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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 5: Slade 252
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 257
Running around the high beam along the walls with his sword drawn made the challenge more interesting and intense. Doing pull-ups with a thirty pound weight hooked between his ankles and Shella hanging from his back made his biceps and triceps burn, and his ankles ache. He was not yet ready to take a diving roll with naked steel in his hand, but he was getting there.
“You want to sponsor this competition don’t you?” Shella asked. He grunted. It seemed like a good idea to instill more combat prowess and courage in the populace of the Throne World. Yet it also seemed as if this is what the Emperor had set him out to do without saying a word, and he was not fond of being manipulated. But from what he had heard in the last week, that was what the Emperor did a lot of the time.
“It--”
“What, m’lord? What bothers you?”
“I feel as if I’m a child being moved about by a clever adult to some end the adult doesn’t think I’ll understand, but is supposedly good for me.”
“How old are you?”
Slade thought and replied with “I have no idea. I was about twenty when I died, and lived roughly twenty years in your world, then a couple years on the Destiny and roughly a year in the Parakeet Valley. It didn’t take more than a few months for us to overthrow Acquivar, after which we might been a year or two fighting vampires in the future, and a year in that world where the blacks and whites were at war. It might have been another year in Arabia, and a couple years in the Parakeet Industrial Revolution--I might be around fifty.” It was difficult as he had been to so many different worlds.
“How old is the Emperor?”
“Two hundred plus, I think.”
“Perhaps to him, you are a child. You’re used to being the experienced one. Derek respects you, Kondor does, and both are highly skilled men. If there had not been cheating, I think you would have gotten much higher in the rankings for the sword fighting. Even still, you ranked. You are a very dangerous man. Yet you respect the Caliph of the West Wind, and your gods, like Thor.”
“Yes, well, they’re gods and ancient spirits,” he gusted out, but then nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I do respect the Caliph and the Aesir. I should remember that there are going to be people who even if they are not versers are more experienced than me.”
“And even of versers, you mentioned Omigger--Merlin. Even Lauren regards him with great respect.”
“True.” Slade had caught his breath, and began doing somersaults in the air even as he talked to his wife who sat on a chair by the padded wall on the padded mat of the combat center. “I know there is a prophecy here, and it’s said to be linked to a man who taught them English. I think that might be Omigger.”
“Could it be us?”
“I don’t understand, honey.” Slade took off his sword, and began handstand exercises.
“I mean, could we have come back to this universe in our Future, but their past?”
Slade’s face crinkled up even as he stood upside down on his hands.
“I--I honestly don’t know.”
He stopped and stared at her in silence for a moment before she returned to the previous subject. “So what about the sponsorship?”
“I don’t totally understand the Emperor. He might be manipulating me for bad reasons.”
“I suppose you can’t just ask him.”
“No.” Slade chuffed out a short laugh. “He’s not that kind of being. Remember that giant gold stage?”
“How could I forget it? I think the treasurer back in the palace I grew up in would have had a seizure if he had seen all that gold just lying there. A literal small hill of pure gold.”
“My people would have started a war over that much gold,” Slade admitted, thinking back to Earth.
Slade ran around the room again, and did one flip without blade on the high beam.
“I can’t know what the Emperor plans, and although I think I like him, he might be, no, he is playing me, even if for good reason. So, do I do the good I see to do, or do I hold my hand back for fear of what he might make of it?”
Shella waited calmly. Her attentive but patient and placid look showed that she had known what Slade was going to do all along. Her husband, warrior non-pareil, master of blade and blaster, was a man of action. A possible threat in the Future did not outweigh a Need now.
“I’ll sponsor it.”
“OK. To celebrate, where are you taking me to dinner?” She smiled cutely up at him, and he shook his head, letting fly drops of sweat.
“I’ll think of something while I take a shower.”
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #524: Twisting Worlds. 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:
