Fractures Read online

  Only one dwarf scored a hit on an Urisk. Smaller than the rest, he’d been running behind two of the larger dwarves and burst forward, driving a rune-covered sword into the nearest Urisk’s chest. The Urisk’s suit rippled as the blade passed through it, and the inky black material squirted up around its head and solidified like a helmet. The Urisk seemed to grow, as if the suit were expanding to offer a more intimidating presence. It was now nearly six feet tall and still growing. The Urisk staggered around, pawing at its chest. Despite the fact that I couldn’t see any wounds, it looked like it was in great pain. Then it teleported away.

  With the suit enveloping its head, and having grown a good three or four feet, that Urisk had looked exactly like the Black Flash.

  I didn’t have time to ponder that because my attention was grabbed by another Urisk, Daimin, I realized, who mentally dominated the dwarf who’d gotten lucky and had him fall on his own sword. Daimin walked over, sat down, and watched as the dwarf bled out, his eyes flickering with elation.

  The battle, if it could be called that, continued on. The dwarves were in tears as they battled one another, and the Urisk’s eyes flickered with delight and amusement. It made me sick. To think that my adopted people had killed like this, almost like it was a game to them… it just didn’t seem real. Within minutes, all the dwarf warriors were dead. Then the Urisk began telekinetically scouring the remains of the village, levitating chunks of fallen building and extinguishing their fires. They started rounding up the dwarf women and children. The ones who resisted had their bones telekinetically snapped.

  The purple-skinned man, who had been standing by, watching impassively, spoke again. “You will submit to my law,” he said. “Those who resist my law will be executed. Those who obey me will prosper. The terms are quite simple and fair. You will be relocated to a new realm where your talents will be appreciated.”

  One of the dwarves, a young man, rushed forward, a chunk of rock in his hand. He moved as if to throw it, but Lotholio froze the boy in place telekinetically, then seized control of his mind, and had the lad bash his own head in.

  The dwarves cried out as they looked on, and the Urisk’s eyes were flickering with malevolent laughter.

  “Enough,” I whispered to Courageous. “I get the idea. I don’t want to see any more of this.”

  He nodded, placed his hand on my shoulder, and we were back in Courage Point. “That was where the Urisk came from, Vincent. They were the elite killers for Sakave, the purple man you just saw.”

  That brought me up short. “A bunch of nirrin just approached me and told me that Sakave was trying to get back to my realm.”

  “Yes, and they smelled the Urisk on you.” How the hell did he know that? “And now, they’re even more interested in you. Because if Sakave can get the Urisk back, he can kill off his enemies more easily, which means the nirrin have an easier go of it.” Courageous saw my confused expression and added, “The nirrin are the shock troops. They go in and brawl. Nirrin combat is close quarters and savage. The Urisk rarely take casualties and can kill a force dozens of times their own size. The nirrin liked the Urisk; the Urisk gave the nirrin a much longer life span.”

  “So what happened? Why did the Urisk stop working for Sakave?”

  “That goes back to Karlegon. The Urisk view him as their original god, and I suppose in a way that’s true. Karlegon was a being from another realm. I’ve never learned which one. But the upshot is he was part scientist, part magician, and all crazy. He created the Urisk, bestowed them with their powers, and presented them to Sakave. He believed that if he gave Sakave such a gift as the Urisk, Sakave would not impose his law on Karlegon’s home realm. It worked, for a while. But then Sakave’s enemies caught on, realized Sakave was avoiding this one particular place, and started gathering there. Sakave obliterated all life on that realm, completely drained it of all its energy, and destroyed nearly all his opposition in one fell swoop.

  “Understandably, Karlegon went nuts. He wanted revenge on Sakave, but knew there was no way he could harm, let alone defeat the warlord. So instead, he took the Urisk to the Bright Side, a plane that Sakave had already wiped out and left nothing but scavengers, which eventually evolved into the hobgoblins and trolls. Using a mixture of alchemy and his own psychic powers, Karlegon performed a species-wide lobotomy, wiping out all aggression from the Urisk’s collective psyche. He erased the memories of what the Urisk had done and replaced them with memories of a peaceful, contemplative existence.”

  “So the Bright Side was barren when that happened? That’s why its current inhabitants don’t remember any of this?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” Courageous replied.

  “But you said Karlegon had wiped out all the aggression in the Urisk,” I said. “If that’s true, then how could Daimin renounce me in the first place?”

  Commander Courageous sighed. “When Karlegon relocated the Urisk to the Bright Side, he altered their physiology so they’d create chrysalises when eclipses were going to happen, to protect the Urisk from the eclipse’s radiation. In addition to the protective function, the chrysalis also served to recharge the Urisk’s psychic powers. As you know, sometimes, the Urisk would develop new powers while they were in that state. Daimin was the only Urisk who manifested a new power this time, and it was that manifestation that reconnected one or two of the severed connections in his brain. It’s nowhere nearly enough for him to go back to what he once was; I imagine it would take a few dozen more times in the chrysalis for that to happen. But it was enough for him to be able to get angry and renounce you.”

  I ran my hands through my hair. This was almost too much to process.

  “Ninety seconds,” Alexis chimed.

  My mind raced. It was hard to think. “All right, so obviously, I can’t let Sakave get to the Urisk, because he’d try to restore them to the monsters they used to be. But isn’t there a way around this mind fog that they’re doing to me?”

  “Sadly, no,” Courageous said. “You don’t get a choice in the matter, Vincent. The Urisk worship you, and you have to take the good with the bad.”

  “Sixty seconds,” Alexis said.

  “Okay,” I said. “Really fast. I need answers. Who are you really?”

  “We don’t have time for that right now,” Courageous said, taking a step back.

  “Bullshit we don’t. You’ve known everything I’ve been about to do ever since we made contact. You look and sound like a comic book character, but you know exactly what I’m thinking, sometimes even before I’ve had a chance to form the thought completely. Today, you triggered my Glimpse and showed me a past that I wasn’t actively looking for, with no outside stimulus for me to focus on. Who the hell are you?”

  “Ten seconds,” Alexis said.

  “You’ll find out soon enough, Vincent,” Courageous said. “Don’t take the other vial of Astral just yet. Hang onto it. You’ll understand why soon.”

  And with that, Courage Point began to spin. The devices and trophies that made up the secret lair turned into a whirling kaleidoscope of chaos as I was sucked back through space and time. I was rocketing back toward Earth, my incorporeal body moving at speeds that physics can’t adequately describe.

  I slammed back into my real body with a grunt, and then I was staring at the Q*Bert carpet again.

  Kabop, kabop.

  I pulled myself up on the edge of the bed, my head still spinning from both the return trip and everything I’d just learned. I let it sink in for a moment, then glanced at my watch. That little astral-based excursion had taken less than thirty minutes.

  I mentally contacted Kleep, and the little kobold stepped into the room a few moments later, carrying the silver tray with another Pepsi. He took one look at me and bowed. “Lord, forgive me, but whatever you were shown, it appears to have taken a toll on you. That means it must have b
een dire news, indeed.”

  “Huh?”

  Kleep stepped forward, set the soda can down on the bedside table, and held the highly polished serving tray up like a mirror. Threads of silver were in the hair at my temples, reminding me of Mr. Fantastic. “Holy shit,” I said, touching the streaks.

  “There are stories of chieftains whose scales paled after an Astral vision,” Kleep said, his voice but a whisper. “They were the ones who would go on to fight great evils, face impossible tasks.”

  “Did they win?” I asked, not taking my eyes from my reflection.

  Kleep didn’t answer. He just looked at his toes.

  “Great,” I muttered, grabbing the can of soda and taking a drink. “Kleep, I need to tend to some things. Give my regards to Cather, and be blessed.” I gave him a fortifying blessing, health and strength. He stood a little straighter and bowed to me.

  I portaled straight to my apartment and walked over to my dresser, staring at the Commander Courageous action figure standing atop it. My father had given me this toy when I was little, and it had been my most treasured possession. It was a limited edition collectible from the Courage Within story arc, when Commander Courageous briefly internalized his powers so he didn’t need to wear the Anisa Amulet anymore. “Okay,” I said to the action figure. “Was that real or did I imagine the whole thing?”

  Commander Courageous animated, winked at me, then put a finger to his lips before returning to his “I’m a hero, dammit,” pose.

  I sighed. Honestly, I hadn’t expected it to be that easy.

  I sat down on my bed and took a breath, calming my mind. Between the Black Flash, the nirrin, and Commander Courageous’s vision, this had been a screwed up day. My mind kept returning to the extradimensional bubble that the nirrin had created. Could I use my own extradimensional energy to make those?

  From what I had seen, the nirrin took two separate locations and melded them into one. That bubble had been part Undercity, part… wherever that was. This was different from my portals, which created a doorway from one spot to another. So, in theory, I could connect the bedroom to the kitchen without ever having to go through the living room.

  Now, a better question was why would I want to do this, but as the illustrious Cave Johnson once said, it’s not about why, it’s about why not.

  Rather than risk destroying my living room set in some extradimensional catastrophe, though, I decided to think through the advantages of actually doing this. I could do something like blend an Italian sidewalk café with the dual sunset of the Bright Side. I could transport a boat from one ocean to another without the crew realizing they’d shifted.

  And, of course, I could do the trick that the nirrin had pulled on me to trap someone. I had to admit, that would be useful for those times when I didn’t want to tackle someone through a shimmering green portal.

  “Okay,” I said to myself. “Start small.” I moved a pillow to the foot of the bed. “Bring the foot of the bed closer to my hands. Small. Simple. Here we go.”

  I concentrated, envisioning how the nirrin’s bubble was constructed. I stretched outward, weaving extradimensional energy, compressing the space between the head and the foot of the bed. I felt the pillow’s cover brush my fingertips, and I opened my eyes to find myself sitting on a bed that was barely three feet long. A thick mist dissipated just as I realized it was there. I found myself inside a bubble about five feet in diameter, made of hazy green energy. The top of my head brushed the roof of the bubble and static electricity made my hair stand on end.

  Okay, let’s call the first test a success.

  I found the thread that held the bubble together and unraveled it. The bed sprang back to its full size with such force that I was launched into the air and smacked my head against the ceiling. I hit the bed at a bad angle and crashed unceremoniously onto the floor.

  Okay, maybe this should be considered a partial success.

  The extradimensional decompression had caused the sheets, blankets, and pillow to fly off the mattress, and they were strewn all over the room. Hmm. Maybe I needed to unravel things more slowly when it was such a tight space to start with. Ten minutes later, after remaking the bed, my phone rang.

  “Corinthos,” Doc Ryan’s voice came through. “Get your ass back to Medical as soon as you can. I’ve just finished my autopsy on the Black Flash, and you need to see this.”

  I portaled back to HQ and headed into Medical. Doc Ryan met me as I walked in. His hair was a perfect white pompadour, and his lab coat hung open over a dress shirt and khakis. “Glad you’re here, Corinthos,” he said. “Come on, in here.” He beckoned for me to follow, and we entered the autopsy room. The sterile smell of antiseptic hung in the air as the doc led me to a table where a sheet-covered body lay. “It took me a little while to cut through what I thought was the Black Flash’s skin,” Doc Ryan began. “The stuff was resistant to normal cutting tools. I wound up having to use a laser scalpel.”

  I blinked. “There is such a thing?”

  “There is thanks to Gearstripper,” the doc replied. “Only took him a few minutes to rig one up. Once he did, well, let’s just say I wasn’t expecting this.” He pulled back the sheet. A small, gray-skinned head topped with feathers was sticking out of what looked like a black latex suit.

  It was an Urisk.

  The doc’s voice was hesitant. “Er, is this one of yours, Corinthos?”

  I shook my head. “No, Doc,” I said.

  My mouth went dry as I stared at the corpse. This was the Urisk I’d seen in the Glimpse Commander Courageous had shown me. The one the small dwarf had stabbed. The one that seemed to transform before my eyes into… the Black Flash. My eyes traveled down its body. There in its chest were two stab wounds. The smaller one was from my switchblade when I’d stabbed the Black Flash, but the other wound, easily six inches wide, was from that dwarf’s sword. My gaze lingered there for a moment, then moved to the black latex-like substance that had been encasing the Urisk.

  “Any idea what this is?” I asked, pointing to the suit.

  Doc Ryan let out a breath, his hand straying to where his pack of cigarettes should be. Instead of his usual pack of smokes, the doc produced a pack of gum and popped a piece into his mouth. “My initial scans say it was alive up until a few hours ago. The ‘suit’ was a living organism, bonded to the Urisk. I got a bunch of wacky energy readings that I haven’t made sense of yet.”

  “Extradimensional energy,” I whispered.

  The doc looked at me. “That might be it, actually.”

  “Wait,” I said, something clicking. “You said the suit was alive until a few hours ago. What about the Urisk?”

  “Best I can tell, it’s been dead for a very, very long time. The suit effectively mummified it, but I’d say this wound,” he pointed where the sword had punctured the Urisk’s chest, “was fatal.”

  A scenario ran through my head. “Okay, okay. The Urisk don’t have a natural ability to teleport, and you got extradimensional energy readings from the suit. So, this Urisk gets stabbed by that dwarf on the Bright Side. If the suit had a level of intelligence, like Mr. Albert thought, it probably knew to take the Urisk off the battlefield. But if the Urisk was dead, the suit might not have known where to go. Maybe the suit was more like a pet, waiting for instructions from its master. It bamfed around, waiting for the Urisk to wake up and give it direction.” I rubbed my face. “But the Urisk wasn’t going to wake up, so it just kept teleporting farther and farther away, until it landed in Massachusetts, in Provincetown. The amount of energy to jump across dimensions like that must’ve been staggering. It lashed out at the townsfolk, and terrorized the community until John Hays Hammond Jr. managed to trap it in his castle.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Corinthos?” the doc asked.

  “I was wondering the same thing,�
�� Megan said as she entered the room. At just over five feet tall, Megan barely came up to Doc’s shoulder as she stepped up next to him. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, and she was dressed in a pink blouse and tan slacks. It was good to see her out of the hospital gown she’d been in for the last few days. She arched an eyebrow at me as she said, “That’s quite a story, Vincent.”

  “And I’m pretty sure it’s accurate,” I said. “I learned recently that the Urisk weren’t always the docile people we know and love. A long time ago, they were killers, and wore suits like this.” A thought hit me. The Urisk I’d watched in the battle hadn’t been afraid of the dwarf warriors’ weapons. If Doc Ryan had needed gremlin technology to cut through it, it must’ve been tough. I was willing to bet these suits were the equivalent of Urisk Kevlar. But the dwarf who had stabbed this Urisk had a magic sword. “Doc, do you think this suit could do things other than teleport? Like, could it heal the Urisk inside?”

  Doc Ryan snapped his gum. “It would make sense. Have a living suit of armor that could regenerate its pilot frees up the pilot to focus on fighting or doing some other task.” He pointed at the sword wound again. “But that was probably an instant kill. Can’t heal that. But there’s more I wanted to show you.” He lifted up the Urisk’s arm and peeled back a layer of the suit. There were three small nodules nestled in the suit’s armpit. “I think these are eggs,” Doc said.

  A ball of flame appeared in my hand. “Corinthos,” the doc snapped. “What are you doing?”

  “If those things hatch, they might try to teleport back to the Bright Side. They might try to possess the Urisk.” And if they could actually heal their hosts, they might undo the lobotomy that Karlegon had performed and return the Urisk to their true, murderous nature.