Chapter 15

I got up quickly and dressed. Now, fashion always dictated a pistol or two. I was escorted down the hall by three men carrying lamps, we moved left to another passage. On the floor was a man dressed in black. He reminded me of a ninja at first sight. The man was turned over but his features were not more Asiatic than the norm. On his forehead was the silver that reminded me again of Wonder Women. There was also a dart sticking out of his leg and this was removed as I watched.

I looked at the door and it looked secure. "How did he get in?"

There were no words but their eyes were on a softly glowing outline on the wall. Could this be a portal?

The man carried a wide range of materials including two glass vials. When he had fallen they could have broken. They may or may not have been poison but they could be worse.

The man had worn a large silver medallion on his neck. This had been rehearsed or at least part of this. The man was stripped with care and put into Jonna's custody so he stayed asleep. Assassins sometimes chose suicide rather than talk and the Church would insist on this.

I was suddenly shocked by a scream. I had my gun out before I knew it. Bosma was laying on the ground clutching his hand to him. I hurried over and it was difficult to see the hand. When I pulled his hand away I saw that there was no visible damage but the boy acted as if he had lost a finger.

Casma was staring openmouthed at what happened to his friend. I asked, "What happened?"

I had to shake the boy before he answered. "He touched the shiny smoke in the room."

I looked at the wall and could see a room that was not on the other side of our wall but someplace else. Ronnas was close and I said, "Take these two away. See what you can do for him. Get Kuenta to help too. She may need the heart."

The two boys were escorted away by Ronnas and Andis. This had to be a portal and I was sure the assassin would not suffer the kind of pain Bosma suffered just to go from one place to another. There had to be a way of protecting him. The medallion drew my eyes immediately.

I picked up the medallion and put it on my own neck. For some reason I changed my mind and tucked the metal so it was against my skin. I felt a tingle go through me that was not pleasure or pain when I moved a finger through part of the smoky area. There were more articles in the strange room but none looked even remotely magical.

"Stay away from the portal and get this guy out of here."

The girls helped me change into full combat gear. I even threw a pack on that contained extra ammunition, grenades and food. Lauren said, "Where are you going?"

"For a very short visit, I hope. I want to see what we're up against."

"I'm going with you."

"Let me check first."

With the auto shotgun and the AK, I walked to the oddly shaped portal. It was not elliptical or rectangular but the top sagged and the sides were not parallel.

I could feel the concern all of my girls felt for me as I stepped into the smoky transition layer. There was a small amount of pain but it was bearable. I hurried through and the pain left quickly.

The room was a study and apparently vacant at this time. I turned around to signal that I was ok. I wasn't about to try to use voice in an environment like this.

The door drew me and I hurried to it. There were no sounds nearby. The room was fairly bright because it was full day here. The room was packed with books and even had a small cabinet with silver objects. I took out the digital camera and took pictures of everything as it sat. I wanted most of what was here. Actually, I wanted everything that was here.

I turned to check the portal and found it to be a silver chain with links similar to what a dog chain had. There were two boxes with equal lengths of chain between them. This had to be for the globes. There was no key, though, until I thought of what was around my neck. There was still a lot of slack in the chain so it could get a lot larger. Two pegs in the wall were enough for the man that visited our house but not good enough for me.

There was a long carpet runner on the floor. I pushed the end through the portal and stacked books on it. The girls were smart and pulled the books through. Then I pulled the carpet back.

My pack came off and was put against the door. There was a bar there to forestall entry and I put it across the door. I removed my guns but kept them near. When I went to get the silver I decided to take the entire cabinet. It was too high for the silver chain so I used a knife and a letter opener from the desk to give me the maximum dimensions possible.

The cabinet and then the desk went through. Empty book cases then the books were sent to fill them. There was a beautiful globe of the planet and this had to go, too. There were never enough maps.

When the room was stripped I went back into our hallway and found Artlam. All the material had been moved to another room.

Artlam whispered in my ear, "You would make a good thief."

"Why thanks, especially coming from an expert like you."

He gave me a big smile and said, "Where is that room?"

"I have no idea. It's in a city. Bosma was hurt when he touched the portal but there was only a little pain when I had the medallion on. Do you want to go for a visit?"

"Let's try it."

I went through again but I held the medallion in my hand. There was the same amount of pain. Artlam held the medallion too as I pulled him quickly through the smoky area. He didn't mention the pain and quicky and quietly went to the window.

Artlam whispered, "I'm not sure where we are. The clothing the people are wearing is different. It does look like my world though."

"Who else might know?"

"There are at least four men I know that have travelled widely. Take some pictures and we can show them."

"You're pretty smart for an old thief."

"That's how I got old in the first place. Being foolish leads to a short life."

I took some pictures then opened the window and took more to the left and right.

My weapons and pack were recovered but the bar on the door stayed in place. Men were summoned and various guesses were given. Some of the photos were printed and were taken to others in the city.

While the search went on, I went to see our visitor. Jonna had Lauren and Tiffany nearby with nine millimetre pistols ready for trouble.

"Did you find anything?"

"Not yet. He is very resistant to drugs."

"Some assassins build up an immunity over time."

Kuenta said, the man has a growth in each leg at about the same spot. It doesn't look like a cancer. There is nothing else that is odd about his body except the thick skin on his hands and feet."

"Probably good at hand to hand fighting."

"We figured that, too. We think the things in his legs are the same as the poisoned tooth you talked about before."

"Let's take them out then."

It as getting lighter out now but we still needed lamps to remove the two lumps. When I cut along the muscle the small white orbs almost popped out. The man was stitched up and then healed with the heart. He had curly hair that was greased to stay in place.

On a hunch I had Tiffany get a comb. She combed the man and removed needles from his hair with tweezers. When she was done, Lauren did the job again to make sure, then checked the man's pubic hair.

After our noon meal, it looked like the city on the other side of the barrier was heading towards dusk. If this was true then the city could be found by its longitude. This got us to the globe I sent back and we looked along the line.

Eight hours later our suspicions were confirmed. The Isle of Entras was a major sea power. It was not under the Church's thumb but it was still a follower just as the people of Mendab were. Its power was far more than its size. Shipping by water was very important and profitable. The Scathans that populated the country were very rich even though a considerable number of pirates flourished, too. The Scathan navy made sure they didn't get rich off of their ships.

We had a major find here. First was the portal that didn't need a receiving half. There was the metal band that let the wearer see through a wall and in this case from a third of the way around the world. I didn't want the portal used against me again but I couldn't retrieve it. I could make a bomb to destroy the house but the silver was too hard to damage much.

Jonna used the tiara and could vaguely see each of the odd coins as long as they were separated. Jonna put one into a trunk but she could still see it. Was it because she had handled them? Camsa and Bosma were called. Bosma seemed to have recovered fairly well and I saw that Ronnas had more or less taken the boy under her wing. I felt a little bit of jealousy but common sense said that this was for the best.

Each boy tried and they were excited because they did much better than their last test. Of course they may have been too young. I tried, too. I closed my eyes and visualised one of the coins. It was a long time until I saw one of them. It was a lot later that I could see the inside of the trunk. It was later yet that I could see outside of the trunk and actually saw Artlam in another room. This was an awesome device. Everything was in a fog, though, and seeing any distance wasn't possible.

Common sense again said that for the assassin to be able to get here, he just had to visualise the room. This was expedited by the presence of the coin. It also said that I would have to find a way to visualise this house so I could open the portal. Doing that may be an entirely different ball of wax. In any case, I wanted the portal and the only way to get it was to bring it here over the ocean. There was very little between here and the Isle of Entras.

The girls, Artlam, and some of his men discussed this with me. The girls were dead set against this unless they could go with me. I needed the girls here to operate the weapons if we needed them. I could also use them if I ran into trouble. Then again, it was mostly open sea and very little trouble likely.

Artlam estimated that a good ship would take forty to fifty days to make the trip, depending on how much trading it did.

Lauren said, "Buy a ship and buy a good one. You'll come back sooner."

Tiffany said, "Buy a big one so we can use it for trading. The other ship will take a half year to build and that's when you start with wood that's dried out enough."

Plans were being made when one of the guards came to us and said, "Somebody is knocking in that other room. They want to know if everything is alright."

"Well, let's invite them in."

Artlam and I entered the other room with six of his larger men. One was Tonno, the right hand man that guarded the house. The pain we felt was more but only one man had to hold the medallion as long as all the man had a skin contact with him.

The bar was removed and I made noise in the room as if I just returned. The door was opened a centimetre as if to invite somebody. Five minutes later a pretty girl of about eleven came to the door. She was grabbed quickly and quietly. The silver slave was touched to her but she moved and it touched her shoulder. The result was the same.

Twenty minutes later, Minna gave me the information about the house and the name of the city. One after the other, Minna got the entire household to come one at a time to the room. All of them were intercepted before they could see that the room was stripped.

Three bodyguards were hard to take. The first we got alone but the rest came as a pair no matter what Minna said. They were the last in the house and there was a major fight until they were subdued.

I missed fighting and wished that I had been in on the fun. The men with me thought the same since they liked a brawl as good as I did.

The captives, Artlam, and I went back to Shreff. The rest of the men were to look for any booty, but artifacts and books were mine. We sat down and talked more to Minna. She talked about her master and it didn't sound like the guy was that bad for an assassin.

The assassin's name was Okkra Suffok. He was not known to be a hit man or a high ranking member of the Church. He was in the Church but for some reason lead a more secular life.

Okkra had five boys as trainees, much like Camsa and Bosma were. We had captured three of them and two were to return later.

There were four more bedwarmers and two were pregnant. Everybody but the bodyguards and the three boys would talk. Of course there was little that they knew.

What was interesting was the house was within the walls of the Church compound. I had wanted to see what it was like in a major Church, especially to get my hands on the books and artifacts.

A lot of information came our way but I wasn't going to try moving the gate and reforming it. I was far below novice level.

I had to get up later. The two other boys were caught and a substantial sum of money was recovered along with art and anything not nailed down. In fact, I did see some nails, so I guess the boys were busy. Tonno looked very pleased with his haul and perhaps his ability to get away with it so easy.

Tonno said, "This man is a chemist. There are more books and many chemicals." This reminded me of the two vials. This had to be checked.

The chemical books were archaic but much easier to understand than the books on magic. The ones we found had to do with all sorts of poison and antidotes. One book was open and I read the section. This described the symptoms the target would experience along with how the chemical was made. This was all done in detail. At a guess I would have to say that this was some type of nerve gas. It degraded soon after manufacture so two chemical were made and mixed at the site.

The symptoms reminded me of what I heard on the movie "The Rock", where they had to deal with sarin. This chilled me to the bone but I could see the Church using this because it was much cheaper than using an army.