Chapter 8

Amelie was waiting for Charlie as he exited his last class of the day--being Friday, the class was computer repair. Over his shoulder was the bag in which his compound bow was kept--he'd decided to take archery this semester for his phys. ed. elective. He hugged Amelie and placed his hand gently on her swollen abdomen.

"Are you ready for Spring Break, honey?" he asked.

"Mmm, nine whole days without having to be separated from you because of classes." she cooed. They kissed lingeringly, and the hall was empty when they finally started on their way back home. She cast a long, lingering, nostalgic look at the dorm building as they passed it by--married students weren't allowed to live at the dorms, because the college didn't have the right do deny married students conjugal rights with their spouses, and the guard couldn't tell which coital screams were coming from the married students and which ones were coming from an illicit liaison. Charlie looked both ways before they crossed the street to the off-campus apartment complex that now housed their gate to Spain--though Charlie had left the soundproofing spell as a gift to whoever got his room this semester. The new place represented an increase in freedom, but a decrease in standard of maintenance--the super seemed particularly offended when asked to actually do his job instead of just taking advantage of the privileges thereof, such as having a key to every apartment. The second day after they'd moved, Charlie had cast a spell around the building to stop pests from crawling under the door of the closet gate, which had resulted in the apparently spontaneous combustion of every rodent, reptile and arthropod brought into the building, whether it was a pest, someone's pet, a biology specimen or even, on one occasion, an order of popcorn shrimp. Annemarie had come out the day after, cancelled Charlie's spell and taught him a better one.

Charlie was learning. He had already mastered the basic elemental manipulations and several minor healing techniques. He could make things invisible, make them glow for a short time, alter gravity's effect on them, reveal the magical nature of things, cast an illusion of almost anything, and in many cases dispel magic. Scrying and location spells were easy for him, and he was learning to identify some of the more common potions by scent--a useful skill, since potions and poisons were something of a tradition among magic-users, like pistols at ten paces.

The apartment door closed, shutting out the sounds of screaming children, arguments in English and Spanish, necessary repairs being done here and there (by the tenants), and the music someone was using to drown it all out.

"Welcome home, Master!" Hilda chimed from the apartment's kitchenette.

"What's cooking?" Charlie asked.

"Dumplings." Hilda replied as he pulled her into his arms, being careful of her own swelling belly, hidden though it was behind her apron. He kissed her while Amelie scooped the dumplings out of the broth and into the large, metal bowl with the deboned chicken and set about thickening the broth into chicken gravy. Charlie wasn't the only one who was learning. "Annemarie is waiting for you on the other side." Hilda said once she'd gathered her wits after one of Charlie's better kisses. He left the two to their tasks. Being adoring love-slaves of the same Master hadn't made them friends, but at least they managed to get along--if only because they both knew he didn't like it when they fought.

On the other side of the closet gate, Charlie found Annemarie glaring peevishly at Steve, who was standing in the middle of a magic circle along with Claudia. The Druidess was holding her pocket-dimension backpack in one hand.

"What's going on?" Charlie asked.

"She's totally overreacting!" Steve shouted.

"He was playing with my backpack." Annemarie said, handing the item over. Charlie reached inside, becoming aware as he did so of the dimension's contents. He came out with a TV dinner that burned his hand, so he threw it onto the counter and healed the burn.

"Why is Claudia in there too?" Charlie asked.

"She was the first thing I took out when I caught Steve stuffing the hat stand in here." Annemarie sighed in frustration. "She immediately leapt to the defense of her love, Master and husband, of course."

Charlie let a frown cross his face briefly. The lesson Steve had learned about playing with magical items apparently was limited only to leaving things alone until he had seen Charlie use them safely. "Why did you stuff Claudia in the pack?" he asked.

"I was gonna smuggle her into the movies." Steve said.

"Along with a piping-hot TV dinner, a hat stand, and half the stuff in my house that can fit through the opening?" Charlie asked, pulling taut the drawstring and fastening the covering over the opening. The pack was, of course, still limp. If it could be stretched thin enough to fit through the circumference of the drawstring, the whole of the world could be stored inside without filling it up or increasing its mass in this dimension. It had quickly become Steve's favorite toy--there were still several trays of food from a buffet place Steve had cleaned out last month, and they would still be hot when and if Charlie ever bothered to pull them out. He set his own book bag on the floor and pulled everything out of it, opening the pocket-dimension backpack again and transferring his own bag's contents into the pocket dimension.

"Dude!" Steve protested.

"What? I was getting tired of lugging that heavy thing around anyway, so I'll solve two problems at once." Charlie said. He slid the bow and its carrying bag in as well. As an afterthought, he tossed the Grimoire of Tashi Myrdhynn inside as well. The timeless stasis of the pocket dimension would keep the slave-happy ghost in check, he thought. "Is there anything you need out of here, Annemarie?" he asked.

"No, Master, all my possessions were unpacked when I moved in, and he hasn't gotten around to putting them back in." Annemarie said.

"Good. Now, let Steve out of the circle, then help him get dinner in here from the apartment. I don't want Amelie and Hilda carrying so much as a Harry Potter book."

"Yes, Master." Annemarie responded, and broke the circle. Chastened for the moment, Steve followed Annemarie through the closet. Claudia had turned away, her hand gently caressing her own baby bulge. She was just now starting to show, and was nowhere near as gravid as Amelie or Hilda, to say nothing of Chelsea Smithe, who it turned out was carrying quadruplets--possibly a side-effect of making her feline form permanent. Nevertheless, Steve was as conscientious about keeping her from moving heavy loads as Charlie. At least in that regard, he was beginning to show the first signs of responsible adulthood.

"I know it's easier to just let him do all the thinking and tell you what to do, but you'd serve him better by reminding him of what's right."

"I cannot oppose Master, or disobey him." Claudia said. "It's hard enough just to keep from chewing you out for giving him limits."

"I'm not asking you to." Charlie said easily. "I just think you're in an excellent position to help him have fewer regrets when he looks back on these days in the future." The Chelseas came downstairs, arm in arm, Smith assisting Smithe in her delicate condition. "Hiya, Chelse, Kitten." he said. The two grinned and increased their pace--not by much, but just enough that he noticed. He greeted each with a kiss, and scooped the purring Chelsea Smithe into his arms, carrying her with some difficulty into the kitchen. Chelsea Smith pulled out one of the cushioned chairs and Charlie set the cat-woman down.

"Welcome home, Master!" Sanna said cheerfully, turning off the heat beneath the pots she was tending. She embraced him and kissed him lustily. Kamilah sank to her knees and bowed her head, remaining that way until Charlie lifted her chin and kissed her. She moaned, her nipples dimpling the maid's uniform she wore. The kitchen was soon filled with women, Steve taking his place across the table from Charlie as the only other male in the house, unless one counted the haunted book. Hato used chopsticks to eat her chicken and dumplings, though the stuffing and beans proved uncooperative.

"So, Steve, what are you planning on doing for Spring Break?" Charlie asked.

"I got two tickets to Cancun." Steve said. "How 'bout you?"

"I'm taking the harem camping." Charlie responded. "The Black Forest."

"That sounds really boring." Steve responded. Charlie shrugged.

Far away, watching from a scrying pool, a figure smiled to himself. His body was covered with burn scars from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He dismissed his spell and chanted a spell of transportation. There were preparations to make.

"What's this?" Charlie asked, holding up a dusty sword in an equally-dusty scabbard. He'd decided to put all the magical artifacts into the backpack--at least the ones that would fit--to remove any temptation Steve might feel to bring one with him.

"Its name translates as 'Sword of Judgment.'" Amelie said, sitting at the bottom of the basement stairs. "It's said that it can only be drawn by those with just hearts, and that it only cuts those with unjust ones."

"Does it work?" Charlie asked, unsheathing the sword as easily as unwrapping a straw.

"I honestly don't know, Master, I could never draw it." Amelie responded with a blush. "That's why I put it down here." Charlie tested the blade against his thumb, but it passed through his hand harmlessly, as if the blade was an illusion.

"Guess I've been judged." he said, putting the sword back in its scabbard, which he then put in the backpack. "What about this one?" he asked, picking up a much larger two-handed greatsword.

"I'm afraid I can't draw that one either, Master." Amelie responded. "Nor can I read the writing on the sheath. I am given to understand that the writing is Atlantean."

"Then maybe I should have Sanna bring it to the Myrdhynns later on to see if they can translate it--and if it's too powerful, maybe I should let them keep it." Charlie said, adding it to the collection. "Well, that's it." he said. The only magical artifacts left on the premises were a horse-cart that summoned ghostly, skeletal horses to pull it, the warded bookshelf with the now-amalgamated grimoire collection, and a cursed jukebox that forced all who heard it to dance. He headed up the stairs, drawing Amelie with him, and began the process of packing for their trip. The tent he'd bought fit easily through the opening into his pack, as did the inflatable air mattresses. The girls packed things in case they should become separated from the group and so they wouldn't look like idiots going camping without provisions if they met anyone. Chelsea Smith carried the hibachi, and Hato had cleverly disguised her katanas as hiking poles strapped under her pack. Amelie cast the transportation spell to the city limits of a German town near the borders of the forest. They rented a car and drove it to the campsite.

"Are you sure you want to bring them here?" asked the park ranger, gesturing to the pregnant members of the harem.

"We'll be careful." Charlie assured the man.

"Remember to pack out your trash." the man said as he handed Charlie his permit. Amelie stuck out her tongue at the man when his back was turned.

They arrived at the campsite without incident, but as they piled out of the car, Hilda gasped. "It's him!" she exclaimed. Charlie whirled and barely avoided a knife which had been thrown by a walking burn scar.

"What the hell?" he said, rolling and returning to his feet. The charred man threw a flame-spell toward Hilda, but Charlie planted himself between the caster and the target. His body flashed as the flames reached him, and their direction changed.

"Shit!" the man exclaimed in a voice that sounded very much like Yao from Disney's Mulan, as he dodged to the side, allowing a bush to be incinerated instead of himself. Sanna wasted a moment to put the flames out with an ice spell. "You're every bit as clever as before, Charlie!" the man growled.

"I'm sorry, Crispy, but I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." Charlie said. "And with a face like yours, I think I'd remember, no matter how plastered I was."

"You insult me! How dare you suggest you don't remember what you've done to me! Especially as I've lived every day for the last two thousand years and more with the mark of your actions!"

"You must be mistaken, my char-broiled friend." Charlie said calmly. "I haven't been alive that long."

"Impossible!" the burned man said. "It was you, I know it! You, who are charmed against hostile magicks! You, who wear the pack of plenty! You, who smote my King centuries ago in Atlantis!"

"Now I know your brain's fried, Scorch." Charlie said, his eyes narrowing. "I've never killed anyone, and Atlantis disappeared millennia before I was born."

"Liar!" the stranger shouted.

"You are the liar!" Amelie responded.

"See the truth of my words!" the stranger said, and he began to chant a spell. A strange, green cloud appeared over his head, opening out in a circular shape to show a vast island-continent dotted with great palaces and pyramidal temples, walled cities and palisaded villages, and lined with paved roads.

Amelie managed to tear her gaze away from the beauty of the illusion to note that the stranger was muttering another spell under his breath. She could feel the magic of banishment building, and could sense that it was directed at the ground under Charlie's feet. Fearing that his charm wouldn't protect him, she cast a spell of her own to scramble the spell.

Something went wrong. The vision of the past and the banishment spell mixed, and a swirling vortex appeared under Charlie's feet. He cried out as he fell, and the portal closed. "No!" Amelie shrieked, clawing at the ground where the portal had been, then turned on the charred stranger with her eyes glowing crimson with rage. Red lightning lashed out from her eyes, wrapping around her hated enemy like bull-whips. He screamed with the pain of it, but Amelie vowed that this was only the beginning.

"No! Don't kill him!" Sanna shouted. "We need him to bring Master back!"

Master... Amelie thought, the single word cutting through her wrath. The lightnings disappeared, and Amelie sank to her knees, wrapping her arms around her belly. "Where have you sent him?" she demanded, hot tears leaking down her cheeks.

"You mean, where have YOU sent him!" the man coughed. "I would have banished him to the Demon Plane, but you fouled my spell! Now there's no telling where he could be!" He began to laugh. Sanna struck him with a lightning spell to stop his laughing, then a sleeping spell to keep him out of trouble. She put her hands on the place where their Master had stood. Amelie did the same, as did Annemarie.

"Where is Master?" Kamilah asked, her eyes brimming with tears.

"More important than 'where' is 'when.'" Sanna said, maintaining her outer calm with difficulty. "The banishment spell mixed with the vision-spell he was using as a distraction. He's been sent back to ancient Atlantis."

"We have to get him back!" Amelie shrilled desperately. "He mustn't share Atlantis' destiny!"

"He won't." Annemarie said. "Sanna, he didn't have your spell book in the pack, did he?"

"No, except for Tashi Myrdhynn's, he left all the spell books on the shelf." Sanna said, rising to her feet. "I shall return directly." She disappeared then. Hato and Kamilah busied themselves binding and gagging the stranger. Amelie and Annemarie sealed him in a triple triad of wards to keep him from doing any more damage.

Please, be safe, my love, my Master. she thought, and the child within her squirmed.

"Hannity! There you are!" Princess Scheris quickly crossed the palace yard, her sandals slapping on the flagstones, her shift fluttering in the breeze of her passage. The old Mage and seer seemed not to have heard her. He was staring off into space, his skin as pale as parchment. "Hannity?" she asked, putting her hand on his stooped shoulder. He jumped and looked at her in surprise.

"Scheris! You startled me!"

"What troubles you, Old Uncle?" she asked, hoping to draw him out with childhood nicknames. He smiled, but it looked forced.

"It's nothing I can help, nor you, so why bother?" he asked. "Run, play like it was going out of fashion!"

"Oh, Hannity, is it the lump again?" she asked. "I do wish I knew how to heal it."

"No magic you or I know can mend a body that has turned against itself." the seer said. "Anyway, it's got nothing to do with that."

"Then what is it?" Scheris asked.

"As I said, nothing we can help. You'll be happier not knowing, and I wish I didn't know."

"Hannity, you know as well as I that the gods never let mortals glimpse the future without a reason." Scheris said. "At least, that's what you always taught me." He hung his head and sighed--a sigh she couldn't help echoing. Aside from her mother, Hannity was the only person in the palace she could talk to. Her father, King August, was all duty all the time, and had spent the five years since she had begun menstruating in negotiations for a politically-advantageous marriage. Her two older brothers had bullied her through much of her childhood, but now spent their days training to take the throne themselves or hunting, and her younger brothers emulated the older ones in their aloofness, leaving Scheris alone but for her mentor and her mother. Hannity grunted as he rose to his feet.

"Anyway, why aren't you dressed?" he asked, gesturing at her sandals and shift.

"I am. You should have seen me yesterday afternoon in the fountain." she responded with a wink.

"What if someone else had seen you?"

"It would be a nice change of pace." Scheris responded. "I almost wish my brothers would pick on me again. The good news is, Scour says it's going to be even hotter today, so I'll bet that means the heat's going to break." Hannity laughed until the cancerous lump under his ribcage reminded him of its presence and made him wince. Scour was a combat Mage who had taken Hannity's place at the King's side since his ailment had rendered him unable to travel on long campaigns. The man had little talent or patience for any spell that didn't produce immediate and deadly results, but the King's Mage was expected to forecast important events, weather and tides--which, it seemed, he did, but in reverse.

"You should go, have some fun. Enjoy life." Hannity said.

"You've seen something terrible, haven't you?" Scheris asked. "Out with it!" Hannity sighed.

"I saw water, waves as tall as mountains, people being washed overboard, and the waves climbed higher still..." He shook his head.

"So you want me to go have fun like it's my last day on earth?" Scheris asked. "Hannity, you and Mother are the only friends I have."

"It's probably just as well I don't know exactly when."

"Yes, that would take all the fun out of it, wouldn't it?" Scheris remarked wryly. She sighed. "I do wish I had some friends closer to my own age, though." Just then, the sky opened up and a young man tumbled out with a cry. He grabbed hold of a branch of a nearby tree, where he hung for several moments before it gave way, dropping him the rest of the way to the ground. He muttered and cursed in a language that was unfamiliar to the young princess, sat up, wiggled his feet and started rubbing at the sore spots on his body.

Actually, she realized, he was healing himself, a healing spell equally unfamiliar to Scheris' ears as the young man's language spilling off his lips, the beneficent magic tingling her senses pleasantly. When he could do so, he stood up and brushed the dirt off his strange, exotic clothes. Strangest of all, at least to Scheris' eyes, was the empty pack that hung on his back. The strange young man opened his mouth and spoke, but the words made no sense.

"What are you saying?" she asked. "Can you understand me?"

"Allow me, Scheris." Hannity said, placing one hand on the stranger's shoulder. An ancient teaching spell flowed from the Mage's lips, the young man touched fingers to temples, and when it was over, he spoke understandably.

"Whoa! Head rush!" he exclaimed.

"Hannity, you did it!"

"Hey, I understand you now!" the young man said.

"A simple teaching spell which was ancient when my master was an apprentice." Hannity said. "I am Hannity, former court Mage to King August, and this is Princess Scheris."

"This may sound a little weird, but where am I?"

"You're in the palace of my father, King August, in the city of Leone, capital of the North Kingdom of Atlantis." Scheris said. "What is your name?"

"Charlie." the young man said. Scheris was about to go on when she noticed Jaxor, a particularly officious oaf among the palace guards, appear from behind the broken tree. On his back was an amphora nickel-cadmium battery connected by insulated copper wire to a two-pronged prod whose handle was also insulated. Scheris opened her mouth to warn Charlie, but Jaxor was faster. Charlie cried out as he was zapped by the prod.

"I've got you, you spy!" Jaxor said.

"He is not a spy!" Scheris exclaimed, stamping her foot to emphasize the "not." Charlie took advantage of the distraction to heal himself.

"If he's not a spy, then what's he doing in the palace?" Jaxor challenged.

"I wished him here!" Scheris insisted.

"We'll just see what the questioner can get out of him." Jaxor said with a malicious grin. Charlie rose to his feet, his eyes burning with rage and his hands crackling with power.

"See how you like it, bastard!" Charlie snarled, electricity arcing from his hands to strike at Jaxor, who screamed and fell to the ground in a twitching heap. Charlie relieved the guard of his amphora and prod, stuffing both into his pack, where they disappeared without a trace.

"A pocket dimension!" Hannity exclaimed. "It takes a very skilled wizard to make one of those!"

"It was a gift." Charlie said, shouldering the limp pack. The sound of footfalls indicated that Jaxor's scream hadn't gone unheard. Charlie cast a quick spell and vanished right before the Princess' eyes.

"I think we'd better get out of here." his voice whispered in her ear. She nodded and led Hannity out of the garden. She could hear the Charlie's footsteps behind her as they made their way into the palace. They went to Scheris' chambers, where Charlie dismissed his spell and settled on a footstool a respectful distance from the bed to tell his story.

While Scheris smoothed things over with her father, a battle-hardened warrior-king with steel-gray hair and eyes who wore a sword on one hip and a hammer on the other, Charlie took the time to sort things out. The first thing he figured out was the fact that the spell the burned man had used had worked because it hadn't been used directly on him--it had merely opened a portal under his feet. Now here he was, in ancient Atlantis--northern Atlantis, for whatever good that information did him.

An olive in a straw with an unpainted Beavis bobble-head on top walked in--or such was Charlie's initial impression. The newcomer was tall and lanky except for his protruding belly and a head that looked decidedly oversized on his frame, swaddled in a toga and cape that were if anything more ornate than those of the king and carrying a white, wooden staff in his hand. Scheris repeated her story to the newcomer, who regarded Charlie the same way his neighbor's chihuahua once had when he'd reached down to pick up its bone.

Definitely someone to watch. Charlie thought to himself.

"The fact that he showed up when you made a wish is mere coincidence!" the weirdo exclaimed. "He is a spy who tried to use magic to enter the palace and must be executed!"

"See the truth of my words!" an illusory voice cried, changed only to make them understandable to the audience. Every eye in the room turned to watch as an illusion of the events leading up to Charlie's banishment played out.

"I see!" exclaimed King August.

"It's just an illusion, Your Majesty." the weird little man said. "Those can show anything the caster wants."

"I will have the truth of this matter." the king said, drawing his sword and laying the flat of the blade on Charlie's shoulder. "Was that a true vision of what happened?"

"Yes, Sire, I only changed the words from English to Atlantean." Charlie said.

"The sword gives no response; he speaks the truth, Scour."

"As you say, Your Majesty." Scour said grudgingly. "If he had no choice in coming here, then we should grant him safe passage out."

"Do you have a way to get me back home?" Charlie asked.

"No, but I can get you out of the palace easily enough." Scour replied with a grin.

"I am king, not you, Scour. You would do well to remember that." August said, in a voice well-accustomed to making himself heard over the din of battle.

He told you. Charlie thought with delight. Scour made his apologies and departed, having supposedly just remembered that he left a potion boiling. "With all due respect, Your Majesty, why do you put up with him?" Charlie asked.

"Because Hannity is no longer fit enough to travel, and with King Sade entertaining dreams of empire, leaving the palace without a Mage at my side is tantamount to suicide."

"If I may ask..." Charlie began.

"King Sade rules the West Kingdom, as is his birthright according to the rules laid down by the first High King." King August said.

"Father, he may not understand our system of government." suggested Scheris. She turned back to Charlie. "In Atlantis, we have four kingdoms as close to equal in size as was possible at the time of their founding. Each of those kingdoms is ruled by a king, and each of the colonies outside the island is ruled by a viceroy. Kings and viceroys rule within their assigned provinces, but there is also the High King, who decides matters affecting more than one kingdom or colony and mediates disputes between them. According to accounts, the first High King was the son of Atlas, and the other four kings were the husbands of his daughters."

"Thanks, I believe I understand now." Charlie said. "This King Sade has a magician as well?"

"Has one and is one." Scheris said sourly. "The High King prohibits any King from participating in Duels Arcane, so each one employs a Mage to act as his champion in such cases--except Sade. He dares keep a warlock in his court."

"And he's also skilled in magic?" Charlie asked.

"Black magic of the worst kind." King August said, seating himself on his throne with a huff. "He turns his enemies into slaves without minds of their own, unthinking brutes unaware of pain or fear, which make themselves known by their white, pupilless eyes. As shock-troops, they are diabolically effective; they attack and keep right on attacking until they no longer have limbs to attack with or teeth to bite with. The High King has even had to ward the city against such creatures so they cannot enter, and the spell to create them cannot be cast within its walls."

"What of his warlock?" Charlie asked, conjuring the illusion of the burned man. "Could this have been him once, before I supposedly burned him?"

"Perhaps." the king said. "He seems about the right size. The warlock's name is Pict."

"Pict." Charlie sighed, thinking about the similarity of the name to the Picts, which he remembered from a Discovery Channel special. Not nice people, if he recalled correctly.

"Father, can Charlie stay until he finds a spell to take him back to his own time?" Scheris asked.

"Very well." the king said. "Charlie, avail yourself of our library while you are here. If the spell you seek isn't there, it will be in the Great Library of Atlas City. If it isn't there, it doesn't exist."

With help from Hannity and Scheris, Charlie searched the Library of the North Kingdom. Early on, Charlie discovered an easy spell that let him charm a quill to copy a parchment. Filing that away for later, he continued his search. Between the three of them, they eliminated every scroll in the section of the library devoted to magic spells within two weeks. Charlie did find a copy of the teaching spell Hannity had used to enable him to understand Atlantean. He memorized this and used it to teach English to Hannity and Scheris, though they spoke with a slight Atlantean accent.

"Such a strange language!" Hannity remarked after he had assimilated the concepts associated with many of the words. "And such a strange society! Automobiles, computers, airplanes!"

"Yeah, I guess I sort of take them for granted." Charlie sighed. While his friends were in another area gathering scrolls, Charlie cast illusions of his harem. "I will see you again." he promised the images, fighting back tears. He reached out to touch the Amelie image, but his fingers passed through the illusory cheek. He banished the illusions and buried himself in his work for the rest of that afternoon.