Spires of Infinity (10 page)

With all the short naps, long sleeps, and irregular daylight hours Gabriel was completely incapable of keeping track of the days. It was like having the worst case of jetlag ever conceived of by man or god.

Looking up at the planet directly above, Gabriel could barely make out its colorful whirls in the dark. The gas giant lacked the luminescence that it bore when the sun was out, though the edges blazed with the sun’s corona like a solar eclipse back on Earth.

The dark shadows of three moons made a triangular pattern on the surface like the holes in a bowling ball.

“This
has
to be a coma dream,” he muttered.

Looking over his shoulder, Gabriel eyed his sleeping guide. As he watched, she shoved a hand down her pants to scratch between her legs before beginning to snore loudly, her tail twitching with her dreams. Sam and her world seemed so real, but on the other hand, things like this just didn’t happen. When people got splattered on the windshield of a bus like a bug on the interstate, they did not pop out on a nuclear wasteland orbiting a giant bowling ball in the sky, unless his childhood preacher was
way
off on the whole heaven hell thing.

As much as Gabriel wished to, it was getting harder by the day to hold onto the belief that it was all a dream. His imagination was not this visual. He could never have come up with such a vivid place. And if this were part of his subconscious, he would have made himself a
far
sexier companion than the one that he had.

Sam was not a bad person to spend time with. Despite her atrocious personal

hygiene habits, she was actually quite likable. Though his jailbait alarm was running in overdrive in the back of his mind, he was beginning to develop some sort of feelings for her. Beyond the spectacular rack, and admittedly attractive rest of her body, he loved her personality. It was like someone had taken the brain of a dirty old man and transplanted it into the body of a teenaged girl. Of all the senses of humor Gabriel had come into contact with, hers was the dirtiest. She had very little tact when it came to speaking of bodily functions, and anatomical differences between men and women.

With zero concern whatsoever about feminine modesty, Sam would drop her

pants just about anywhere to take a piss, without caring that he could see, and made fun of him for going off alone to do his business. She scratched herself without a care who saw, belched loudly, and he didn’t think she’d bathed once in the entire time he’d known her. She was the one and only girl he'd ever seen scratch at her crotch in public. It was like being on a college road trip with another frat boy . . . that just happened to have a pair of D cups. He didn’t have it in him to dream up a girl so twisted.

Standing, Gabriel stretched. If he didn’t get at least a little sleep during half night he was going to be hurting badly before real night, but he’d never dealt well with changes to his sleep schedule. Besides, he had to piss, and his mouth felt cottony and tasted like a kitten had curled up and died in it. They’d camped near a stream, so he might as well rinse the foul taste away.

Relieving himself a ways from the camp, Gabriel sighed in whatever the opposite of contentment was. At least Sam was asleep. She kept trying to catch him while he was draining the tank. He didn’t know if she was simply perverted, or just liked to see him blush. In his experience, women didn’t normally care to look at male naughty bits the way men liked to look at women. But then, Sam broke just about every other rule he knew about women.

Back in his Boy Scout days, before he’d discovered girls and quit to follow more pleasurable pursuits, Gabriel had learnt that if a stream was moving fast enough to see white in it, it was safe enough to drink from. Though it should have been frozen solid in the cold, Gabriel saw white, so he cupped his hands together and brought some of the freezing water up to his mouth.

“
No
,” Sam shrieked wildly from their camp, running toward him as fast as she could with arms outstretched. “
Stop
!
It’s poison
!”

Gabriel looked at the water in his hands and let it splash to the ground. How could the whole stream be poisoned? How did she even know?

“Idiot,” Sam screamed when she reached him, staring with utter disbelief on her face. “That water’s flowing right out of the Quarantine Zone! Never
even
touch
water that doesn’t have ice in it! The Celestial Mother help me, even a child would know better! Where could you
possibly
have come from that you don’t know not to drink water you haven’t tested and boiled first? There’s nowhere far enough away from here that you never had to test your water. So tell me, Lawman, explain to me so I can understand why you’re such a complete moron!”

Shrugging uncomfortably under her harsh glare, Gabriel was slightly unnerved by the way her metallic, golden eyes shone brightly in the dim light. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Hell,
I
don’t believe it myself.”

“We’ll decide what we believe,” Mister Mittens said, padding around Sam.

Gabriel still got a chuckle out of the mutant cat’s name.

“What would you say if I told you I’m from a different world,” Gabriel asked,

looking up at Sam.

“I would ask you if you had hit your head recently,” Sam folded her arms tightly beneath her breasts.

Gabriel sighed. That was the universal sign that a woman was not going to listen to a single word you said to her, no matter how much she demanded you explain yourself.

“Explain,” Mister Mittens said. He sat up and pointed a black furred paw to a cluster of moons in the sky. “You mean one of them? The old ones built scientific outposts on some of the moons before the Neverwinter.”

“Look,” Gabriel said. “All I know is that one minute I was walking across the street, the next I was dead. But then I wasn’t, and there was this Sage that told me I had to prove myself and he had a job for me, and then I was here with the transgender Marlboro Man telling me to go to the Spires of Infinity.”

“And what, exactly, are you supposed to do once you get there,” Sam asked.

“Hell if I know,” Gabriel sighed. “Meet some girl named Allie, and maybe fix

them, I guess.”

Staring at him with horror, disbelief and betrayal, Sam dropped to her knees.

“
No
! The Spires of Infinity will finish killing our world if you do that! Please tell me you’re not planning to activate them again! I won’t take you any further if that’s what you’re here to do!”

Gabriel blinked at her in confusion. “Wait. What are you talking about? I don’t even know what the Spires of Infinity are.”

“The Spires of Infinity started the Great War,” Mister Mittens explained. “And the Great War brought the radiation.”

“You really don’t know,” Sam asked, staring at him as if he was some strange

new animal she’d never seen before.

Gabriel shook his head.

“I just don’t see how
anyone
could grow up and not know a single thing about the Old Ones and the Spires of Infinity,” Sam said slowly. “Fine. If you’re going to insist on playing this game with me.
Not
funny, by the way.

“The Old Ones built the Spires of Infinity to generate electricity for the entire world. They somehow took energy from the sun without any pollution, which was a major problem with other sources of power back then. The whole world helped to pay for it, even though it was built here in the Empire. But the Spires did something to the sun. They must have realized that they made a mistake because they switched it off. The entire world was without power and people began to panic. There were riots everywhere.

“The rest of the world thought that the Empire was cheating them and taking all of the power for themselves, not believing the sun was in danger. Then people started dropping radiation bombs and the whole world burned. Winter lasted thirty years after that. My teachers called it the Neverwinter.

“After the Neverwinter ended, the sun started to change. It grew bigger, colder and darker. Someday soon, it’ll probably go out completely. If you turn the Spires of Infinity back on, the sun will go out, and this world will die. You can’t
ever
reactivate them. You’d kill everyone in the entire world if you did.”

Nodding as he took in the story, Gabriel shifted to a more comfortable position and crossed his legs. Turning the Spires of Infinity back on sure wasn’t going to score many points with the almighty, that was for sure. So why was he supposed to go there?

To destroy them or something?

“Is there anything else you can tell me about the Spires,” he asked.

“Well,” Sam said, absently scratching beneath one of her breasts. “I’m not sure really. There’s stupid kiddy stories about the Spires being a sort of doorway.”

“What kind of doorway,” Gabriel asked, interest suddenly piqued.

Sam shrugged. “I dunno. My mother didn’t do much storytelling when I was

little. Maybe to other worlds, or times. Who knows really? Now wait a minute! You’re playing dumb but you already knew that, didn’t you? Maybe you really did come from another world, or maybe you’re just an idiot that has a soft spot for kiddy stories and you want to use the Spires to go somewhere else because this world sucks cock like a two bit whore.”

To be honest the thought of using the Spires of Infinity to return to his own world hadn’t crossed Gabriel’s mind until she brought up the possibility.

“
That’s it
,” he cried, jumping to his feet. “That’s my ticket out of this hell hole nightmare! Thank you god! I know my way home!”

Sam gave him “the look”. Every woman ever born knew “the look” from the

cradle, even women like Sam, who were basically dirty old men with breasts. It could say everything and anything a woman wanted it to, and in no uncertain terms. He was an idiot. He was a child. He’d forget to breathe if she wasn’t there to remind him. “The look” said it all. And they
always
seemed to shoot it at you when you hadn’t done a single thing deserving of it.

“Men,” she said disgustedly.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Oh quit complaining. You get me home and I’ll

freaking drill you until it leaks out your eyes if you want me to. We
did
have a deal, didn’t we? You’re not backing out of it are you?”

Sam intensified “the look”, but Gabriel had been on the receiving end from far scarier women than she. Her pitiful powers were useless against him.

Sam glared at him for a few seconds before looking away.

“Women,” Gabriel muttered. What in the hell was she so angry about! He’d

been hoping that he’d found the universe’s first sane woman, but apparently the search continued.

“There are still two hours before second day,” Sam said sullenly, getting to her feet. “Get some sleep or you’ll be dead in the saddle.”

With that she stalked back to her bedding and lay down with her back to him.

“What is wrong with her all of a sudden,” Gabriel asked. “I say I’m going home and suddenly she’s got a stick the size of Montana stuck so far up her ass it must be causing sinus pressure.”

“Really,” Mister Mittens asked with a laugh. “You’re
really
that blind?”

“Blind? What? You’re a
cat
! God, would
someone
start making sense already!”

“If you’re too stupid to see it,” Mister Mittens said as he began prowling his way to Sam’s side, “I’m not about to tell you. Oh no, it’s far more entertaining this way.”

“Stupid little cat,” Gabriel grumbled to himself as he walked back to his bedding.

Chapter 10: Teven and Altima

“All right,” Gabriel pulled his cathor alongside Sam’s, “I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but whatever it is, I’m sorry.”

Sam fixed him with a flat golden stare. “And what makes you think I’m pissed at you?”

“Come back when your training is complete, young Padawan, your Jedi mind

tricks have no effect on me. A blind man could see you’re pissed. I can’t read your mind. If I don’t know what you’re mad about, how can I make it better?”

Why did he even care? Normally, he wouldn’t, but the way she’d been glaring at him and refusing to speak all day had him feeling a little odd. He was not normally one to give half a damn about the feelings of other people, but as the day wore painfully onward he found that her sullen silence was really getting to him.

Face twisting in frustration, Sam made as if to strangle her reins. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at me. Now leave me alone!”

Shrugging, Gabriel let his cathor wander away from hers. The strange way that the beast moved had taken quite a bit of getting used to.

Sighing, he wondered how things had come to this. They were acting like

married people in a sitcom with this silent argument. He’d apologized hadn’t he? So what was her problem! If there was one thing he could say for certain, it was that he would
never
understand women. He could manipulate female jury members with ease in the courtroom, but you didn’t really need to understand women to manipulate them like that.

Muttering bitterly, Gabriel watched the red sunlight twinkle through the jewels implanted in the backs of his hands. He’d been practicing with them quite a bit, and he was really getting the hang of the gunfighter one. He’d messed around with the field log a bit, using the instruction book to record a few knife fighting moves just to amuse himself with, but it seemed rather useless otherwise. Though, he could see how being able to record everything you see and hear with a single word would be useful to a law enforcement official. It would have made his life a freaking nightmare back in the courtroom. He supposed that it would be a good idea to record some more moves onto it, in the case that he found himself in a situation where his life depended on them. So far, he’d seen little more than red sand, purple grass, and dusty little hick towns, but if Sam was to be believed, there were many dangers out here in the wastelands. That they hadn’t run into any of them yet was testament to her skill as a guide.