Patreon or PayPal Me keeps this site and its author alive. Thank you. |
Stories from the Verse
Spy Verses
Chapter 100: Slade 122
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Chapter 99: Kondor 122
The Slades were out of the building before daybreak. Even so, Colonel Mlambo said goodbye to them as they were departing, and again welcomed them to return. They were well away from the building headed west before the sun rose behind them and Shella spoke.
“Where are we headed, m’lord?”
Slade smiled. “Well, it’s going to sound crazy, but we’re looking for Slade Manor.”
“My lord, I know that I don’t understand this whole multiverse thing as well as you do, but I would have thought that Slade Manor, being in another universe, well--we can’t get there from here.”
“That’s right. Taken that way.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Well, that chest of baubles is worth quite a bit. I’m betting we can trade a portion of it for a large house with a lot of land in white territory--particularly if we look near the border but not in the current combat zone, where property values have undoubtedly plummeted. We give the owner reasonable value for his home, move in, and rename the place Slade Manor. Maybe we do a bit of spell research. I’d like to be able to set up something like our insignificancy spell as a permanent feature of the house--although it will make it difficult for expected guests to find it. Have to think about that.”
“I see, m’lord.”
“Then we can find our way back to General Vargas and tell Lieutenant what’s-his-name--”
“Captain Lee.”
“Right, Captain Lee. Tell him his information is out of date, that Slade Manor does in fact exist and I am in fact Robert Elvis Lord Slade of Slade Manor, whatever he thinks. He’s going to argue the point, maybe, but at that point it becomes silly.”
They trudged along silently for another minute.
“So,” Shella said, “how do we find this place?”
“Well, as I remember Vargas’ maps, a couple days west of here the ground rises into low mountains and the battle lines separate significantly--no one really wants to fight in the mountains.”
“You’ve done it, and quite well, m’lord.”
“Indeed. But you’ll notice that we were able to defeat a sizable number of armed cavalry in part because they couldn’t maneuver so well in the pass.”
“Ah, but also because you are a skilled fighter and a skilled leader. We also defeated a sizable force that ambushed us in a barn on an open field.”
Slade nodded. That was certainly true. “Well, I could be wrong, but the maps seem to show a space there, and if there is a manor there I would bet that the owner regrets not having sold sooner, or having bought it at a bad time. So that’s the plan. Right now, we have to cover a lot of distance and stay out of sight. I don’t suppose we could use that walking the twilight thing we used back in Lauren’s vampire world?”
“Sorry. I learned how to do that, but you have to know what the place you are going looks like to get there.”
“Yeah, I remember that. Well, nothing for it then. We walk.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #257: Verser Relationships. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
