the ring I had borrowed from the wayward patrolman. The last of the blood I had smeared on it had just burnt itself off. "Crap."

  Suddenly I was in freefall. A wave of my hand and a barked trigger word and cast Float. This was a very useful 3rd-semester spell. Suddenly I was gently gliding down. Zorro, after an initially abrupt drop, paralleled me a few meters away.

  "Sorry, spell ran out. We're landing. Welcome to Gildorn. Land of assassins and home of the Academy of cantrips. Of Gildorn."

  "Thank you for welcoming our conquering hero, Professor," a familiar voice drifted down. Looking up I saw Durmont flying towards us, a squad of twenty flying wizards in formation at his back. Further away I saw slowly flying barges with shimmering fields around them and squat ugly looking cannons mounted along the sides approaching.

  "My pleasure. Killing Primals is my calling. Vampires are my specialty." I gave him a long look. What kind of job was that? That’s like being the guy that cleans out the sewer. "Still, without that superweapon you guys pulled out it would have been a long battle to get to the same point."

  "You're welcome..." I began before Sembling interrupted me.

  "Bah, it wasn't us," he said as he glanced around the city with deep suspicion. "I must have been a rogue wizard. Spells of that magnitude are only allowed to be used by the government. Look at the damage it did! Did you say something Professor?"

  "No. Not all," I said innocently. I followed Durmont's gesture and noted that all the tall building from the Academy on the far side of the city to the area about a kilometer away showed damage. Some were missing towers, others had holes in the walls. A few were simply piles of rubble. "Obviously it was tha
t really cute dragon."

  "This day will live on in infamy," the wizard continued gloomily. "First a massive dragon attacks City Hall and kills half the councilors there and then an eldritch abomination attacks while all our resources are diverted."

  "Yeah, what horrible timing," I commiserated.

  "We all saw what happened," Durmont said, looking at Zorro sympathetically. "Although you are trapped away from your home, we welcome you. I am Durmont Sembling. The principal of Gildorn Academy and presently the city council's head."

  "Thanks," Zorro replied with a smile. "Call me Diego de la Vega. Scratch that. Just call me Diego. Only the Professor here would get the joke."

  I looked at him blankly. He did jokes? Which one was it? I had totally missed it.

  "The Zorro reference," Diego prompted.

  I laughed and nodded uneasily. I still didn't get it.

  "Anyway, I am a bit of dimensional traveler," Diego explained. "I had just stopped in the last one to take care of a vampire infestation when the prohibitions went up. It was a fun world, if a bit weird, but I never meant to stay there."

  "We call it the Chains."

  "You do? President Carlos never mentioned it."

  I looked a bit dejected at that. "Fine, call it the Prohibition but it's been done before and it didn't work." Diego laughed at this, leading us to get an odd look from Durmont.

  "Professor, how did you get here. It sounds like we're from the same place."

  "Not really. Apparently, Vatapi was an admirer of our type of dimension. Yours and mine are very close analogs but mine seems to be from almost hundred years later. Considering there are only ten dimensions involved it may have some kind of purpose."

  "Who is Vatapi?" It was Diego's turn to look blankly at me.

  "The demon lord that linked the dimensions through a massive circle array. He planned to carve a little multiplanar hell to rule over. Naturally, he had to lock everyone else out. The little vampire god... er, or Primal had the key to get through." I scowled as I said this.

  Looking back, it was obvious that Sebastian had gotten my blood from that time he bit me and transferred it to the primal vampire. My inherited memories completely left out that true vampires were primal squid entities. I was still dubious about this. I mean most of the Primals I had heard of had a lot of tentacles and eyes but I thought a vampire would be more humanoid. I still wasn't sure which he was and Maribel's lessons on the differences hadn't made much clear. Was the rule that if you had tentacles you were a Primal? You learn something new every day.

  "Wait. So that was Vanth?" I asked hesitantly.

  "That was what he called himself," Diego confirmed.

  "Who?" chorused Durmont.

  "He was the god of vampires... or that’s what lore said. He possessed the vampires after Lamia was locked out of the dimensions." By this time, we had settled onto the street. The crowds were used to air traffic and moved out of the way, forming a space around us. Despite the stopped vehicles and rubbernecking citizens, the destruction was almost unnoticeable from ground level. Well, except for a few trails of smoke coming from the burning houses.

  "Who is Lamia?" Sembling repeated numbly. Dammit! This is why talking to yourself is bad. You end up explaining stupid things to people who don't bother to educate themselves.

  "I thought you people had temples and gods?" I sighed in exasperation. "Hey is that barbeque? I'll take that whole leg. Give him one too." I noted that one of the tents on the side of the road was cooking something delicious. As long as I was talking, I might as well do something useful with my mouth.

  "Okay, Lamia is a minor Greek goddess, who had some wacky fun-loving adventure where everyone died and had her children killed and turned into vampires. She finagled the power to wrest control of vampires from the vampire god. Vanth, apparently. Who is not a god." I took a bite out of the leg and motioned for Diego to take the other one.

  I think I could make better but it wasn't too bad and even though I didn't usually eat, I was regrowing an arm. Sembling apparently hadn't noticed. My respect for him dwindled a tiny bit. It was true I had directed the magical robe to cover it but I was decidedly lopsided. Maybe a get-well card would be a bit much to ask but how about a nod of appreciation. I mean it's not like they knew I was indirectly... or directly responsible for most of the destruction today.

  "Wait, your vampires are good?" Diego expressed his disbelief while tentatively nibbling a skewer of meat. Mine was pork. I am not sure what his was. "Is that possible?"

  "That would explain why vampires ceased to have those massive outbreaks histories speak of." The councilor nodded in enlightenment. "I wouldn't call them good, but they didn't seem to be any more dangerous than any other deadly supernatural creature. Until the Prohibition."

  "See, that’s why you don't have Prohibition, it encourages the underworld and causes drunken and disorderly conduct." Diego chuckled at my reference to America's ancient past. Dermont looked at me in confusion. Again.

  "I don't understand, Professor."

  "Never mind. It's not funny if you have to explain it." I shrugged and continued. "Anyway, the Chains went up and with Lamia's influenced removed, Vanth took control. Most of the vampires went crazy and started acting like the old-time monsters they were."

  "So, vampires are bad again," Diego said around a mouthful of rat meat.

  "Not really. Lamia has been invited back into the chained worlds and is presently wresting her minions back from the incarnation of tentacled undeath."

  "But the gods are gone," Sembling protested weakly. "All the temples and priests agree."

  "Well, they're mostly right."

  "So... are vampires for killing or not," Diego asked with deep concern.

  "If they attack you then kill them. The vampires of this world and Earth... my Earth, are in the process of revolt. Or reclamation. Or whatever it is."

  "How did you find all this out?" Sembling asked in concern.

  "No comment," I said flatly. "Except Lamia is an idiot."

  "What?"

  "Nothing," I said absentmindedly. There seems to be a cloud of dust moving towards us. I could tell that the sea of gawkers around us was being jostled aside by something large heading our way. "Sembling is that something from you?"

  "Is what mine," he looked over at the disturbance. "Is that a dragon's head?"

  "What?" I shouted in dismay, craning my neck a bit more to see what was coming towards us. Then the crowd of people parted.

  My first reaction was relief. There was definitely a dragon's decapitated head. However, it wasn't my girlfriend. It was, in fact, a Hydra's head. My old friend Kregar, who I had tried my damnedest to kill. I had failed but I didn't feel too bad about it. When dealing with adult dragons I had learned to enjoy any non-fatal outcomes. Really! I often tell myself this.

  The person dragging this massive head along the ground was Faramond. He gripped one of the longer teeth over his shoulder and was hauling it behind me. It looked very awkward. I would have definitely gone with a grip on the spine, after a bit of debriding. He literally had two wizard patrolmen hovering a few meters above the ground as they followed and glared at his back.

  Part of the reason for the glaring, other than him being a massive jerk, was probably the large furrow of cracked, displaced and smashed cobblestone he was leaving behind. I would hate to be the civil engineer that had to fix that. It likely led all the way back to the forest where the hydra used to live.

  "Faramond. No so horrible to see you." I nodded in greeting. "I think you should know that I have met someone I like even less than you. I have been enlightened."

  "Great. Where's lady Estella?" His words were short and to the point. Frankly, it was his best feature. Especially now. His normally shining armor was caked with black blood and gore. His breastplate was scratched and dented and his helm was partially crooked due to it no longer being symmetrical. Still, it wasn't his blood and gore and I couldn't see any wounds. That coupled with actually beheadi
ng one of the three heads of the hydra left me thinking he had come out ahead.

  "Professor, you know this mighty knight," asked Sembling.

  "Yes, he's Stella's retainer," I replied. Sembling and Diego both looked at me blankly. "Elementalist. Took all your elementals and headed off to colonize some poor planet." Diego still looked blank. This was natural since he hadn't actually been here for those events. Sembling had a look of dawning horror. "Yes, she's the reason why all your elementalists are crippled and can't even stop the fires over there," I said while pointing to some raising smoke where Maribel had been carousing inside City Hall. "Or over there," I pointed to the growing trails of flame and smoke. Wait, those were from my anchor stone being turned into a missile. "Anyway, the elementals would have gone mad and destroyed the city anyway. Looking at it that way, you could even thank her." Sembling looked unconvinced. His left eye was twitching and I think I may have heard teeth grinding. Yeah, that may be a hard sell. I think perhaps the only reason the army wasn't sent after Stella on her exodus was that she literally had an army of hundreds of minor and major elementals. Personally, I would rather arm wrestle Kregar.

  "Yes. Thank her," growled Sembling. I don't think he was sincere but it was hard to tell through his growling.

  "Sounds like you have a few stories to tell," Diego interjected with an easy-going smile.

  "Eh, stuff happened. Then we had lunch," I said with a shrug, reminding myself to finish off the leg.

  "Yes, you're great. Where's Lady Estella?" And now I hate Faramond again.

  "I really haven't the faintest idea. I was going to go with her but I was napping when she left. She couldn't wait for me." I had hoped to minimize the collateral damage when she "terraformed" the chosen world to an elemental's haven. I admit I am pretty blasé about such things but depending on who the natives are, it could literally kill billions. Still, it was likely that a world she chose that already had such a harsh environment would be home to a hardy breed. Maybe they'll even like it.

  I snorted to myself. I couldn't even come close to making myself believe that.